Devon Middleton wanted to just get back on the bus. She had felt the day before had been too many ponies in one place, she wished she could go back to that.
Today there was barely walking room and she was forced to pick her daughter up in her arms again, much to her daughter's displeasure. The little yellow earth pony with electric blue mane cried and struggled relentlessly in Devon's arms, angry about losing her recently gained freedom to walk around on her own.
"Calm down, baby girl, calm down. It's just for a little while. Once we're wherever we're going to be sleeping I'll let you back down," Devon said soothingly to her daughter as she hugged the filly close to her. Jessica was having none of Devon's soothing though, and continued to cry and struggle.
Devon sighed. At least Jessie wasn't stronger than her anymore. If she had struggled like this when going through her surge she would have easily overpowered Devon. Just like she had easily overpowered Paul.
Devon shook her head. She wasn't going to think about Paul right now.
She felt a tiny pat from a hoof on one of her legs and looked down at her son who was looking up at her expectantly.
Robert, or Robby as she called him, was a pitch-black furred night pony foal with a yellow mane, and he looked exhausted. It was late in the morning and his biological sleep schedule made him nocturnal. He was a good boy-or colt if she was using proper terms-but his nocturnal nature was exhausting for her.
"Momma, I'm sleepy," Robby complained from down by her legs, staring up at her with tired pleading eyes.
"I know, honey, we'll find somewhere for you to lay down and sleep soon. Just keep close to me and don't wander away. I don't want to lose you in this crowd," Devon said as nicely as she could. If she could functionally carry Robby while trying to deal with Jessie she would, he was so tiny as well. Far smaller than a human child his age.
"Okay, Momma," the little night pony colt said in a weary voice. He briefly brought a wing up to shield his eyes from the sun before lowering it in frustration. He didn't seem to care much for extended periods in bright light.
She really did need to get Robby to bed soon. He was almost never up this late. Usually by the time ten in the morning rolled around he was dead out, and it was nearly noon now. She had tried getting him off his nocturnal schedule, but it had only served to exhaust him. She had given up on trying to change his sleep schedule as it became obvious it wasn't going to happen; she wasn't going to hurt her son by refusing to acknowledge his sleeping needs.
They had been given some basic instructions on where to go, and large banners had been hung from the roofs of the various buildings in town giving direction on where to go, with arrows pointing to key locations. The assigned location for them was resettlement area four, spot thirty-five. There wasn't any description of what this place was, but they had been told each spot was for five individuals and they counted as three. Perhaps it was a house or a room in a larger building. Devon wished more description had been given.
Devon slowly made her way through the crowds mainly composed of earth ponies and unicorns. She would spot an occasional group of humans moving through the crowd but didn't try to reach them since they were usually far away and strangers. Most of the winged ponies seemed to want to bypass walking and were in the air, creating shadows that moved over the ground bound crowds.
The most recent banner she had seen had indicated that the area she wanted to go to was more than a mile and a half away. A walk that distance really shouldn't be that bad, if she was able to walk at a normal pace. The trouble was she was moving at a crawl through the crowds. On top of that temperatures were starting to pick up now that it was May, and it had to be in the mid to high eighties already, perhaps low nineties. She wasn't dressed for long periods in those temperatures and the body heat of the crowd was making it worse. She could only imagine what this was like for her fully furred offspring. Shade was needed soon, or they might all start overheating.
After walking for a long time, it became obvious a break was needed. Devon was starting to feel ill and Robby wasn't looking well either, in fact he was panting. Her fears that this was taking a bigger toll on him than her escalated dramatically when she noticed that. She had to get them somewhere to rest for a few minutes and get hydrated.
She saw a two-story building made of the same red bricks as the rest of the main street buildings, just several times as long, it was labeled resettlement area two by its large banner. A larger, three story building, with a different banner marking it as area one stood next to it. Area two wasn't where they were supposed to be going, but it would do for now as a place to stop. She turned and started making her way towards it.
"Is that our new home, Momma?" Robby asked in a hopeful tone as they made their way to it.
Devon wiped the sweat from her brow as she answered, "No honey, we're just stopping here for a few minutes to rest."
"Oh, okay. That sounds good. There's too much sun right now. I don't like this much sun," Robby said through his panting.
Devon frowned as she heard this. She was worried about the heat, it was obvious that Robby couldn't take it. She also knew he didn't like bright light, but was too much sun in general a bad thing? She wished someone would give her some sort of guidebook on this. Regardless, she needed to get him inside right away and drinking some water before he got seriously sick, that much was obvious.
She let out a sigh of relief as they stepped through the door of the brick building and were greeted by the feel of air conditioning.
This first room was some sort of lobby with a desk manned by a large white earth pony stallion. She made her way over to the desk to see if he could tell them where they could get something to drink.
"Hello, welcome to area two. Can I get your name please, so I can mark you off as present and accounted for?" The stallion greeted them pleasantly.
"We aren't supposed to be at this location, we just needed to stop for a few minutes. My son is starting to dehydrate," Devon explained with a gesture at Robby.
The stallion looked down at Robby and his brow furrowed with concern.
"He doesn't look so great. Night pony foal, first one of those I've seen. Maybe they just have a rougher time in the sun? There's a water fountain just down the hall that has cool water, and I think I have a mug or something over here. Give me a second," the stallion said as he ducked down behind the desk and started fishing around through some assorted items below. A moment later he came up with a large coffee mug with handle clenched in his teeth. He set it down on the desk. Devon quickly grabbed the mug up.
"Just about ten feet down the hall there, you can't miss it. You can all stay here in the lobby as long as you need," the stallion said as he pointed a hoof towards the hall.
Devon almost rushed down the hall right away to go get Robby some water, but then realized she didn't have a free hand to operate the water fountain while filling the mug.
"Can you watch her for just a moment if I set her down? I don't want her wandering off," Devon asked the stallion as she nodded towards Jessie in her arms.
"That's no problem. I think I can keep one filly from getting into mischief," the stallion snorted.
She nodded her thanks as she carefully set Jessie down on the ground next to the stallion.
"Be good for a minute, baby girl, I'll be right back," Devon instructed her daughter. Jessie just blinked in confusion as an answer.
The hall was long, but the fountain was near the beginning. She quickly pushed the button to operate the fountain and held the coffee mug under the stream of water until it was mostly filled. After that she took a quick drink for herself, before heading back.
Jessie was up and walking about when she returned but the filly only seemed to be looking for her. The stallion was watching her just not restraining her. She wasn't going to complain as her child seemed uninterested in heading towards the door. Devon sat down by Robby and held the mug up to his lips, and as she did Jessie trotted over to her and cuddled close to her.
"Drink up Robby, you need to get some water into you," Devon instructed as she angled the mug to help him drink.
"I can hold it myself, Momma," Robby said as he pulled his head back from the mug.
"You don't have hands, Robby. Just drink," Devon said with exasperation.
"I don't need hands, I can hold it in my hooves," Robby insisted, still refusing to sip from the proffered mug.
"Okay fine, take the mug from my hand then," Devon replied with mild annoyance. She fully expected that she was about to have to go refill the mug as it was dropped and then have to clean the spill off the floor. Hopefully the mug wouldn't shatter this low to the ground.
Robby kept sitting and raised up both forehooves and clamped the mug between them. It gave him a surprisingly good grip on it. Devon blinked as it seemed he could grip the mug on his own and hold it. He brought the mug carefully to his muzzle and took a drink. He spent several seconds drinking and then set the mug back down on the floor, completely empty.
"Did you get enough to drink?" She asked him as she picked the mug back up.
"Yes, Momma," Robby answered as he laid back down. He did seem to be cooling down and wasn't panting anymore.
"Take as much time as you need to rest and cool down," the stallion said again. "Area one is just next door and shares some facilities with this one. You can rest then head over there for your living quarters."
"Thank you, but we're assigned to area four," Devon said as she pulled her legs into an Indian style position for sitting and let Robby come rest his head in them.
"Four? Are you sure? There shouldn't be any humans out in area four, that's all ponies," the stallion asked with confusion.
"I'm sure, they definitely told me area four, spot thirty-five," Devon replied while nodding her head. She was tired and needed rest. "Maybe they ran out of space in the human only areas. There are a lot of people here."
"Yeah, there are a lot, but there are still spots. I even have room on my lists just in case a human fell through the cracks in being assigned places to go. Plus, there are some humans that have already purchased houses that were previously assigned here and don't need spots. So, we have space. Area four is all tents, and it's set up for ponies," the stallion explained.
"Well, that's where we're supposed to go," Devon said with a shrug. Tents? That meant no air conditioning, which could be a big problem. And how were they supposed to share a little tent with two ponies?
"Okay, if you say so. Just seems weird to me," the stallion said with his own shrug. "If you need anything just ask, I'm Pale Oak, and I'll be here until an hour till sundown, then one of the night ponies will be here if you need anypony."
"Do you know how we're supposed to fit five individuals into a tent? I take up more space than a pony," Devon asked with weariness in her voice.
"Well, my best guess is that since your foals are smaller it will kind of even out. As I said, I wouldn't have put you there," Pale Oak answered.
So, tent then...she shouldn't complain much. She had some hope of getting some sort of decent life together here. They were in a what might be a rare area that was going to experience economic development, at least from all that had been advertised. Most the rest of the country was about ready to slip into a major depression. Out west it was supposed to be getting extremely bad. There was no telling how things would go in less affected areas. She had to tell herself that they were better off here than just about anywhere else, no matter what the present circumstances.
They'd rest for about thirty minutes, making sure they had enough to drink, then go find where they would be living for the time being.
"Mandy, there's nothing to do here. It's a big empty house," Alex complained.
"You've got your computer and I made sure this place had internet ready to go when we arrived; mess around with that, read a book, dust this place, I don't care what you do, but you're staying inside," Tattered Wing said firmly, gesturing to the computer on the floor. She didn't even bother to correct her little brother about her name.
"I wish we were back home," Alex said as he laid down dejectedly.
Tattered stared at the beige unicorn colt with the green mane for a long moment. She wanted to yell and scream at him, but the truth was she knew she would just be redirecting her anger at him. In truth him being here might have possibly been partly her fault. She sighed and tried talking in a calm voice to him.
"I know it isn't our old home, and I can't provide the same things Mom and Dad could. Neither of us asked for this, or wanted to be put out, but here we are," Tattered said as she touched a hoof gently to his back.
"I hate them. I still can't believe they kicked me out," Alex grumbled angrily, shaking her hoof off him. She withdrew it with a sigh.
"Hate's a strong word. I hope they come to their senses and do something to make this right, but for right now you've got me and I'm trying to do my best," Tattered said with lowered ears.
"Your best sucks, this place is horrible," Alex snapped as he shuffled around so his back was turned to her.
Tattered walked over in front of her little brother with eyes narrowed and stared down at him angrily.
"You have no idea what I had to do to make sure you had an actual roof over your ungrateful little head. I had to sit there and promise to basically be Sunset Blessing's obedient little lapdog to get her to give us this house. You could be out in the tents right now, with it being months before you could be anywhere else," Tattered growled down at the fifteen-year-old.
"I didn't ask you to do that. That's on you," Alex muttered, not even looking her in the face.
"Yeah, it is, and it's because you're my brother that it's my responsibility. I have over a hundred different night ponies I chose to be responsible for, but I didn't choose to have to be responsible for you too. It got dumped on me. But just because it did doesn't mean I'm going to just ignore it. This sucks for both of us, so suck it up buttercup," Tattered continued to growl without budging from her position.
"Look at you, you can't even take care of yourself. How're you supposed to take care of me?" Alex said with a gesture at her various scars that laced her brown fur and her bandaged wings.
Tattered got right in his face staring him down. She moved so quickly the colt jumped back in fear.
"You don't go there. You got that? You don't mock my scars. You might be my brother, but that's one button you will not push. You're lucky, because ponies like me are around to make sure the same doesn't happen to you," Tattered snarled at him through gritted teeth.
Alex crawled backwards on the floor while staring downward, still not willing to look her in the eyes.
"I'm sorry. I shouldn't have said that," Alex muttered towards the floor.
"No, you shouldn't have," Tattered said as she spit on the floor. Just great, Tattered, spitting on a hardwood floor. Were you raised in a barn? she scolded herself in her head. "And I'm making something else clear; my name is Tattered Wing, or you can call me just Tattered if you want, not Mandy. Mandy died the day she got two of her friends killed and the rest crippled. I'm not going to be that irresponsible ever again. I learned my lesson in the most painful way possible."
"Whatever you say, Tattered," Alex muttered. She was getting tired of him not looking at her when he spoke.
Tattered sat down and let out a sigh. What was she going to do with him? She couldn't believe how disgustingly heartless their parents had been by tossing him out of the house because they considered him being a pony an embarrassment to them. This situation wasn't his fault, and he was going through his own personal hell. Now she had to play mother to her own little brother and she hated it. Maybe she could lighten up just a little bit.
"Alright, compromise then. You might not be full grown, but you aren't a little foal either. If you want to go out you can, but I want you back by the time I need to go to work this evening. Say be back around six since I'm an early riser. Does that sound fair?" Tattered asked in a tired voice from where she sat.
"So, I've got a curfew?" Alex asked as he finally looked up at her to glare at her.
"Just until things have settled down and some semblance of normal is established in town. After that I might ease up a bit more. I don't want to be like Mom and Dad, by telling you how to live your life, but I've got to set some boundaries, just so I know you're going to be okay. Can you just work with me on this, please?" Tattered pleaded in a soft voice. She really didn't want to fight with him, but she had to assert herself as the authority figure.
"Deal, I'll be back by six," Alex answered with a grumble, and then proceeded to turn away from her yet again.
Tattered thought for a moment of warning him that if he wasn't here at six she would be sending night ponies out hunting for him, but ultimately decided against it. She really didn't want to come off as a control freak. She liked to think she was the fun sister in comparison to her sister Megan who was always so strict and serious about everything. Megan always did everything perfect like Mom and Dad wanted, and they loved to point out at every opportunity that Tattered was a general disappointment compared to her little sister.
Or at least they had. Now they didn't want to take the time to do that much since she became a pony. They hadn't even bothered to visit her in the hospital when she got hurt, and Megan hadn't either. The only thing she had gotten from them was Alex getting dumped on her and being told that the two of them weren't welcome home anymore. All three of them could just go screw themselves.
Of course, she hadn't made it easier to accept them by going full vigilante and drawing other night ponies into it. She had the humans still in Charleston, and even a fair number of ponies now convinced that night ponies were all dangerous beasts that couldn't be trusted. Worse, when news of her Enclave's actions leaked to the press it didn't just set off outrage, it spawned smaller copycat groups throughout the south. The government was now running around playing damage control for the night ponies. It likely cemented her parents' low opinions of ponies in general too.
She had a lot to atone for all around; to her brother, the humans, and her fellow ponies. She would make up for her mistakes though.
"I'm going to go to bed. After I go to work tonight we can chat for a bit on the computer. I've got a kind of temporary office in town hall and it has one for me to use. I know it's easier for us to talk that way sometimes," Tattered offered as she gestured again at the computer.
"What exactly do you do here?" Alex asked as he turned his attention back to her with a raised brow.
"Guess the closest thing I can compare it to is like being the chief of police. This place has a sheriff, but he really doesn't do anything. It's not exactly what anypony would have pictured me doing a month ago, but here I am," Tattered said with bemusement.
Alex looked like he was struggling to figure out how to respond to that. He finally looked up at her.
"Are you really sure you can do that kind of job?" He asked her, then looked apologetic. "I don't mean to be rude, I really don't, but it always seemed like the most you'd every be responsible for was a register at McDonald's. Then there was the whole thing with you and your friends hurting humans back home."
She had to restrain herself from snapping at him for saying something that could have come out of their parents' mouths but didn't. He wasn't wrong, this was a massive paradigm shift in terms of who she had been, and her current position was largely a public relations attempt to show that night ponies could turn themselves around to something respectable.
"As I said, I got a massive wake up call to be responsible. I've finally got my act together, and I'm going to do everything I can to keep everypony safe and help build us a good life here," Tattered said simply, deciding to not go into full detail how much was riding on her doing a good job this time.
"Who are you and what have you done with my sister?" Alex asked jokingly. It made her smile just a bit that he was lightening up a little again. Her smile dropped a second later though.
"I told you, Mandy is dead, and now I'm Tattered Wing. Kind of ironic that I'm finally doing something the family could be proud of and they all hate me even more because I'm a pony," Tattered said as a frown returned to her face.
"They hate us both for being ponies," Alex pointed out without amusement. "I never hated you though. I know you hated the pressure Mom and Dad put you under all the time back home and finally just said fuck it all one day and gave up trying to please them. I can empathize, I felt that way too."
"Well, don't expect me to put zero pressure on you just because of that. When we get you back in school, and you are going back to school by the way, I won't get on your case if you don't make straight A's and aren't involved in a half-a-dozen extracurricular activities, but I'm going to get on your case if you don't keep passing grades," Tattered said firmly with a fresh smirk. There was no point fussing with him about his language, she had a worse mouth six years ago when she was his age.
"That's fair. Though I don't know what point there's to school anymore," Alex replied as he slightly flattened his ears.
"The world is still a human world and we're living in it. If we want to succeed in the world we must still worry about things like making a living, and that means a basic education," Tattered explained calmly, hoping this wouldn't turn into an argument after she seemed to make some headway.
"Whatever you say," Alex said with a dejected sigh as he returned to laying down following his head in his forelegs.
"Okay, I really need to get to bed," Tattered said as she made her way to the stairs. "If I'm not awake at six can you please wake me up? It won't do for me to be late to work on my first day on the job as a de facto town official."
"I'll make sure you're awake. Sleep tight, and thanks for making sure we had a place to live," Alex answered from behind her once she was near the stairs.
"You're welcome," Tattered said with a smile. "See you tonight."
"Mama, have you seen my throw pillow?" Wild Growth called out as she searched through the various packed boxes.
"No, but I'll let you know if I come across it. Nothing is really labeled at all in these boxes," her mama, Jean, yelled back from the kitchen.
Abuelita yelled something in Spanish too quickly for Wild Growth to follow and her mama yelled something just as quickly and incomprehensible back at Abuelita. The most that Wild could catch due to how quickly they spoke was something about how Abuelita couldn't have been expected to label everything.
"Have you seen the XBox, Wild?" Jose yelled from the adjoining room.
The green earth pony brushed some of her lavender mane that had slipped into her eyes out of her way. Of course, her brothers wanted their video games before anything else. She hadn't actually found the game system, but had seen several of the games, which made her have a good idea where to look. She wasn't going to tell them that though.
"No, I haven't. Don't worry about your silly video games. We have lots more unpacking to do," Wild called back.
"Stop trying to act so grown up!" Miguel yelled to her from the same room as his twin.
"I am grown up, now keep unpacking," she called back, ears lowering from both her mood and all the yelling. She had a full career and made more money a year than the rest of her family would likely make in their lives. She also dealt with all the family bills herself. Yet somehow her little human brothers were still determined to treat her as a foal. They didn't treat Rosetta this way. When would they start treating her like an adult?
She opened another box and found it was full of mail, not the most interesting thing on first inspection, but sitting on top was a letter from Clemson University addressed to her. It was dated from the same day she'd been put in isolation due to ETS. She had never seen this letter.
Emotion welled up in her as she looked down at it. She didn't know if she should open it or not. What was inside didn't really matter anymore. She wasn't going to go there as a pony, and she didn't need to now that she could grow full forests by herself. Still curiosity wouldn't let it go.
"Papa, can you come in here?" Wild called hesitantly towards the stairs.
"What do you need, sweet pea?" Papa's voice answered back.
"Papa, Rosetta and I have talked to you about nicknames! Can you just come down here?" Wild called back as she flicked her tail in response to her papa's favorite nickname for her. If a pony heard that they'd start thinking that was her name, and she wasn't going to be called Sweet Pea by every passerby on the street if she had anything to say about it.
"Rule is no nicknames is public, we aren't in public. I'll be right down, just give me a second," he answered as he could be heard moving something around upstairs.
She reached down with her head into the box and pulled the letter out. She then sat down on her rump and carefully transferred to holding it in her forehooves. She just sat staring at it while she waited for her papa to come downstairs. She was more than capable of opening it herself, but she wanted this opened carefully with no tearing, and that took hands; on top of that, her papa was one of the big reasons she had even wanted to go to Clemson. That made it an experience she wanted to share with him.
Her papa, Roger, came down the stairs and was using his beat-up Clemson shirt to wipe sweat from his face. He walked over towards her.
"What's up?" Her papa asked with a quizzical look at her.
Wild just held the letter up to him.
"Can you open this? It doesn't really matter anymore, but I want to know what they said," Wild said as she passed the letter to him.
"You sure?" He asked as he took the letter with apprehension.
She nodded to him silently, eyes still locked on what would've been the most important letter she ever received up till recently.
Her papa carefully opened the letter and pulled the contents out. He moved to pass them to her, but she shook her head.
"Read it out loud for me, please," Wild said in a quiet voice.
Roger pulled the letter back and held it in two hands in front of him as he looked at its contents. He was farsighted and really needed to get new glasses. She put that on the list of things she'd need to look into arranging.
"Dear Catherine Martinez. We have received and reviewed your application for admittance into the Clemson University's Botanical Studies program. This university prides itself on maintaining the highest academic standards in our forestry services program and other botanical programs as they are among the fields of study this university was founded to provide the quality education in first and foremost. Upon review of your academic record to date we are happy to tell you that we are accepting your application to Clemson University with a provisional full scholarship for...."her papa read and was cut off by her whoop of excitement.
"They accepted me! And were going to give me a scholarship," Wild shouted happily as she bounced in place clapping her forehooves together.
"Yep, they sure did," her Papa smiled sadly as he folded the letter back up.
And then the fact that it didn't really matter anymore came back to her and dampened her mood. It shouldn't be dampening her mood. She looked at her cutie mark, a tree bursting from split earth. This was something that she loved for a life. Plus, she was rich, she was powerful, there was seemingly no pony that could do what she could. Why did it matter to her that she wouldn't be going off to a university to study?
Because it had been the whole focus of her life since she reached high school, and now that focus was gone was the answer. Gone just like her being Catherine Martinez. Now there was only Wild Growth and she had an entirely different life. All completely changed in a month. It all left a little bit of a bittersweet feeling. Things were great, she was a millionaire with a great career, but at the same time she had to adjust to the fact that what she expected for a life before wasn't going to be the same going forward. It wasn't a bad thing, but it was an adjustment.
"Feeling alright, sweet pea?" her papa asked as he looked down at her, concern in his voice.
"Yeah, I'm fine. I knew I wasn't going to be going, but it is nice to know that they accepted me," she said with a forced laugh right before she took the letter back from him with her teeth. She placed the letter back into the box with the rest of the mail and shut the box again.
"Want to help me move a box or two of your sister's books over to her house? They are extremely heavy and I'm not sure I can move them on my own without throwing my back out. If we can get them on your back I can steady it as we walk over there," her papa asked as an upbeat tone returned to his voice. "I really want to get this done before they need me to drive them back to Summerville to get Phobia's father."
"Sure, I'll help. Shouldn't feel much different than carrying a box of feathers to me," Wild said with a genuine smile.
"Thanks, they're right over here," he said as he gestured to a few boxes in the corner and started walking towards them.
Wild Growth gave the box of letters one last look before following her papa, and leaving the letter that would have once been precious sitting with all the other mail of no further importance.