“To start, I did it,” and immediately she cuts me off.
“I knew it!” mom exclaimed. Dad sighed and raised an eyebrow.
“Does it make you feel any better?” he asked. Mom grunted and rolled her eyes.
“Why would it? Don’t you think that I wasn’t hoping for a direct admission of guilt? That I would rather hear anything other than ‘my daughter committed fratricide?’ I would have loved to look away from the logic that brought me to my initial conclusion but we both know I never could. Now that I know for a fact what I thought is true, I… I feel worse, honestly.” Her head a little lower than before, her eyes focused on the ground, a little bit of the life she had in them ripped out and replaced with a cold stare. It didn’t last long though, because she shook herself out of it and returned to her upright posture.
“I shouldn’t be interrupting when I am the one who asked for this. Please, continue,” she sighed. I nodded and went on, feeling a little bit… well, less bad about this now that she’s calmed down and… at least hurt instead of angry. This way, it’s only more crushing disappointment from my family instead of that, and my angry mother.
“As I was saying, I was tired of being bullied, and after I got my powers, I saw a chance to fight back so I took it. I was eight, I had no idea how badly she could get hurt if I pushed her down the quarry, and I certainly didn’t know what death was. It was my fault and not a day goes by where I don’t think about it. I made a mistake I can never undo, and even ten years ago, I think I realized that. So, what did I do next? I ran. I ran, and I ran, and I ran. Somewhere around the second day, I think I passed out.
For the rest of you who might not know, between here and the province Andulas is a very large, and very hot desert. If you were to just follow the roads, you might never come across it because almost every continental road avoids it. I however, didn’t follow the roads. As a matter of fact, I think I avoided them because I was so focused on getting away that I didn’t think of anything else. Because of that, I ran directly into the Appaloosan desert.
It spans most of the western side of the country starting at the edge of the Dragonspine mountains and only stopping at the Equestrian west coast. It’s practically a wasteland. Of course, that shouldn’t be much of a surprise since it was a the site of the Caballo-Equestrian war at one point. White hot sands everywhere you look for miles, nothing but dunes and sizzling earth. If you were to crack an egg in the middle of the day, the sand would cook it.
Even with my powers, with my fear driving me, my speed taking me as fast as I could go, my stamina wouldn’t last. I got lucky when I did finally pass out because I was just at the edge of a new development in some border town in Pastern, the province between here and Andulas that holds the harshest parts of the desert. My entire body was just about dry, my hooves had started to crack from the heat, and when I fell asleep, I thought I was dead.
When I woke up next, I found myself in a truck full of other ponies. Most of them were tied up and gagged, and others looked like I did, dried out and on the verge of death. We were moving, and as the light fluctuated in this rusty trailer, I got a better look at the other ponies around me. Almost all of them mares and children. Why are the so many mares in this truck? I wondered until the truck stopped. The back doors swung open shortly there after, and in the blinding light stood two figures. A pair of stallions, one recognizable as a pony, the other… not so much.
He was scaly, bright red and orange, like some kind of lizard or something. I don’t think I was healthy enough to be afraid of him, and even in that situation, I was still more concerned about getting away from here. The normal looking one called out something in another language, to which half the ponies that weren’t bound and gagged responded, starting to file out of the truck.
He would say something, they would say something back, then the ones he approved of would have a tag stabbed into their ears. The ones he didn’t… well, I never saw them again. The other kids would cry, but the mares would take it in silence, holding back whatever sounds of pain they thought to make. After they were all out, he then started speaking in Equestrian.
‘Out of the truck, all of you,’ that Caballan accent so heavy that I could barely understand it. When nopony moved but instead gave them glares, the other guy spoke up. ‘Get out and line up or have your corpse rutted like the meat you are!’ At eight, I didn’t know what these words meant, but the older mares certainly did, and the tone he said it in was more than enough to scare the rest of the children into doing what he wanted.
So, here I am, in line with all these other kidnapped or illegal ponies in some warehouse that this cartel stored its ponies in, and nothing could have really made me understand the kind of deep crap I was in. The ponies that were already tagged were being given bread and water, and I was very much interested in that, and not so much the tags being put into everypony’s ears that didn’t look like it felt good. Rather than stay in this line, I darted over with the ponies handing out food and sort of kind of waited in line to be immediately next.
This pony, some other stallion that was part of the cartel, noticed my sudden presence waiting for food and punched me across the head. Thirsty, hungry, now dizzy and angry, I did what any sensible pony would do and went to bite his foreleg and take what I wanted. Uh, if I remember my Caballan, he said, ‘get that little [vulgar word] and make her regret she ever lived!’ or something along those lines. I’d managed to consume about half of the bread I stole and drink some of the water, but I was still so mad about being hit that I think I… hissed at them? My head was knocked a little loose since, ya know, a full grown stallion had punched me.
They would chase me, and I would run to the other side of the warehouse to eat a little more, then they would catch up to me, and I would evade, and we just played this game of cat and mouse until I was full, refreshed, and tired of playing. I went along and ran up the sides of things since I was still light enough to do that back then, and I decided to hide up on the rafters. They didn’t seem to have any pegasai on their team, and none of their unicorns were good enough to reach me from down there, so I was pretty set. Tired and not dying for the first time in days, I fell asleep up there.
I woke up the next morning, and the whole warehouse was practically empty. The shipping containers, the ponies, the sleeping station, the weapons, the drugs, all of it, gone. Down below me was one stallion in a chair looking at his phone, the lizard looking guy, the guy that had opened the truck, and the guy that hit me. Scaly noticed that I’d moved and alerted the guy in the chair to this.
‘Ey niña. Did you have a nice little nap?’ he asked. Dude looked up at me, and all I could do was stare at his eyes. He was a beige and black stallion, his coat spotted but in a more uniform way than I’d ever seen before. He was a little shiny on the surface, and his tail was thick like he was some kind of reptile. It had a little… thing at the end, and as it swayed back and forth it rattled. He was wearing this bright white jacket with an intricate black design on it, some silver chains with little accessories around his neck. Kinda looked like Goose actually, now that I think about it, but this guy was way evil, let me tell you.”
“Uh, excuse me! I am not a reptile! I have Fish blood. My dad was a shark, and I am a shark, don’t you go lumping me in with ponies like Crotalo!” Goose protested. Huh. Not only does he not complain about what I was calling similar, he knows who I’m talking about just by hearing his description. You were totally never involved in the underworld chief. Good on ya for keeping that side of you hidden.
“Sugarcube, Ah’m a hundred percent sure she was talkin’ about yer style, not yer weird, hybrid body. Besides, sharks don’t have spines like y’all do. Yer more like… a swordfish with teeth,” Applejack assured. He has spines? Goose didn’t look satisfied with that, but I decided to just move on.
“Tons of ponies have hybrid bodies… I’m not weird…” Goose quietly pouted before I could continue.
“Uh… anyways, since I’d finally gotten a chance to look at these two… odd looking ponies, like nopony I’d ever seen before, I did exactly that. I wasn’t sure what to make of him, and I was just kind of mesmerized. Those eyes were… so strange. He blinked sideways, his pupils were slitted, and his irises were like huge discs of black speckled gold. Slightly hypnotized, I nodded.
‘That’s good, that’s good… why don’t you come down here and have a talk with me, huh little rosita?’ I was almost ready to do what he’d asked, but then I remembered that that guy behind him, who looked very, very nervous, had punched me in the head earlier. I felt at the spot where he hit me and shook my head. ‘No! That one hit me!’ I called back. As soon as I said that, the bigger scaly one wrapped his foreleg around the nervous guy’s neck, and the guy in the chair motioned his head away. They both left, and the big guy came back a few minutes later little bit more red than he was before.
‘Little rosita, that bad semental will never see you again. Please, come down here and tell me your name. I will give you a reward if you do that for me. Do we have a deal?’ he offered.” Remembering all this suddenly made it very clear to me that the other day was only the most recent in several number of times that ‘I should’ve died,’ most of which are a fault of my own. I paused for a moment to put that thought away as more of these ‘should be dead’ memories started to flood back in, then continued.
“He pulls out a bag of brightly colored rock candy from one of his jacket pockets, and young me recognizing the tantalizing sugary treat as a thing I rarely got the chance to indulge in, I immediately ran down there to get it from him. Of course, to get what I wanted I had to tell him my name, and that’s when I remembered why I was running in the first place.
‘I did something bad mister. I… I don’t have a name anymore,’ I said. I didn’t think I deserved it. He raises his chin up, this guy was already making plans for me the moment he heard about me from his underlings, and now he had me in the frog of his hoof.
‘Oh, I see. Well then little niña, you fit right in. See, in my familia, there are a lot of ponies without names. Sometimes, ponies do bad things you know? It happens all the time. And when nopony else will take them in, we bring them into my familia and give them a life. In my home, Caballo, family is everything. We take good care of the familia, and when the familia is happy, I am happy. Little niña, filly of the color rosa, would you like to join my family?’
Really puts it into perspective how terrifyingly cruel this guy is looking back, ya know? That’s probably part of the reason I hated you so much when we first met. Whether or not you’re a fish or a snake, you dress and behave in just a similar enough manner that you remind me of him.” Goose rolled his eyes.
“So maybe I liked his fashion sense, whatever. I’m glad that we’re cool now, but I was even more glad to know he was dead a while back. Speaking of which, seeing as you’re here and still alive and all, how did you get out of Vibora? I uh… don’t know of many stories of ponies surviving leaving Vibora.” I put my hooves together and took a deep breath.
“Okay so… just maybe I was the pony who ratted him out,” I said, a secret I thought I would take with me to the grave… next week or so. Goose blinked.
“I’m sorry?” he asked.
“Well, you know that Crotalo definitely had me back then right? Well, here’s how it all went down. I did join Vibora. I was actually their runner for the better part of four years. Crotalo would come to me with some package to deliver across the border or in secret to the harbor, I would do it, and he would give me… anything and everything I wanted in return. Having a power that makes me very difficult to catch, being as young as I was, and very inconspicuous despite my coat, Rosita was the best delivery girl there ever was. Her problem though… was that she was too attached to Crotalo.
See, when all was said and done, I thought being a part of the family meant that Crotalo was my big brother. As such, I tried to treat him that way. Naturally, he didn’t like that, nor did he have time for that, so he assigned somepony else to be my ‘big brother’ instead. How did I survive? How did I make it through all these years? It was because of my Abuelo. I never knew his real name, nopony ever called him a real name, he was just ‘Abuelo’ to everypony.
If I had to guess, Abuelo was Crotalo’s real grandfather or father since I never knew how old Crotalo actually was. Since he was well past his prime and was nothing but a burden to Crotalo, he was the pony I spent all of my free time with. He taught me Caballan, he taught me about the world, he taught me just about everything I didn’t already know honestly.
So, Abuelo is assigned to be my guardian, this old, powerless, earth pony stallion that looked enough like Crotalo to be his parent or direct blood relative, but without the whole ‘rattlesnake’ thing going on. He teaches me what I need to know to be apart of Vibora at first, the essentials like Caballan, what not to do with the drugs, who to take them to, who to watch out for, who not to talk to, things like that. But as time goes on and I get older, he starts to look at me not as some filly he has to look after, but like his own daughter.
Maybe it was as justice for how his own son turned out, maybe it was penance for whatever he’d done before, but from then on, he started trying to get me out of this environment. I would hear him at night when he thought I was asleep talking to himself, saying things like, ‘Rosita needs a better life than this. Rosita can make something of herself in this country. Rosita can be somepony worth knowing, unlike that cursed spawn… With a gift like hers, she could be a hero like that stallion in the papers from back then…’
Around five years passed while I was part of Vibora. I hit puberty toward the end of that time, late as it was, and I start to notice things. Some of these ponies… aren’t very nice. The ponies Abuelo always told me to stay away from start to make sense as to why I needed to stay away. These ponies are doing cruel, terrible, evil things. This isn’t how ponies are supposed to act. Abuelo always tells me to be kind and helpful, that the goddess knows my actions and punishes those who do evil. The same things my parents always told me, and these ponies… aren’t that. I started feeling guilty about what I was doing. I started thinking that, ‘Maybe I’m doing something wrong here.’ The final nail in this coffin was the day that Abuelo told me we were going to see an old friend.
I thought it was going to be business as usual, he and I were going grocery shopping for the week, and we were maybe going to get dinner somewhere nice while we were out. But then we went to one of my running spots. The back alleys of the San Casco outskirts. Abuelo always told me to stay away from this part of town. If I ever went this way for a run, I needed to leave as soon as I could. I never understood why, but then he started to explain.
‘Rosita… this is what happens when ponies use those powders we sell. They become dependent on it. The powder is their life. It consumes everything, taking away the free will of anypony who tries it. They become slaves to its world. It makes them feel good, yes, the powder does that. But at the same time, look at what happens to the world around somepony who takes this powder. Cracked walls, refuse on the streets, abandoned buildings, excrement everywhere, disease, violence! All because that powder is the only thing they can see in their lives anymore. Other ponies disappear, responsibilities evaporate, even basic needs like food and water become secondary when they are so addicted. And in the end… they end up like that.’
We had entered a house that smelled really bad while he was talking. It was in possibly the worst shape you could imagine, all the things he talked about covering the floors of this house, trash, ruined and soiled rags, empty plastic bags and bottles, used and broken pipes, empty lighters, melted spoons, used needles. After we waded our way through all of that, we came to a room that smelled even worse. He opened the door, and there lying dead for at least a few days was a pony I’d known. She was a seller for this area, somepony I would frequently deliver to, somepony I was friends with I might even say. I was so horrified at the sight, I nearly turned tail and ran right then and there, but Abuelo grabbed me and held me in place.
‘No! You mustn’t look away! This is what that powder does to ponies! This is what we have been giving them! This is what he makes his fortune off of! This is what you have caused Rosita! Face what you’ve done here!’
I didn’t sleep for a few days after that. I locked myself up in my room and I just sat there, trying to forget. Seeing that dead pony brought back memories of li-” I wretched and nearly expelled the pizza I just ate. Not quite there yet. “… memories of her and I was stuck. On the one hoof, I could leave, or at least try to, but I’d seen enough times what happens to traitors and deserters. You don’t escape Crotalo. The Viper always leaves it’s venom in you. On the other hoof I could refuse to work anymore, but that would end up with the same result.
When I’d finally managed to pass out without seeing the dead pony or her face in my nightmares, I woke up to a day where I had a run waiting for me that night. I couldn’t make a decision, and this little nagging thing had happened over five years with the guy, and I couldn’t leave Abuelo alone. I went to talk to him about it, but to my surprise he said the matter was already settled.
‘Do not worry my dear Rosita. Today is the last day you will ever have to take that horrid powder anywhere. Tomorrow, we will start new lives. I know a pony who has very close ties with one of the rail companies. On the trains we will work and live so that we may lead honest lives. No more of this, no more Vibora, no more Crotalo. It will… finally be over.’
He give me my instructions as usual, but for the first time, they’re in somepony else’s hoof writing, and there’s more than ‘return to Abuelo’ after the drop off. While we’re at it, the drop off point is also in a weird place. I’d never been to the center of town before, at least not for a run. When the time came, I delivered a package behind the San Casco Library to a stallion I’d never met before, but one I thought I’d seen around Crotalo a few times. He took the package from me, and instead of bits, he gave me a bag.
‘Take this with you when you go to the train station. Abuelo will be there with all your things. If you ever return to San Casco after today, it will be a better place… for everypony,’ he said. I did as I was told, and Abuelo and I left on the midnight train headed to Fillydelphia for attendant training from Trans Equestria. That night, Vibora was surrounded by the combined might of the San Casco PD and the Equestrian coast guard. Crotalo was killed in the firefight, and Vibora was taken down. I wouldn’t know anything about it until… much later.
I think I was about thirteen when I first started working on the train with Abuelo. The job wasn’t hard, it didn’t pay much, but it at least gave us a place to live and see the country. Every province, every capital, every major city, we saw it all. The big cities in the north, the rolling fields of the midwest, the swamps and rivers of the south east, everything. This country is beautiful, and if I could take a train to see it all again, I would do it in a heartbeat.
Of course, nothing lasts forever, and as time went on, it started to slow down for Abuelo. In the first year, things were fine. He would get tired easily as he always did, but it was nothing out of the ordinary. In the second year, he would get sick more often. Sometimes he would go into coughing fits and have to sit down for a while, but it was nothing to be really worried about, or at least that’s what he told me.
The illusion was broken one day in the third year when he was serving the first class seats and he collapsed. I was fifteen and this was somewhere around February. The cold was beginning to get to him. We would often make trips to the northern parts of the country since that’s where most of our business was, the bigger cities being located near the northern east coast and all, but Abuelo didn’t do well in the cold. Since we practically lived on the trains and we had nowhere for him to be aside from a passenger when he didn’t work, he couldn’t do anything but ride along with us for where ever we were bound.
On the rail to Crystal, the coldest city in Equestria, is when his age finally caught up to him. Something was wrong. Something was very wrong. He wasn’t breathing right, his color had practically faded away, and he was missing fur on several patches of his coat. He would cough and hack in his bed only for that precious blood of his to come out with each wheeze. We were still a day out from Crystal when he told me this.
‘Rosita… it seems as if… time has finally caught up to me. I am beyond help now, the next sunrise will surely be my last. When the end comes, I do not want you to be sad, you cannot be. You still have plenty of life to live. Live a life that you are proud of. Make something of yourself, something I did not, and something Crotalo could never have aspired to be. Take back your real name and… be the hero I know that you are.’
He didn’t make it to Crystal. He didn’t even make it to the next sunrise. This old stallion, at the age of sixty seven, rapidly succumbed to lung cancer without so much as a hospital visit. He was always fine. He was always Abuelo, happy to be of service and always willing to talk and offer advice on whatever it is you needed. He never looked sick, he would never show it to anypony, he just kept on as if nothing was ever wrong.
It wasn’t until the funeral that I finally saw his cutiemark. Just like Crotalo, he was always wearing clothes, never revealing what he looked like underneath, always keeping parts of himself hidden behind that warm smile. It was a priest’s collar. How… did it all go so wrong? Where did it fall apart in his life? Was it his son? Was it him? I learned so much from him, but in the end, did I ever really know anything about him? I never asked. I never wondered, I never questioned, I just took everything he said and never let it go.
I was emotionally destroyed that day. The company allowed me to take a few weeks off, but I had nowhere to go, so on the train I stayed. I worked through it all, and every night I came back to our room, empty and alone. Not but a month later around my birthday, Trans Equestria closes down its passenger division. We’d never really had a full train, most ponies that rode were around Abuelo’s age or older, and after some time, even they had stopped riding.
I was offered a position to be trained as a conductor since I’d spent so much time with the company and I was finally old enough to ‘legally’ be hired, but the idea of spending long nights driving trains across the country alone scared me. I didn’t want to end up like that… dying without somepony knowing who I was. I talked to ponies, I like to be around ponies, I like to spend time around ponies. If I were all alone for so much time every day, I don’t know how long I would last.
So, I rode along with the last cross country passenger train, and where ever it stopped, that’s where I would try to start again. The train was retired, and with it Rosita went too. If nothing else, I would try to live up to his last request and at least be Pinkamena again. With nothing but a suitcase full of bits and mementos, I started to wander around the streets of Manehattan, the end of the line.
Manehattan is large. I don’t know if either of you have ever been,” I started, pointing to my parents, “but for you two, imagine the mine. That deep, cavernous, spiderweb of tunnels that weave in and out of each other, interconnecting and leading in dead ends with gems and ore becoming more and more common as you get to the more dangerous parts of the mine. Now triple its size, and then you have the streets of Manehattan. Vast and expansive. If you were to look one direction from the streets below the sky scrapers, you’d only catch glimpses of the sky and the horizon would never be in view. Even I, the pony who can out run a speeding train, can’t get from one side of the city to another in less than ten minutes.
In the daylight, Manehattan is a wonder of life and sound. Buildings with ponies in every window, motion constantly buzzing in the streets at every which direction, ponies, gryphons, carnivores, cows, deer, sheep, zebras, every race you know of and some ponies who blur the lines of ones you don’t. I wandered in amazement, simply trying to take it all in. The problem with that though, is that this makes you look like a tourist. And if you look like a tourist in the depths of Manehattan, well… you better find a place to hide your bits quick.
I would think that maybe, twenty minutes or so had passed since I started to wander and look when somepony grabbed my suitcase from me and took off in the other direction. I know now that twenty minutes is a little slow for pick pockets these day though, especially from station square. So, I whirled around to find my suitcase was clutched tightly in some stallion’s hoof as he dashed away with my bits… all of the bits that Abuelo and I had saved over the years. More than that though, that suitcase had the last few remnants of his memory in it, and that was crossing the line. I ran after the guy, who knows what kind of creature this was, and this, is when the idea of a ‘hero’ first came to mind.
I tried to get the case back after I caught up to the guy, who couldn’t have imagined I’d be upon him immediately again, but it was stuck to him. The dude himself was… sticky. It was like his skin were made of glue or something. I tried hard to pull away from him, but he was stronger than me, as most stallions are. Then he too, punched me in the head. I corkscrewed on the ground, yelled after him in a daze, but by the time I started to get back up, something weird happened.
Another stallion, clad in white and with skin that shined like gleaming metal, had crash landed in front of this guy. ‘Petty thievery? You’re known for going after bigger targets than tourists. All the same, it seems your luck’s run out this time, Sticky Hooves,’ this guy said in a big bold booming voice. ‘Iron Tail huh? You ain’t the [vulgar word] in red, I can take you,’ the thief said, confident as could be. Lots of questions started to rise, but I didn’t have time to think about them before the two guys started to fight.
The sticky guy, the kinda dark dull green stallion, threw some kinda sludge at the hero from his hooves. The metal stallion in the jumpsuit hopped into the air, his hooves ringing out as he leapt from the ground with a clear bell tone. He did a flip in the air, then twisted his body around as he came down on the gooey guy shouting, ‘Iron Justice!’ His tail, this thick steel mop of a thing, slammed down on the goo guy, and that was the end of that. His whole head dented in and his body kinda… melted a little after he landed.
Very quickly there after, he took a vinyl trash bag out of a pocket on his suit, then picked up the slowly liquifying stallion and threw the puddle of a dude in it. ‘No, I won’t be falling for that one. Dirty tricks only work once,’ he said, triumphant over my robber. The crowd that had gathered around to watch the quick fight clapped for the hero, and then everypony went on about their business. He picked up my suitcase and then brought it back over to me once all was said and done.
‘Are you new here young mare?’ he asked me. I nodded and took my case back from him. ‘I figured as much. It’s not very bright to walk around Manehattan and look like a tourist, but if you’re new here, then that’s to be expected. Do you have a place to stay?’ he asked me. I shook my head, and then he offered to walk me to a decent hotel for my bits. As we went, ponies waived and asked for pictures with the hero, and he gave me a little advice about getting around in the city.
It was such a… strange experience. This guy just randomly comes to my rescue, then offers to help me out for no explicable reason, basically spending the rest of the day with me. He says his goodbyes, and tells me to look up his number if something like that ever happens again. I didn’t know it then, but at that moment, I had decided that I wanted to be a hero.
However, becoming a hero is not easy. I needed to find a way to live, and I needed to do it quickly. Without any technology and not the money to buy a phone or a computer, I started searching for a job. A week went by, and I thought I was just having trouble. The second week came and went, and I was rejected from my first interview because I didn’t have a permanent place of residence. The third week went by, and I was rejected for another position because I had no personal phone.
Another week and nothing. Another week… and I ran out of money. I didn’t have anywhere to stay. I didn’t have any money to buy anything. And I couldn’t get a job… because I didn’t have a place to stay and I couldn’t buy anything. I traded the suitcase for a backpack at a thrift store, and then I wandered. I barely ate, I begged where I could, but after two weeks of it, I finally hit my limits. Starving, cold, and no place to go, I passed out in the south east district.
I thought about the goddess a lot, around this time. To my sorrowful ears, the idea of a righteous ethereal goddess that loved me and would take care of me was very appealing. Even in Manehattan as a street urchin, I found a meal at a church every now and again. But during that dark time when my vision started to get blurry and my hunger was stopping me in my tracks, I did one thing that I hadn’t done since I left home all those years ago. I prayed. It was a simple prayer, and even though life had put me away from believing, I was dying and thought this would be my last words to the only ears that would hear them. ‘I’m sorry, my goddess.’
I woke up, clean and in a bed in some cozy home I didn’t recognize. To my side was a tray with warm bread and water, and if we’re being honest here, I was baffled. How did I get here? Who washed me while I was out? Where was here anyways? Questions present, but not ones that lasted since the food was more than I’d had in a few days, and I was very ready to not be hungry. After ingesting everything I could off that tray, I finally took the time to look around me. The room was wood furnished with white washed walls and curtains printed with pictures of cake and candy on it, and it seemed… normal?
I wasn’t very accustomed to normal, but since nothing made sense to me ever since Abuelo died, I wasn’t inclined to care. What I did care about was the kind of ponies that would take somepony like me off the street, clean me and feed me like they had. Had I stumbled into another gang? No, this house was too… quaint. Was this a brothel disguised to look like a home? I knew about those, I’d delivered to them before. I’d seen a lot of bad in the world, and I knew just how bad it could get. At this point, I was sixteen and still pure. A mare like me is valuable to that world, I’d be worth a lot of money.
So, with my mind racing, thinking of all the terrible and cruel things that somepony could have planned for me, I started to search this house. I checked out the window in this room to find that I was on the second or third floor of some building and cursed to myself. That meant I was going to have to make it through at least two floors of security provided this was the dark place I thought I was. This must’ve been the back of the building too, because there were only alleyways everywhere I could see. Another bad sign; the windows were barred. This wasn’t a place I wanted to be, and that made it all the more apparent.
I left that cozy looking room, now thinking it was all just pretend for some operation and entered the hall. To my left was a night stand in the middle of a not very spacious hallway on a soft rug that ran the length of the hall with a couple doors at the end. Pictures on the wall of ponies I didn’t recognize, old family photos, a nice little lamp with a green stained glass cover. To the right was more of the same, but instead of doors, the hall turned and I couldn’t see anything beyond. A thought crossed my mind, and suddenly I wasn’t sure where I was. I’d seen the inner workings of a brothel, this was too… furnished, this looked too much like somepony’s home.
Panic settled, now I was just curious. Isn’t this Manehattan? Isn’t this the big city with all the gangs and the high crime rates, felonies on a daily basis that would make your stomach turn, and the kinda ponies that would sell their own mothers for a quick bit? Where was I? I wandered over to the side with the doors now that my curiosity had taken over, and in there was a master bedroom.
A night stand with a picture of two ponies on their wedding day above it, a bed that hadn’t been made, clothes strewn across the floor, a window with black blinds on it, a few dressers with some drawers ajar. After picking careful steps across mounds of unmentionables, I checked out this window. Still barred, but this alley lead on to the road, and I think I recognized it. Wasn’t this where I collapsed?
I figured that I’d done enough exploring now and decided to go find this couple in the photo. Just as I was leaving the room, I noticed something on the edge of one of the dressers. It was half under a shirt, or an apron actually, and after moving it away, I realized what the thing was. A goddess symbol. An eerie sense of foreboding ran up my spine and I walked away, keeping that in the back of my head.
With a better sense of where I was, I headed down the hall to turn the corner to run head first into somepony. I fell over and they did not, but very quickly, I was helped to my hooves. It was the mare in the wedding dress from the photo. She had a blue coat, her mane was a deep red and pink swirl of a thing that was done up to look like whipped cream or icing, and she was… well, less thin now than she was in the photo. Dressed in flour covered clothes with colorful stains of what was probably icing, she asked me if I was alright.
‘Oh, I’m sorry dear, I didn’t realize you’d woken up. We had a rush and I had to go help down stairs. Are you okay? Have you eaten enough? You’re practically skin and bones! Please, come down stairs so we can get some food in ya.’ She was right of course, I hadn’t eaten in a few days, but she didn’t even give me a chance to get a word in before she started to drag me along with her. I can tell now that the photo in her room is old. The way she is now, it looks like she was maybe in her mid to late thirties, and in the picture, she’s not likely much older than I am.
We head down one flight of stairs, pass through another floor that looks like it has her living room and kitchen in it, and finally down the last flight and into a cake shop. The transition was sharp and abrupt, the warm homey place to the mostly glass, cool white and black tile storefront with cakes, cookies, candies and bread in displays everywhere. The large windows showed the orange sky and windows of the other stores across the street, and the sign on the door told me that the place was open on the inside, so closed to everypony else.
The smell of sugar and warm bread was overwhelming, and I was suddenly aware that I was still very hungry. I figured that this was a bakery, so there were bound to be mistakes they’d made that they needed to get rid of, so that’s what I’d eat. Nope, I watched her frost and bake half the things she fed me. All the while, stuffing me with confections, she talked and talked and talked. She and her husband met in college while going to school for baking. He wanted to make cakes, she wanted to bake for a living, naturally they had a lot of common ground, so they were married a few months later. They moved here after they graduated and have been working their little Sugar Cube Corner ever since.
Her husband, whom she told me was Carrot Cake, had found me passed out in their alley while he was taking out the trash. They were both raised in goddess fearing homes, and as ponies of good moral character, they decided to take it upon themselves to see me healthy again. She even told me that she prayed for my recovery. What a scary thought that was.
Eventually though, the topic came around to me, and in my own word vomit, I told her everything. From age eight to age sixteen, she knew my whole life in a couple of hours. I didn’t know why I told her the whole story, I didn’t know why I didn’t heed Abuelo’s teachings and kept my cards to myself, but all the same, now she knew. And once I finished I remembered my backpack. Where was his hat? Where was my bear? Where were those little dolls he showed me how to make? I think she saw my sudden anxiety and knew what I was worried about. She told me that she cleaned my backpack and put all of my things back in it, and she’d had the hat washed so it looked like new again.
I was glad to have it all back, but sad to know that the last thing I had with his scent on it was gone now. A profound thought hit me right then and there, and I started to cry. Once I’m gone, nopony will remember him anymore. Forgotten, just as easily as a candle fading in the night. And who would remember me? I honestly expected all of you to be as hostile as mom was, so surely there was nopony who still knew me. Mrs. Cake comforted me until I stopped and offered to let me stay as long as I like. They’d always wanted a child, but when one never came, it seemed as if one never would. Had they conceived as soon as they were married, whatever kid they would’ve had would be just as old as I was at the time.
A week passed and I’d started to gain weight again. A month passed and I was healthy again. Two months passed and they started to let me work in the bakery. By the time three had passed… it felt like I had a family again. It was obvious how much they’d wanted this. How long they’d waited for somepony like me to come into their lives, a child to fuss over and groom and talk with. Somepony they could teach their trade and share their secrets with. They loved me, and the more they did, the more I started to feel bad again. I… took that away from you, from my own parents, two fold. The life these ponies wanted, that they used me to fill the hole in their hearts… was a piece I stole from my own blood. This was… wrong.
Around the sixth month, I was beginning to think of leaving again when Mrs. Cake told us she was feeling bad and couldn’t work. Since I’d been there, they’d taught me everything they knew, and so I helped Mr. Cake in the bakery that day. It was great, to feel a sense of accomplishment for doing honest work for once. I didn’t screw up, I served ponies and ponies smiled at me, and I smiled right back at them. By the time the day was ending, I thought that maybe I belonged here. Maybe, this was always where I was meant to be. Seeing the customers happy, seeing the Cakes happy, it filled me with joy and the want to work that much harder to keep it going. Then the news came. Mrs. Cake was pregnant.
In nearly sixteen years of marriage, this had only happened once before, and the child was stillborn. It hurt them badly, but they kept on and kept on. Further along, she admitted to me that they had all but given up on having their own until I came around. Like a sign from the goddess, they picked me up off the street as if I was the girl they’d lost so many years ago, and I excelled at their trade. I loved what I did, I was cheerful and happy to be around, I was the one they’d been waiting for. Or so they thought.
It wasn’t until the day was coming close did I realize that I should leave. Maybe it wasn’t the right choice, maybe I should’ve waited longer, but I could only see myself as a burden to them now. They were about to have a newborn. And not just one, but twins of all things. How were they supposed take care of their real kids if I was in the way? The more I thought about it, the more I thought it would be easier on them if I left. So, after they left for the emergency room, I gathered my things and closed the shop, hiding my key where I said I would in my thank you note.
They had paid me for my work while I was there, but I didn’t know what to do with the money at the time, so I’d just saved it. I had about a year’s worth of pay from them, the kids weren’t even conceived until after I’d started working, so that was about right. If I was smart with it, I could find a cheap apartment and prove I had the ability to pay rent for at least a lease term. Six months, that was my limit. If I could figure out a way to live in half a year, I would do it. Spoiler alert, I did not.
I tried a few fast food jobs, minimum wage stuff, but in the end those jobs wouldn’t keep me in my apartment unless I spent just about all my waking hours working. I tried that, but I couldn’t do it. It almost got me fired from both of my jobs at the same time, so I quit one and focused on the other. With new free time and a slowly creeping anxiety that I wouldn’t be able to keep living like this, I started on more… creative pursuits.
The things that nopony wanted to do paid well, so why not look into that? As it turns out, there are age restrictions on most of those jobs. You can’t be an electrician without experience at a trade school, you can’t go into sanitation without being eighteen, and the better paying side of that requires school too. My options limited and my doors starting to close left and right, I was just about to collapse under the weight of it all.
It’s October of 2029, and I’m down on my luck. Money was tight, I’d soon not be able to pay rent and continue to eat at the same time. I wouldn’t have any options until March of the next year, and I wasn’t sure I could survive that long. I don’t remember how I got there, but I was somewhere near my apartment in the south side of town when I heard an alarm sound. I followed the commotion and saw that there was a hostage situation at a restaurant nearby. Curiosity caught me by surprise, and before I knew it, I was in the crowd watching it play out. Some thug was holding some kind of hoof gun and keeping the hero away somehow.
I recognized the hero as Marevelous Red, and when I thought about that, I remembered that she didn’t really care about getting shot. As a matter of fact, she was one of the few ponies who’d done so well in the hero business because she was bullet proof. So why was she holding still if all this guy had was a gun? I moved through the crowd to the beginning of the police barricade and then I saw her.
A filly, no more than twelve years old. A pale gray mane and tail, a purplish gray coat and bright yellow-green eyes. She was terrified, and he was holding her by the mane with the gun at her temple. He was making demands, shouting obscenities at Marevelous and the like, but I don’t think I heard any of that. All I could see was the filly in his hoof. As if the sister I killed nine years before was right in front of me again. A thought didn’t even enter my head before I’d grabbed the girl and bolted away into the kitchen. The thug never saw what happened, and just as quick, Marevelous took the opportunity to beat the guy into submission.
I apologized to her over and over again, saying I was sorry and that I never should’ve hurt her. I don’t know how long I went on like that, but eventually she wiped my tears away and told me that she didn’t know me. But then she said, ‘You saved me! I don't know who I remind you of, but... whoever it is, I think they would be proud of you!’
She ran off somewhere after the heroine and the police came to find us, but for the rest of that day, I was mesmerized. ‘Saved me.’ ‘Proud of you.’ The words just bounced around in my head until I was brought to the station. ‘Here,’ the heroine said, giving me a bag of bits, breaking me out of my trance. ‘Ah didn’t do anythin’ but beat up a thug. Y’all saved the girl, y’all deserve it,’ she said before leaping away with the crazy strength she had. Confused, I finally realized where I was and asked somepony to explain to me what just happened. It was unusual for a hero to give away their bounty, but the clerk explained that the criminal that Marevelous brought in was wanted for a few crimes and dealing weapons. His bounty was almost six hundred bits. That was rent and a half for a whole month.
‘You know, you could probably put that power of yours to use,’ the clerk said. ‘We have a lot of heroes on call here, but nopony is as fast as you are. You might give it a try if you’ve got the will for it. Ponies who do good are paid well in this city.’
A single thought and I was hooked on the idea. I could be like that. I did have a power that gave me an advantage. A power that I could use to do good like them, like her and him. There were a lot of heroes in Manehattan, that was the big reason the crime rate had gone down so much in the last few years. If they could just keep appearing like they did, they had to be compensated somehow, didn’t they?
This was it. I could be like one of them, and I could live by catching criminals. Even bounties for petty thieves was worth well more than a week of minimum wage. I might even be able to live well if I got good at this. I still had two months of rent left thanks to Marevelous, and if I could catch two criminals at the lowest rank, I’d have a whole extra month in my pocket! I finally had an answer to my problems, but I realized very quickly that it wasn’t really an answer at all.
I never put much thought into why somepony would wear a colorful costume to go out and fight crime, but whatever, if I could dress up and be a hero at the same time, why not? I bought a cheap nylon tracksuit, found an oversized beanie to cut eye holes in, and just like that, I was a hero. Or so I thought. As it turns out, a seventeen year old filly who’d just quit her fast food job and had never so much as learned how to lift weights was not very strong. Speed would get me where I was going, but I didn’t know how to fight. As it turns out, criminals don’t want to get caught.
In my early attempts, I was usually chased off when I realized I couldn’t win a fight. In one attempt, I was the one who ended up getting rescued. And then again. And again… except, the third time I was rescued, it was Iron Tail who rescued me again. He recognized me after I apologized to him for getting caught, and after I explained why I was doing this, he offered to teach me a few things. An ally he could count on wouldn’t hurt, so why not?
He was a retired military vet who decided that he was going to try and fix this city in Red Hoof’s place after he fell. That ‘new young mare’ took his spot as the hero ponies looked to, but he hadn’t lost his touch just yet. I learned a few things, even figured out how to throw a punch with some power behind it, but my aptitude for fighting was… well, is poor. Even now, I’m not very good at it. I caught two criminals before my deadline with his help though, so I had one more month to figure it out. And I tried so hard, but things… got much worse.
Instead of have me help him fight, Iron Tail would call on me to help with disasters. You don’t get paid for that, but the way he saw it, Heroes were the modern knight. We were wardens of the ponies. To protect them from others and themselves, to help when needed and offer a hoof where they could. A hero was somepony who would stick their nose in somepony else’s business and not step away until a problem was solved and a pony was saved. Honest, kind, generous, loyal, and optimistic, the traits of a hero, virtuous and true. He had called on me this time, to help him with a fire rescue.
I watch a pony jump to their death in that fire. It wasn’t the first time I’d heard the sound of bones crunching on a hard surface, nor the first time I’d seen a broken body at my hooves. It made me sick. It made me sad. Angry, frustrated, appalled, disgusted, hurt, all at myself. Even with all my speed, the only trait I had of value, I couldn’t reach them in time, again. One more life I failed to save. One more fall I didn’t stop. It wasn’t my fault they died, but it was my fault that she died. Soon enough, it wasn’t the stallion’s body I was looking at, it was hers. Panic caught me and I ran home.
A few days passed, but I managed to calm down. Then he called me again for another rescue. I saved ponies this time, but I didn’t save one, and it happened again. It happened again. It happened again. A week, a month, and I wouldn’t leave the apartment for as long as I could. I lost another pony. I lost another pony. It wasn’t my fault they died. But it was my fault. It was my fault. I pushed her. It was my fault. It was my fault.
I never left, I never earned anymore money, and finally, I was kicked out for not paying rent. I couldn’t, I didn’t have any way to do it. I packed up my meager things in my backpack, sold what I didn’t need, and then I wandered again. I had enough money to live for a while, but I knew it wouldn’t last. I didn’t have a residence anymore, so I couldn’t work, and if I didn’t find a place to live soon… I would end up the same way I did the year before. It’s hard, to think that you might starve to death. The pain of hunger will drive you to do almost anything. I thought of ways to make money, remembering my time in the gang, what some mares were paid to do.
I had my body, I could sell that but… none of the ponies who raised me would approve of that. Would they think me dying was better? Maybe I should just… end it all. Living is hard. Life is too hard. Why live? No pony is going to remember me anyways. I won’t leave anything behind, I had no more ties to anypony. I was truly alone. I had nothing left but memories. So what if I just… die?
I had an idea, and I figured it would be poetic if I jumped into the sea. There was a high roofed building, at least seven or eight stories tall, and if I jumped from that into the harbor, there would be no way I would survive. It would be justice. I took a life, so I would give a life back. It would finally be over. A fall for a fall, a push for a push. One act, and the debt would be paid. As I was thinking about all this, I’d unconsciously headed into central park. I was just brooding and wandering around as I meandered to my sentence of choice, and I hit somepony.
Some idiot was walking around the park with her face in a map and didn’t even see me coming. Muttering to herself ‘they have to be around here somewhere…’ and then yelping when we collided. In her defense, I wasn’t watching where I was going either, but I had a lot on my mind. I chewed her out, but instead of reacting negatively like I thought she would, her eyes went wide and she smiled.
‘It’s you! You’re the one! Hey, come with me, I want to show you something. I always knew you would come, and here you are!’
Before I knew it, she had me in her magic, this purple unicorn with a dark blue mane striped with pink and violet. Where was she taking me? What did she want me to see? Why was she waiting for me? Who is this pony? The thought of suicide was washed away by a flood of questions, and when I learned the answers to it all, my life changed. I found a new purpose, my resolve to be a hero had been reinstated, and finally, I had a place to belong.
I still wasn’t very good at my job, but I started to get better at it little by little, and then a lot better after Applejack joined and really taught us how to fight. I will never make up for what I did. I know that now, and it took far too long to realize it. But my life… is worth something. I belong somewhere, and even through all my mistakes… I’m not dead yet. I can still do the good I always wanted to, like all the ponies who raised me wanted me to. I am still doing it, and I’m still working on me. I never expected anypony to forgive or forget what I did, but the me I am today won’t be the me I am tomorrow. So… if you take nothing else from my life’s story… I hope you know that I never forgot, and I’m still not done growing yet.
“Snrk… T-that was cheesy,” Fluttershy laughed. In a single moment, I felt fury well up from my stomach, and I had half a mind to give it to her. Yet, I ducked into the kitchen and found a trash can as the fury came out as a violent liquid thrashing that burned my throat. I was so nervous through all of that, that I guess I must’ve actually twisted my stomach in knots.
“Holy s-” Rainbow caught herself, “crap, Pinkie, are you okay?” she asked. I wiped at my mouth and nodded.
“Yeah, I’m fine. Probably. I think I’ve just been so nervous that I-” another wave of fury came barreling up my throat, and back into the trash can my head ducked. So much for dinner. I felt a hoof start to rub my back, and after a minute or two, my stomach had settled. I turned to thank the pony behind, me, but seeing my mother’s stern face at my back caught the words in my throat like a fish in a net.
“Well? You said that somepony taught you manners. What do you say?” she asked, her tone just as harsh as it always was.
“T-thank you, ma’am,” I stuttered. She narrowed her eyes at me then shook her head.
“Good. It is far too late for me to be up right now. I would like it if you and your friends would return where ever you came from now.” She said, her demeanor unyielding. I just about felt my legs turn to jelly. Even… even after everything she still…? But… did I ever expect her to forgive me, really? I killed her daughter. This is just fair, I guess. No matter what I do, I killed my sister. Nothing can forgive that. Nopony could forgive that. There are sins, and then there are unforgivable sins, like the one I committed.
“Cloudy-” dad started, but mom stomped a hoof on the kitchen counter, making a sound like a gavel.
“No, I won’t hear another word. I’m done, and I am very tired. I thank you for feeding us, but we have work to accomplish in the morning, and I’m sure you all have a battle or something to prepare for. I wish you the best of luck in your up coming fights, and I hope the goddess will hear my prayers for your safety.” Mom started to head to the hall to the bedrooms, but before she went in her door, she stopped and looked at me again. Those pale blue eyes, clear as a still pond and cold as ice, the same color of mine, but opposite in temperature. Instead of shooting me, or stabbing me like the daggers they’d been before, I think I might’ve seen something like remorse in them.
“I still can’t forget what you’ve done. You hurt me, you hurt Limestone, and you hurt your family back then. If I ever see you again, well… you’d best be prepared to work.” Mom shut the gray wooden door behind her and just like that, a weight had been lifted. What was that? A breath came out of me that I didn’t remember holding, and then somepony stood up.
“Well, Ah figure that’s a good enough queue ta head out then. Come on y’all, we do have a fight ta prepare for tomorrow, and the big boss ain’t gonna go easy on us just cause we were out late.” Applejack said as she stood and stretched. Damn, she is flexible. How does a pony stand and bend like that?
“I… good luck, all of you. Um… come visit again, if you can. We’ll be praying for you.” Marble said. Huh. I never would’ve thought her to invite ponies back. But… can I even come back? Mom said…
“Oh, you’ll see me again for sure. I saw some very choice stone out there before it got too dark, and I’ll be certain to come inspect it in better light. There’s a town in Palomino I’m planning on building a store in, and I think this is the place I’ll buy my marble from.” Goose declared as he got to his hooves. Applejack scowled at him,
“Really?” she said. He rolled his eyes.
“Yes really. I had a lot of things to talk to Alto about today, and that was one of them. There’s not a single jeweler in miles of that place, and it makes a lot of money! Sure, maybe the roads suck, but those ponies are loaded. It’s a prime location!” he argued. Maud brought a hoof to her chin.
“An order all the way to Palomino? I’m sure there are closer stone vendors that could get you what you needed.” she argued.
“Oh come on, we mended a family here! Maybe not fixed everything, but the seam is starting to form now. That’s three for three, and I don’t mind throwing some extra bits to ponies I like. I’m a business stallion, and money talks. You could say it’s… a gift.” Goose offered. I furrowed my brow.
“Hold on, who mended what? She never forgave me, nopony did. Mom told us to leave!” I exclaimed. Dad got out of his chair and shook his head as he trotted over to me. He patted my back and helped me up from my seat by the trash can.
“Child, you’ve still so much to learn. Think about what your mother just said to you. If she never wanted to see you again, do you really think she would have told you to be ready to work if she does?”