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// Prologue: A Pure Heart 
// Story: Taking Strides 
// by Gloominosity 
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The only light in the room came from the orange glow underneath the door, filtering in from the bright hallway. Blossom waited in the darkness, keeping as still as possible. She could hear the even breathing of her sleeping brother and sister beside her.

She was partly waiting for the rest of the Stable to fall asleep, leaving only the night guard for her to get past, but the other part of her wanted to stay as long as possible. Once she left, there would be no return. The Stable she would not miss, but her brother and sister…

Blossom took a deep breath in and stood up on her aching legs. Her heart gave a sorrowful twinge as her brother shifted to fill the empty space she would be leaving behind. A life without them would be hard, but she forced herself to remember what she was leaving them for.

If she stayed, she would always regret it. She would live out her miserable life, trapped below the surface, filled with regret. There was no choice. She had to leave.

As she carefully stepped over her siblings and crossed the room towards the door, a rustling noise came from behind her. Her body froze and her head slowly turned.

“Blossom?” came a soft whisper.

She closed her eyes and tilted her chin downward. “I’ll only be a moment. Please go back to sleep.”

The smaller mare stood up in the darkness. “It’s late. Where are you going?”

“Melon, please.” Blossom turned towards her,, lifting a hoof to affectionately brush her little sister’s cheek. “I’ll only be gone a little while. I’ll be back by the time you wake up. There’s nothing to worry about.”

Melon looked up at her for a long, silent moment. She was unable to read her expression in the darkness. “You promise?”

Blossom’s heart ached, as if there was a hoof inside her chest, pressing down on it. “Yes. I promise.”

“Well...alright.” The smaller mare laid back down beside their brother and closed her eyes.

Blossom had to blink tears from her eyes as she opened the door and slipped out of the room, into the hallway. She winced for a moment as her eyes adjusted to the bright overhead lights, then she pushed the door closed behind her.

As it clicked back into place, she knew that it would never open for her again.

The Stable was eerily silent as Blossom crept down the hallways. She stopped at every corner and peeked around it before continuing on her way, careful to avoid the night guard. There wasn’t exactly a convenient explanation for why she was roaming so far away from her room. If she was caught by the night guard, she might be brought before the Overwatch - or worse, the Overherd themselves.

The pocket of her jumpsuit felt heavier than it should. As if it not only contained something that would have her imprisoned, but also the guilt she felt from taking it. There was nothing she could do except keep moving.

Finally, Blossom found herself standing before the gear-shaped door that led to the outside world. There were no guards here, there never were. No pony in their right mind would hang out around the Stable door.

Her heart felt like it were climbing up into her throat. She felt light-headed, almost dizzy. Was this really happening? After all this time? Her trembling hooves brought her to the control panel. 

She stared at the numbers until they started to blur in her mind. There was a code, a simple digit code that she knew by heart. And still, she hesitated.

Her siblings would never understand, that was why they couldn’t know. They would call her insane. They would make her stay. She couldn’t stay, not anymore. Not when she knew there was a world out there, not when there was a voice in her heart drawing her outside.

Blossom punched in the code and turned her gaze to the button. It was red, surrounded by yellow and black striped tape to show just how important it was. And just how dangerous.
She moved her hoof over it, hesitating again. What was wrong with her? She had made up her mind to leave long ago. Why was it so difficult now that she was about to do it?
Determination settled over her heart and her trembling hoof grew still. This was something she could control, something she could choose.
As Blossom drew a deep breath and slammed her hoof down on the button, a voice softer than a whisper spoke from behind her.
“Blossom?”
She whirled around, nearly tripping over her hooves. Two green eyes stared back at her, filled with tears.
“What are you doing?” Melon choked, “What’s happening?”
Blossom’s reply was cut off by the hiss of the locking mechanism shifting after over a century of stillness. She looked over her shoulder as the door began rolling open.
“Go back to bed, Melon,” Blossom ordered. “You’re breaking Stable rules by being here.”
“You’re breaking Stable rules by opening the door! How could you do this?!”
A sliver of light from the doorway grew larger as it opened further, creeping its way across the floor toward Blossom’s hooves. She stepped into the light, looking out into the world for the first time in her life.
The sky was still dark. The sun had not yet risen. And still, it was the most beautiful sight she had ever seen. How could it be so...big?
Her hoof scraped against something rough and she looked down to see that she was standing on dirt. Actual dirt. Not the metal floors of the Stable. Natural, coarse dirt that had come from the earth.
Blossom lifted her hoof and stepped further out into this strange, new world. It was everything she had expected and nothing like what she expected at the same time.
There were no trees, no lush grass, no bubbling streams. It was a wasteland as far as the eye could see. But the sky. The sky was wondrous and grand.
“WHAT?!” a voice screamed from behind her.
Blossom turned back towards the Stable to see a mare standing at the control panel. She recognized her as one of the members of the Overherd, but couldn’t remember her name.
“Y-you...you opened the door!” she screeched, eyes bulging in disbelief. “How could you-”
“Blossom, please.”
Melon was standing in the dirt, just outside the door of the stable. Her expression was pleading. Desperate. “Please come back inside. We can fix this.”
“Blossom,” stated a third voice, one that made her heart flutter and her hooves tingle.
She looked up, towards the horizon and finally saw...him. He looked just how she pictured him. Tall, rugged, and handsome. “I...I came,” she whispered.
Instead of a smile, he frowned. “You shouldn’t have.”
Beyond him, from behind outcroppings of rock, more ponies appeared. They fell into line behind him. One of them, a huge and muscled stallion with a long scar trailing down from his ear to his neck, grinned maliciously. “She actually fell for it.”
“Fell for it?” Blossom repeated, looking back towards the stallion that held her heart, the one she had speaking with over a radio for weeks. “Fell for what?”
“Step aside, lass,” the menacing stallion growled. “You opened the door for us and now we’re taking your stable.”
“Absolutely NOT,” roared the Overherd mare from inside the doorway. She slammed her hoof down on the button and the door began rolling closed.
“Melon, go back inside!” Blossom shoved her sister backward so hard the smaller mare fell into the dirt.
“Not without you!” Melon pleaded.
The small army of ponies that stood with the scarred stallion rushed for the door, shoving past the two mares. But they were too slow.
The door hissed shut and settled into place.
Blossom’s heart sank. She had been wrong. He didn’t want her to leave the Stable so that they could be together forever. He didn’t want to take her away to some magical mansion above-ground and show her the wonders of the world.
He had wanted her to open the door so that his friends could steal the resources within her stable.
“Blossom?” Melon whispered. “What...what happened?”
Blossom looked down into the eyes of her heartbroken little sister. This was all her fault. She had made a mistake, a terrible mistake that ruined her life. And ruined Melon’s life too.
Suddenly, something pulled Blossom to her hooves. She looked into the eyes of the stallion she had once fantasized about a life beside. He squeezed her hoof between both of his. “You have to run. Get out of here. They’ll hurt you now that you didn’t let them in.”
She looked over to see the herd of angry ponies already on their way towards her. “Melon!” she whispered urgently. “Melon, run. Go! NOW!”
Melon wasted no time scrambling to her hooves and taking off across the dirt. She had always been fast, much faster than her siblings.
Blossom galloped after her, heart racing. This was how it ended. She was going to die.
There was a loud crack, like that of electricity, and fiery pain erupted in one of her hind hooves, sending her flipping head over tail until she collapsed in the dirt. Her chest heaved as she gasped for the air that had been knocked from her lungs.
Melon looked back over her shoulder and slowed her pace, but Blossom shook her head. “GO!”
Blossom tried getting back to her hooves, she tried to gallop on, but the pain was too much. She could only watch as her little sister galloped farther and farther away from her, out into the wasteland.


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