//------------------------------//
// Chapter 17. I will go talk with her 
// Story: The Last of the Dark Ponies 
// by Askre 
//------------------------------//

Chapter 17

“His heart just finally gave way. He was probably on the brink when we arrived,” Dew Doe quietly explained to Starlight and the earth ponies. The five mares had gathered in a hut Prince Rutherford had assigned to them to rest in.

“The yaks said it’s been several days since they rescued them, but there is no telling for how long they had been wandering the snowy wilds, driven mad with fear as they were. I dare not even ask Granite how long it’s been. Her mind is very fragile right now and she needs peace and just time be with her daughter,” the blue pegasus continued. “I mean, she just lost her father on top of it all.”

“Rock Hard did manage to tell us one thing, these mountains of fears were called 'Tall Mountains',” Foxy added, looking glum. She had not enjoyed breaking the news of the old goat’s passing to his fragile daughter and granddaughter.

Starlight nodded and took out the map. Already she saw marked on the map a range of mountains at the borders of yak and mountain goat territory called Tall Mountains. She noticed they formed the westernmost part of the larger mountain range that the ponies had named the Crystal Mountains.

“If he is there, he’s been surprisingly close yet just far enough to escape our search parties,” Starlight mused as she fully considered this new information. “When Sombra possessed Private Iceland, Flash Sentry told me that they encountered them in Sombra’s Maw. He then fled and most of the rumors we had of his sightings were in the north. Look at where Vanhoover is - it’s almost directly south of Tall Mountains.” 

Starlight frowned and studied the map closer. “The zebras that Twilight told me about came from the west. The goats have pretty much confirmed where he is. He has to be in the Tall Mountains. From there he can go to the western lands without us noticing. It all makes sense now. He’s close enough to still be able to spy on us, but still far enough away to avoid any of our search parties.” 

“I guess you two would not advise asking the remaining two any further details?” The unicorn returned her attention to the pegasi sisters. Not surprisingly both Dew and Foxy shook their heads.

“Pebble was just a fresh cadet on what was supposed to be a routine checkup mission. She’s just barely survived living through a nightmare and her mother isn’t doing much better,” Foxy explained. “I don’t think their minds can handle being reminded about what happened to them.”

“Foxy is right. We were lucky to get them calmed down this much and we still lost Rock Hard. The goats have given us all they can,” Dew Doe concurred.

The pegasi left the hut, wanting to do a final check up on the goats. Starlight took another look at the map. She considered going to Prince Rutherford to get some details how to get to Tall Mountains. A snort from Barbell caught her attention.

“Seriously, they are fine with helping them. Goats they barely just met. But oh, it’s fine to ignore Barricade,” Barbell muttered. The mare was already halfway towards the hut’s entrance.

“Barbell,” Starlight addressed her, but the earth mare ignored her and stormed out of the hut.

“I will go talk with her.” Maud unexpectedly volunteered and before the unicorn could even say anything, she was already heading out.

“Ookay… I’ll just sit here then and plan our next move,” Starlight glanced around at the now empty hut. She sighed and returned to the map. Well at least they are not directly fighting.





Maud found Barbell in a corner of the village. The opal mare was growling and smashing logs that were piled right next to her. The gray pony didn’t show anything outwardly but she was wondering if the yaks minded this was happening. She did look at a nearby one who was also watching. He seemed to realize what the pony was thinking.

“Pony angry. Me say when yak angry, yak smash. She ask for something to smash, so me give logs to smash. Very therapeutic,” he explained before walked away, satisfied with a job well done.

Maud had to admit there was a certain logic to that. Barbell was venting her frustration without directly harming anyone and at least the yaks had been happy to provide it.

“I don’t want to talk,” Barbell growled, having become aware of Maud close by.

The gray pony wasn’t too surprised to hear that. However, she had three sisters and one happened to be a bit of a hothead and Maud had long since learned how most hotheads worked, so she just sat down and continued to watch.

“I mean, what’s there to talk about anyway?” Barbell snorted and started to kick away some of the broken logs to make room for fresh ones.

“Doesn’t Barricade deserve it anyway? He’s the bad brother, the one who keeps causing trouble. So what if he went on his own to the Crystal Empire to help his brother, see if he was alright. Then both get tortured by that bastard,” she continued to ramble and smashed a log.

“And it’s Private who gets all the love and support. Barricade? Oh, he can just slink back to Manehattan and rot there for all they care. It’s fine if he gets nightmares and meltdowns and zones out at a moment’s notice,” the mare snarled and now jumped on the entire pile of the remaining logs, obliterating them with her hooves.

Maud said nothing through the entire tirade, just calmly watched as Barbell trounced the entire log pile until there was little left but splinters. When it was over the opal pony was staring at her, stubbornly fighting back tears.

“He is a jerk, but he is my jerk and now he is back with that bastard and our daughter, too. But do they care? I doubt they even blinked over them being taken. Probably just cried that their precious Private was taken.” Barbell looked away, one tear did manage to break free down her cheek.

“You care,” Maud simply stated. “Why does it matter if they don’t?”

Barbell blinked and for a moment all the anger seemed to vanish from her face. She looked at Maud who still sported her completely unreadable expression. The opal pony sat down and frowned.

“I…” she started but didn’t really find any words to say right now.

“I guess I’m jealous. I… saw Barricade sometimes just zone out, like he was trapped in some bad memory. He would wake up screaming in terror…I just never knew what to do…I wanted to help him but…just didn’t know how,” Barbell sighed. “I guess I just hoped it would just all go away, it would roll over him like every other time something bad happened. He would eventually shrug it off. He’s always bounced back before. This time he didn’t.”

“Barricade and I...we just clicked. Even back when we were just friends. We would snark and jibe, but we also respected each other. Yes, he is a jerk, but I’m not much better. I always hated that ponies thought he had brainwashed me, that I was some poor dimwitted bimbo he had ensnared. No, I’m just the only one who could handle him. If he gave me crap, I paid back in full. We understood one another.” Barbell lowered herself down to lay on the ground, crossing her front legs and stared down.

“He completes you?” Maud asked and now did tilt her head slightly.

“That’s it…I…” Barbell lifted her head and pointed at Maud, but then froze as it dawned on the mare what she had been doing. She narrowed her eyes. “I thought I said I didn’t want to talk.”

“I…ah…HOW?” Barbell rose up, staring at Maud utterly confused. “You barely said a word. I..what?”

“I have a sister not unlike you,” Maud stated, still showing nothing outwardly. Inwardly she was smirking at how well this had worked.

“That explains that then,” Barbell grunted and started glancing around at the destroyed wood all around her.

“Fine then,” the opal pony plopped back to the ground, crossing her legs again. “I’m bothered that Barricade was never offered the help he needed. Yet I still can’t really blame them because Barricade was horrible towards them and they do have a good reason to not really want to help him. It’s driving me nuts.”





Not that far away from Yakyakistan, but still within the territory belonging to the mountain goats, a young teenage filly desperately continued to fly down the mountain path she had located. Cara was tiring, this had been a little more difficult than she had anticipated and so far she had seen no sign of civilization anywhere.

Got to keep going, got to get help, for dad, Uncle Private, my sisters, grandma and grandpa and Rainbow Dash. She landed on the path, breathing heavily. The snow was deep. When she tried to walk through it she fell and nearly got completely buried.

Ugh, this sounded so much easier in my head, she grumbled and spat out snow and shook it off her head. She rose up again and stubbornly tried to wade through.

Cara never showed it outwardly, had to retain her reputation as a tough girl after all, but she had really been excited to meet Rainbow Dash. One of the best fliers in the Wonderbolts today. The filly considered herself a fan of the flying team. Barricade had taken her to a few shows.

She had no ambition to join. Her interests lay far more in mechanics and working on machines. The teen was hoping to enter an engineering school soon. Cara had received her cutie mark when she managed to disassemble and reassemble one of the workout machines at her father’s gym. Barricade had not been very amused when she took it apart and ordered her to put it back together. Her father then watched stunned when she did exactly that. One flash later her wrench and screwdriver appeared on the filly’s flank.

But to get the opportunity to help Rainbow Dash? That was probably the brightest spot in an otherwise abysmal last few days for the filly.

“Stupid snow! You would think a pegasus could just walk on it like clouds,” Cara grunted as she continued to struggle onward.

I Will get help. I’ll show everypony that I’m grown up now, that I’m not just little filly anymore. Hey, that stupid Sombra thought so. She stopped for a moment, wondering if she should rest a bit so she could fly instead of bothering with walking through the snow.

Cara sniffed, she missed snarking with her dad and Barbell, bothering the rest of the gang. For a brief moment she wished Blue, Barbell’s brother, would show up. He was big and strong and could carry her down the path.

“I want to go home,” she sighed and lay down fully on the snow, resisting any urge to whimper. Then a sound caught her attention and  a shadow fell on her. The filly glanced up.

Uh oh. Cara’s eyes opened wide. A large yeti was looming over her, growling and eyeing her hungrily.

The creature tried to grab her, but the filly found a sudden burst of energy and flew swiftly into the air. The yeti snarled and started to chase her. Cara couldn’t fly too high right now, she was too tired for that, but right now the teen used whatever reserves left in her to be just out of reach.

“Oh, frick! I’m gonna die! I’m gonna die!” Cara cried as she swerved around in the air, avoiding the yeti as he made attempts to snatch her from the air.

Unfortunately, the teen was just too tired from the long flight from the fort and her attempts to trudge through the snow. She accidentally dropped down a bit and that was enough for the creature to slam a hand into her, causing the filly to lose control of her flight and plummet right down to the ground. She plunged headfirst into the snow.

I’m so dead. Dad… Barbell…anypony. Cara struggled to free herself, expecting to be grabbed at any second. Just as she managed to lift her head, she heard a painful yelp.

Cara looked up and blinked at the sight. King Sombra was standing in front of her and impaled on his horn was the yeti, wailing in pain. The large unicorn flicked his head, tossing the creature off, who crashed hard on the ground, now with a gaping, bleeding hole on its side.

Screeching loudly, the yeti stumbled back to its legs and began backing off. It bared its teeth at Sombra, but otherwise didn’t try and attack, just continued to scamper away, one hand nursing the wound.

“Pathetic,” Sombra snorted, then glanced back at Cara who was staring back at him, still half-buried in the snow.

“I’m not thanking you,” Cara grunted and frowned, the fright over the yeti having passed. She broke free from the snow and stood up, staring defiantly at the king.

“So much like your father.” Sombra chuckled, still finding Cara’s attitude to be quite amusing. “You remind me quite a bit of him, before I broke him.”

“So, I take it you are taking me back?” Cara grunted, she felt a sharp pain on her side. Glancing at it, she grimaced when seeing she was bleeding a little. The yeti had managed to scratch her, just barely missing her wing.

Sombra didn’t answer her, instead he picked her up using his magic and held her closer so he could examine the wound. It wasn’t too bad, but had it hit the wing it would probably have broken it, given how young Cara was. He switched to his dark magic and used it to seal up the wound. The filly yelped because the process stung quite a bit.

“Here, let me show you something,” Sombra then said as he dropped her from the magic hold right back to the snow. Then he started walking towards a ridge. Cara sputtered, glared at the king before looking at her side again. The wound was sealed, but not fully healed. The teen had a feeling too much stress would reopen it.

Then with great reluctance she started following, using his tracks to stay out of the deepest snow, she was still too tired to fly. When they reached the top of the ridge, Sombra stepped aside so she could see.

Cara stepped up beside him and her brow rose when seeing down a mountain slope and further away was a village surrounded by a wall, two big wooden statues of yaks guarding the gate.

“So close. If the yeti hadn’t interrupted, I may just have missed you escaping to the yaks,” Sombra remarked as he observed the village himself.

“Oh, come on,” Cara groaned and sat down, feeling very defeated right now.

“You are not going to punish Uncle Private, are you?” she wondered and looked at Sombra. She raised an eyebrow, the king was still staring at the village, a heavy scowl on his face.

“It can’t be,” he growled softly to himself. Then he transformed into shadow form and slunk down the mountain towards the village at great speed.

Cara looked around confused. For a brief moment she had seen Sombra going down, but then he just vanished. The filly rose up, wondering if this was her chance to make a break for the village.

However, she didn’t get the chance. Sombra rematerialized right beside her, still scowling hard, the king looked very unhappy.

“So close, so soon? How did she escape when I activated…” he trailed off and his eyes narrowed. The king glanced down at Cara. “I almost feel like thanking you. Had you not escaped and brought me here, I wouldn’t have been aware that unwanted visitors were already so close to me.”

“You’re not welcome,” Cara snorted. She yelped when Sombra picked her up using his magic and held her at his eye level.

“You know what? I think I’m just going to reward you for this unwitting assistance. It will leave one filly less for Private to whine about at me, begging I don’t harm them,” Sombra said with a smirk and promptly tossed her towards the village. The filly landed on the slope and started sliding down.

“Feel free to tell them that I await their arrival,” he called after her, before dissolving into his smoke form and disappeared.

End chapter 17