//------------------------------//
// 2014 project - Post-Apocalyptic Ponyville - 2 
// Story: RoMS' Extravaganza 
// by RoMS 
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“ It was the harshest of times. It was the wildest of times. It was the time of our most violent vibes. The time of our most conceited caprices. The time of our less well-thought fuck-ups.
And you know… We never cared. It was, without a doubt, the best of times.
We did think we would never die.”


[ α Ω α ]

“When everypony disappeared, for you it was a disaster…” The pale Earth Pony mare whispered as her hoof prodded the wound. “For me, it was freedom.”
She coughed violently and her breath died into a raspy complaint. Her backlegs hacked on the snowy ground and, while she held her mess of a flank from which spurted long trails of red, she whimpered. The blood stained her rose hide. She could only cast a hazy glance at the hooded Pegasus mare, now towering over her dying body.
“We must go,” another hooded pony came forth, reaching out at the Pegasus. “The blizzard is buildin’ up. We gonna to die if we stay here.”
As the clouds spewed whiter and bulged darker, the second hooded pony mare lit her horn, casting a faint white light across the frozen clearing. The leaf-less trees were still standing proud, like a series of bleached ribcages trying to fork out at the sky.
“Just…” The Pegasus sighed. “Gimme a sec’. I have something to do.”
The Pegasus’s friend nodded and walked afar. As the crunching of hooves over the snow fainted away, the Pegasus glanced back at the dying Earth Pony. Her lungs were hissing and the snow slowly drank her blood, taking bit by bit the same colour as her fur.
“I’m cold,” the Earth Pony mare muttered.
“I know,” was the answer. “But it will be over soon.”
The tears were crystallising on their cheeks and the whistle of the wind accompanied those last shared moments.
“It’s sad,” the dying mare said. “After all those years, you still give me a bit of… friendship… I don’t know. I’m hurting.”
The Pegasus put her hoof on her lips, hushing her.
“Just. Stay put, please. It will be over soon.”
The Earth Pony mare pushed back the foreleg and coughed.
“I remember what the teacher said just before… before she went away… Can’t remember her name…” She said with a sad voice graveling down slowly as death gradually made its path.
“Cheerilee!” the Pegasus cut off, her voice uneven and hesitant. “Her name was Cheerilee. Please stop.”
“I don’t know… Don’t remember. It’s been so long since it happened. How long has it been…?”
The Pegasus looked at her hooves and counted, muttering her way to the right number.
“Five years,” the Pegasus replied as her head slowly hung down, quivering. “Please, no more.”
Time dawned on the Earth Pony mare. Her sullen blue eyes watered even more. Her nose leaked slightly faster and sobs filled the freezing air.
“I don’t want to die,” she pleaded.
“It’s too late,” the Pegasus bubbled back. “I can’t do… anything. You’re a lost cause. You’ve always been one.”
The Earth Pony stretched a hoof out and tried to reach the Pegasus. She stepped back to avoid contact with the dying mare. As a result, the hoof dropped and sunk a little in the snow.
“Do you think that I’m going to see Cheerilee again?
“Just stop,” the Pegasus hissed, arching her body. “Please, just die now… I… Can’t hear anymore.”
“Do you think I’m going to see everypony? Even father?” the Earth Pony continued. “Do you think I’m going back home?”
Too weak to rub her icing eyes, the Earth Pony gasped as her eyelids pained her. Dignity faintly departed. She grunted and tried to roll aside. A wounded stray dog was the only thing the Pegasus could think of as she watched.
“Please, stop!” the Pegasus cried.
Unable to take it anymore, the winged Pony shivered and her rump dropped on the grizzling cold ice. Now crying, she stretched her hooves and went for one very last, animalistic hug.
“You never understood, Diamond Tiara. Didn’t you…? Why did you follow us?” Scootaloo asked, pushing her hood back on her shoulders as her lips trembled, white from the cold. “Why… did you try to kill us… again?”
Heavy tears rolled on Tiara’s cheeks along with one single stream of blood, hanging from the side of her mouth. The fallen mare sobbed, coughed, and jerked sideways in the process. The large piece of rebar was hurting, going straight through her back and protruding from out of her flank.
“I was hungry,” she whined. “I was just… hungry.”
She was rachitic, her skin playing mountains and valleys over her frail ribs. Scootaloo could now feel it as her hooves clawed in and closed around the Earth Pony’s neck. She was small, so malnourished she had had no real adolescent growth. She couldn’t have prevailed… One against three. What had she been thinking? She had been crazy and she had paid for it.
Diamond Tiara coughed, her eyes rosy as she spewed peeps of red over her face, “Can… Can we still be friends…?”
No answer came.
“If… If you see Silver Spoon,” she continued, her voice now just a ghostly whisper. “Tell her… I’m sorry.”
The cold kiss of death came as she slumbered away in Scootaloo’s hooves. She coughed one last time, her blood tainting slowly her white and indigo mane. She hacked one last time, until her whole body finally lay unmoving, prey to the snow that had never stopped falling.
When everypony disappeared, for you it was a disaster… for me, it was freedom… The word echoed in Scootaloo’s blurry mind. Diamond Tiara was wrong. Not everypony vanished; it was just the adults. It had been a free-for-all ever since… Time spent fighting, fleeing, and scavenging. The orange mare thought about the hurting past, especially about her foster sister. She went for her face and rubbed the large scar running from her left ear to her muzzle just under the eye. After all this time, it was still hurting so bad.
“You’re wrong,” Scootaloo whispered, sniffing back the snot rushing out of her nose.
Still hugging the limp pony that she had vowed as her arch nemesis a long time ago, she tried to repress the cry but failed.
“For me, it was freedom as well.”
“Scootaloo?!” Apple Bloom’s voice called out through the blizzard.
“I’m coming!” she replied. “I’m coming…”
With a last glance at the body’s glassy eyes, Scootaloo gently dropped the wobbly head down the ground. There, snow would soon bury the misdeed and she will be long gone when the spring would come and claim its due.
Scootaloo walked away, followed the voice trail until a large, decrepit home appeared in the white. The roof had been blown off by the harsh wind and one single yellow light was filtering through the crack of the first floor window shutter. The door was open and a shadow of a Pony was waiting.
“Close the door, Apple Bloom,” Scootaloo grunted. “We’re not warming up the outside...”
“Ah Ah… you know ah don’t like sarcasm. Fer yer good sake, ye could ha’ been killed outside.”
Scootaloo shrugged it off and stumbled across the room. She went down crashing on the mattress they had dragged from the only room of the place. Apple Bloom sighed and walked silently towards her partner. She sat next to the fire and soon lost herself in looking at the ever-changing flames.
“Look at you, dear!” Sweetie Bell said as she finally looked away from the stew she was preparing.
She rushed at her Pegasus friend’s side and, using her own brown and torn up hood, she started brushing the blood off her fur and barding.
“Are we there yet?” Scootaloo sighed. “I’m tired of walking.”
“Tomorrow if the storm is down,” Sweetie Bell answered, scrubbing the red paint off Scootaloo’s face.
The Pegasus ticked as her friend went far too close to the scar. She tut-tuted and pushed the friendly hoof. Awkwardness settled between the two.
“Sweetie Belle?” Scootaloo broke the silence. “Am… Am I a bad Pony?”
Scootaloo swallowed and turned her head towards her friend, avoiding eye contact.
“No, you’re not,” Sweetie Belle comforted, rushing out to hug her winged friend.
Scootaloo’s eyes fluttered. Her lips blubbered and her febrile hooves went into a frail commonly shared hug. She broke and sobbed out loud, her hooves suddenly crushing over her Unicorn friend’s back. Sweetie Belle winced but said nothing as she stroked over Scootaloo’s mane with a faint smile.
“It hurts,” Scootaloo whimpered. “It hurts so much.”
Apple Bloom, ever so silent, joined in for the hug, resting her face over Scootaloo’s right wing.
“I know it hurts,” Sweetie Belle said. “But, you remember the message, don’t you?”
Slowly, Scootaloo nodded and her face took refuge in Sweetie Belle’s messy and dirty mane. With a warm smile, Apple bloom dropped a hoof in the saddlebag hidden under her makeshift barding. She ransacked it and pulled out a compact cassette reader. Even old and battered, it still had a print of an electric blue double music note with a light blue outline on its side. Apple Bloom pushed a button and after a sizzling crack of static burst out of it, a mare’s voice tuned.
“Hello Scootaloo. I don’t know where you are right now or if you can hear me. I’m in Manehattan right now. If you can hear me, please let me know. I’ll be waiting. I hope you can reach me. Please, Scootaloo, for Celestia’s sake please… Come back.”
As the end of the recording crackled with the sobbing of a mare, Scootaloo’s ragged breath came to a halt. She closed her eyes and inhaled one long breath, kept it for ten full seconds before releasing it.
All three tightened into a hug, they could hear each other heartbeat. And, for once, they weren’t cold.
“Hey, girls?” Apple Bloom broke in with a grin.
“What?” Scootaloo coughed, stripping her reddened eyes from their tears.
“Regardin’ this hug session, it’s no homo, right?”
The trio laughed silently as the night trailed out and, ever so stronger, the blizzard screamed outside. Tomorrow would be another day, for the voice on the recording had been Rainbow Dash’s voice.