The Hollow Pony

by Type_Writer


11 - The Undead of the Bayou

My ragged breath caught sharply in my throat as Meadowbrook slid the dagger across my foreleg. The cut was shallow, but that didn’t make it hurt any less, and I struggled to catch my breath and resume my manual breathing exercises as I endured the pain. The warm wind here, atop the hill behind Meadowbrook’s cottage, blew over my fresh wound. It only made the pain deepen. As I breathed, I tasted the scent of smoke, from the little bonfire we’d kindled to sit around.

Meadowbrook gave me a sympathetic look, as she extended my foreleg to examine the blood. It oozed from my fresh wound like watery mud, and I could feel her move her grip around my leg to try and squeeze out more as she spoke. “Y’all be seein’ how dark it is?”

Around me, Dinky, Snips, and Snails all leaned in to look at the ichor. It seemed to bubble and writhe as it was exposed to sunlight, and I felt sick as I gasped for air. How easily Meadowbrook drew blood, with the knowledge that even fatal wounds would recover in time.

She continued to speak, as my blood oozed down the side of my leg, soaked my fur, and dripped off the underside. “When a Hollow has died so many times, their body begin to deteriorate in the long term. Their corpse begin to rot, like before the Curse, but the process is halted by the most basic regeneration. Thus, they be trapped, in a sort of limbo between healin’ and decay. The internal organs back up, the blood be contaminated, and they become stiff and clumsy as it coagulates inside their veins.”

Snips chuckled darkly. “Is that what’s going on? I thought we were just getting old pony’s knees. That’s a relief!” Dinky gave him a gentle kick with the side of her hoof. It was almost playful, but Dinky seemed to be very focused on what Meadowbrook had been saying. Snails gave them both an odd look, before we all turned our attention back to the old alchemist.

Meadowbrook sighed at our playful antics. “When an Undead reaches this point, there is nothin’ that can be done. No healin’ potion can fix this, no mundane poultice can repair the damage. While Pyromancy can repair immediate wounds, as I be about to demonstrate, it will not be able to heal anythin’ more than that. The Curse seems to bring any form of regeneration to a complete halt once it determines that the Cursed Undead be mobile and functional once more.”

Her hooves took on a gentle red glow as they held my foreleg, and I felt her warmth, her fire, bleed through them and into me as she used her Pyromancy to seal the wound. Snails in particular leaned in to watch, and let out a quiet uttering of “Coooool” as my sundered flesh knit itself back together before his eyes. Even my veins, under my thin flesh, seemed to reconnect where they had been split. My pale, colorless fur remained separated however, leaving not a scar, but a distinct absence of one.

Snails leaned back and looked at his own hooves, and a small ember sprung forth from his own hoof. It was weak, but present, and Dinky seemed to turn away from the sight. That was interesting, and it made me reflect more on what Dinky had said so long before; she had no interest in Pyromancy, and it wasn’t often practiced by unicorns, since they could do Sorcery. Snails must have been an exception, then.

Snips screwed up his face, and pointed back towards Meadowbrook’s cottage at the other end of the hill. “What about Zecora? We’ve used her recipes and bandages and pull...poultries?”

Bside him, Snails blinked, and the ember in his hoof winked out. “Poultices. Right?”

Snips nodded eagerly. “Yeah, those! The bandages that burn cold.”

Meadowbrook smiled as she released my hoof. I rubbed the spot that had been cut, as if to comfort myself that the wound was healed now, but all I did was smear my hoof with the cloying blood. “Zecora be incredibly clever, and while I may be the better Pyromancer, Zecora has combined my teachin’s with her own extensive knowledge of potions and herblore. Those poultices and her potions represent her finest work, imbued with her own Pyromancy, and even they can only serve as one-time-use replacements for our own healin’ hooves.

“I just wish they could do more,” Meadowbrook continued, as her expression fell. “Holly, Snips, and Snails…there be no nice way to say this, but you are all at this threshold of Hollowin’. Ya keep dyin’, and you’re due to go Hollow soon. Five or six more, at the most, and less if you begin to lose your grip on reality, or otherwise lose hope. You need to do your best to stay safe, and stay sane, because every death could be your last.”

It took us all a moment to understand that, but when we had, silence descended over the hilltop. Dinky blinked at her for a few moments, then looked at the rest of us. She looked like she wanted to say something, to apologize or pity us or outright reject Meadowbrook’s prognosis, but the words wouldn’t come.

Snails seemed mostly confused by this, and he sat back and looked down at the ground as he mulled it over. But his other half, Snips, seemed to be in shock. He shivered and his hooves twitched, and under his breath, I could hear him mutter, “Fi-five or six? B-but we died once on the way here, so it’s…it’s gotta be less than that…”

Eventually, Dinky found her words, and she stood up while she motioned her hoof towards me. “Wait, wait, what about Holly, at least? Zecora said she was learning, and improving; that has to mean something!”

With a sigh, Meadowbrook shook her head. “She would be the first Undead to make any sort of upwards progress. At this point, it be almost always a steep drop as depression sets in, though a few Undead have managed to…flatten the curve. Keep their heads straight, even when they be so Hollowed, but your mind and body must be mighty strong.”

Dinky was still glancing between us, unsatisfied at the answer, so Meadowbrook continued. “It’s possible I be wrong. I wish I knew more about the process, or even the Curse itself, but its very nature makes it a pain to study. It’s real dangerous to study Hollows in particular, as the curse seems to teach them how to steal souls as it overtakes ‘em. But everything I ever been taught in my life became depressingly useless when we all turned undead. All of it said that this sort of state be impossible to maintain, through natural or magical means, and yet…” She waved her hoof at the treeline around us. “Here we be.”

Finally, Dinky sat down, still shaking her head. “Well…what do you know about the Curse itself, then? What have you actually learned, after all this time?”

Meadowbrook looked unsure. “It won’t be helpful, you know. We’ve learned frustratin’ly little because the problem is so deeply metaphysical-”

“Aren’t you one of those pillars or something?!” Snips suddenly shouted, as he jumped to his hooves. “How long have you been studying this? And this is the best you got?”

 Dinky jumped in surprise as well, but she nodded a moment later as she found herself in agreement with Snips. “Meadowbrook, you wrote the book on Equestrian sicknesses. Literally, your books were required reading for ponies studying medicine! You have to know something...”

Meadowbrook sighed, and lowered her head. “Then I will tell you what I do know.”

As she gathered her thoughts, I stepped away. I noticed my hooves trembled as I walked, and I dropped back to my knees beside Dinky, which she seemed grateful for. She leaned against me just as much as I leaned against her, and I decided to try and focus on my breathing. Right now, it was difficult to keep it steady. Snips still seemed distinctly agitated, and he kept glaring at Mage Meadowbrook, like he was blaming her for telling him his time was so short. 

When Meadowbrook spoke, her tone seemed to take on a bit more of a scholarly tone. I got the sense she was reciting something she’d memorized a very, very long time ago. “Equestrian medicine be based on a concept: That everything about a pony’s health be built upon three things: the Body, the Mind, and the Soul. Modern Equestrian medicine be long focused on the Body, and what it be made of, and what can afflict it, but all three be of equal importance.

“The Body be what you are: It be your flesh, your bones, your blood. Filth attracts illness, which we were just only barely beginnin’ to see in detail when the sun stopped. Apparently illness be caused by animals—too small to see—attackin’ the body in ways too small to be seen with the naked eye, causin’ fever, plague, and decay. The body can also be damaged, through combat, or accident, breakin’ bones and rupturin’ organs. Poisons can also interfere with the body’s workin’s, disruptin’ their natural rhythms and causin’ damage that way.”

We all nodded. We were decently familiar with this knowledge, and it was the most immediately apparent to us, so Meadowbrook continued.

“The Mind be what you think. It be your thoughts, your memories, and your knowledge. And because it ibe so hard to study, Equestrian science has to go through the body to truly study it in most ways. The brain be where the Mind and Body meet, where what you think becomes what you do, and how you do it. Your brain tell your leg to move, and so it does. It tell your lungs to breathe, and so they do.” She looked, sadly, at me as she said that.

“When it be disturbed, those thoughts can be interrupted or misinterpreted by the Body. Like weather signals bein’ misread. And your body become confused, and often damaged by the miscommunication. This can, in turn, damage the brain and cause mental illness...but we still know so precious little about those. And now, maybe we never will. The best we had was the usin’ chemicals to try and physically repair the damage to the Body, in hopes it would heal the Mind in turn.

“Finally...” Mage Meadowbrook pressed her hoof to her breast. “The Soul is what you feel. It be your passion, for your work, for life, and for the other ponies around you. It motivates you, and pushes you forward, to succeed, and to survive. Even our own Pyromancy flame, it be nothing but an abstraction, a representation of a pony’s Soul made manifest, and a way to channel the power of that Soul. For individual ponies, this be represented by our Cutie Mark; it be a window to the Soul, a magical interpretation of that pony’s deepest passion. But how do you study a pony’s passion?”

Her hoof dropped, as did her eyes. “You can’t, not like you can study their body. You can’t dissect a Soul. But you can study the way it change the world around itself, like determinin’ the shape of a rock by the way the water flows around it.

“That too, is the only way we have been able to study the Curse.” Finally, Meadowbrook stood once more, and turned to display her cutie mark. Just like everypony else’s, it was that same awful dark spiral. A whirlpool of smoke, like color and light and the cutie mark that was meant to be there had been drawn into it.

“The Curse—and it be a curse, we know now, though long we thought curses to be the workings of fiction and legend—attaches itself to the soul of a pony. It seek to inhabit the same metaphysical space as the soul; when that pony’s soul be damaged, it would normally repair itself over time. But instead, now, the Undead Curse floods into the space left empty, and occupies it for itself, slowly pushin’ out and replacing the Soul that is meant to be within. When all of a Pony’s soul been depleted, then nothing but the Curse remain within their body, and their mind be consumed next. They become a true Hollow, mindless, soulless, and nothin’ but a walkin’ body that hungers for Souls.

“Even this,” she sighed, “wouldn’t be such a problem by itself. Damagin’ a Pony’s very soul be an impossible task before; only incredibly complicated magic could do it, and the Soul be resilient. Whenever somepony tried, the pony’s Body failed long before their Soul did, and they died; so no livin’ bein’ in recorded history has ever been rendered truly soulless. Until the Curse came.

“The Curse changes somethin’ about a Pony’s body. It disrupt and contort the connection between Body and Soul, and renders them immortal—at the price of their Soul.” Mage Meadowbrook indicated my newly healed foreleg, where the blood had long dried in the sunlight. “Every injury that a Pony sustain be healed by their Body, just as before, but usin’ their Soul instead. So for every injury sustained, a little bit of the Pony’s soul be burned away, and the Curse replaces it. In this way, the Curse be inevitable; it can only be slowed down, or brought to a halt, by keepin’ safe’ from death or injury.

“This is why curin’, or even fightin’ the Curse, seems so impossible. We can’t inoculate a Pony against it, and every Pony alive today already been tainted by the Curse. Our attempts to remove it by the methods we know only damage the Soul, which allow it to surge into the new void. No method of removin’ or even interactin’ with the Curse seems to have any effect, as if we can’t even touch whatever metaphysical or magical space it occupy within a Pony.

“The best we can truly do is use alternate methods of healin’. Pyromancy comes from the Soul, but does not subtract from it; it only channel the power within. Those acts of kindness-” Meadowbrook suddenly paused mid-sentence, and her gaze turned behind us. “Magnus? Weren’t you keepin’ watch over the wounded?”

We all turned as well, and as we did, Magnus landed with a gentle rustle against the dead grass. He shook his wings dry as he responded; apparently flying upwards through the canopy was a recipe to get soaked. “Yeah, but Grapeshot just woke back up. Zecora’s tending to her now, and she kicked me out so she could work. Suits me fine, her rhyming gets on my nerves…”

Meadowbrook chuckled. “Oh? Annoyed she be knowin’ our language better than us, in this day and age?”

Magnus flapped his wings one final time before folding them against his side. “Hey, I’ve adapted. You pick up on lingo real quick in the guard, no matter what time period you find yourself in. You’re the one with their accent stuck in the Pre-Abeyance period.” His expression soured. “Seriously, though, I wanted to talk to you.”

We all stood up to leave and give them some privacy, but Magnus held up a hoof as he sat down and began to poke at our little bonfire with an errant branch. “No, all of you should be aware of this too. Besides, I don’t want to have to repeat myself again later.”

Dinky raised an eyebrow, and we all dropped back to lay next to the fire. Magnus nodded, then turned to Meadowbrook. “Med, what you’ve done out here is incredible. It’s always been incredible, but everything you’ve sent back to Canterlot, about this Curse, has been incredibly helpful knowledge for Celestia and the Golden Guard.”

“I be sensin’ a ‘but,’ Flash…” Meadowbrook said, watching him carefully.

“Yeah, dead on.” Magnus let the branch drop into the fire, and we heard gentle crackling as the heat began to warp the branch. “The ‘but’ is that it sure feels like you’ve done everything you can out here. You and Zecora told me yourself, you’re both basically out of ingredients, and these swamps are getting less safe by the minute. We need to get you both to Canterlot.”

“What-? You be talkin’ about givin’ up and hidin’ on a mountainside? Did the demons attack your brain, too?”

Magnus let out a deep sigh. “Not quite. No, this is because there’s nothing here, Med. Nothing but danger and dregs. There’s no point to staying here, not when we could regroup there and maybe work out a new supply chain. There has to be something left, somewhere, and we can get it to Canterlot for you and Zecora to keep working.”

“There’s ‘nothin’ here?” Meadowbrook repeated sarcastically. “Nothin’ except my hometown, Flash. I’m not gonna let it be abandon a second time. We be lastin’ this long, the demons don’t care about us.”

“Not yet,” Flash conceded, “but we have no idea if the winds will shift or not. Could be an hour’s time from now, they’ll completely give up at the Ponyville front line, and all come downstream towards Baton Verte. Ponyville’s reinforced, and it can handle that kind of battering, but this place? Med, it’d take three big uglies to wipe this place off the map. You’ve been getting lucky that it’s only been alligators so far, and they haven’t changed from being ambush predators, but what about if a chimera comes through? Or a hydra? Even the timberwolves have gotten an upgrade, and they were nasty to begin with. You don’t wanna see how vicious they are now that they’ve gotten a good soak in Chaosfire.”

Meadowbrook looked pointedly back towards the thin trails of smoke over the hill; the faintest signs of life still left in this strange little town. Eventually, she sighed. “Fine. Fine, you be right. We wouldn’t be able to fight off a real fightin’ force.”

Magnus sighed in relief. “Thank the winds, Med, I thought you were gonna fight me on this one-”

“On one condition,” Meadowbrook interrupted, as she held up her hoof. “If I can’t stay in Baton Verte, then Baton Verte be comin’ with me. Everypony gets evacuated, not just me and Zecora. I won’t leave my friends, neighbors, and descendants to suffer that inevitable attack while I scamper away to safety.”

Magnus froze, then started to scratch his hoof in the dirt. “Gryphon scat…can we make that work? Caravan of…say, one hundred twenty, assuming they’re bringing belongings and useful supplies to sweeten the deal-”

“I be havin’ no illusions that it be an easy journey, by any means,” Meadowbrook admitted. “But this be my only compromise. Everypony be evacuated, or nopony be.”

Magnus shook his head, and stomped his hoof, erasing any sort of calculation he’d done a moment ago. “Med, that’s gonna be bad. We’re going to attract attention from the Demons with that many, guaranteed. We’re going to lose ponies.”

“Then we make them aware of that risk too. I won’t be draggin’ along anypony who wants to stay, but I at least have to give them a chance!” Meadowbrook stood as well, and faced down Magnus. Despite being at least two hoof-widths shorter than the military stallion, she seemed to be his equal. Maybe even more than that, with the force of her fire blazing within her. She was not going to back down on this point, and Magnus could see it too.

“Fine.” He sighed. “But mark my words, Med, when we lose ponies, their blood is going to be on your hooves.”

“Even now, when death seems so elusive, it remains an inevitability. Surely it be better to offer them a chance, than to simply abandon them to their fate outright?” Meadowbrook turned to us, and stomped her hoof. “If a pony die because we did not act, is that any better than if we had acted and they die anyway?”

We all shrunk away from the Mage, and nopony answered. Either they were afraid of how suddenly intense Meadowbrook had become, or they, like me, were mulling over the dilemma.

I couldn’t help but agree with Meadowbrook. We should at least offer the help. But more than that, her words resonated within me, and I found myself wondering about my actions so far. How many ponies had Hollowed out, due to my inaction? Because I was not fast enough, because I was not smart enough? Diamond Tiara still haunted both me and Dinky.

Magnus rolled his embers at the display. “I really didn’t want to repeat myself, but I gotta now…great.” He waved a hoof at me and Dinky. “You two, go knocking door-to-door. No details, just tell them there’s a town meeting outside Meadowbrook’s. I’ll tell the town all at once, get it out of the way.”

His gaze shifted to Snips and Snails, as we got up to leave. “You two, same thing, but everypony on the bridges or fishing below. See if you can shake them out of their rut, try not to get stabbed with a fishing spear.” When the both of them failed to move or respond in any meaningful way, Magnus clapped his hooves together. “Hey! Ponyville Irregulars! Anypony home?”

That finally got Snails to jump, and he snapped off a sloppy salute. “Uh, inform the townsp-ponies about a m-meeting! G-got it!”

Snails turned to leave, but noticed that Snips was still busy staring into space. Snails shook him by the shoulder, and that seemed to rouse Snips for long enough for him to stand up and start following behind.

Our two groups began to head back down the hill, as Magnus talked quietly with Meadowbrook behind us, both silhouetted in the sunlight.

* * *

“I think this is all starting to get to Snips. Did you see how Snails was the one that shook him awake?” Dinky mused, as they trundled down a ramp and out of sight.

I was following her lead as we walked through the small town. “Y-yeah…I d-don’t really kn-know them, th-though.”

Dinky sighed. “Maybe it’s just because I’ve known them for so long. Snips has always been a little aggressive, but that was different. He’s never gotten in anypony’s face that fast. Guess what Meadowbrook said kind of hit everypony hard.” She sighed, and shook her head. “I’ve never been a believer in the old jokes about ‘things ponies were not meant to know,’ but I certainly believe in ‘things ponies really don’t need to hear in certain mental states.’”

I couldn’t help but agree—hearing that my time was so limited, so soon after I had just barely awoken, deeply unsettled me. I was so careless…admittedly, I hadn’t known how much damage each death did to a Hollow’s psyche, but still, I was dying and getting hurt far more than I should have been. I lost nearly every fight I participated in, and while my coordination was improving, my skills in battle weren’t. Maybe I could ask Magnus for more training? As I mulled the thought over, we continued trotting along the rickety wooden walkways.

After a few moments, Dinky shook her head again. “Maybe coming out here was a mistake. Not just for me, but everypony. But if we hadn’t, then…ugh. If that was a mistake, then what was the right call to make?”

I looked down at the wooden planks below our hooves, and the bayou between them. “M-maybe the pr-problem is…th-there is no r-right call. N-not any m-more.”

Dinky shook her head. “Not any more. Isn’t that the truth, these times…”

After the short time we'd spent here in Baton Verte, I was getting better at telling the specific difference between types of buildings here in town. The newer buildings were built atop concrete piles that kept them standing rigidly, and these buildings were the closest to the highway, or more specifically, the ramp that was the de facto entrance to Baton Verte. That included a small town hall, a gift shop, and a long-abandoned fish-themed restaurant. Older buildings tended to be built on wooden piles instead, and those hadn't fared well through time at all. They creaked and squealed, and we'd all jumped a little while back when what looked like an old bait-and-tackle shop finally gave up the ghost and collapsed into the bayou below right in front of us.

But the oldest buildings seemed to be the original homes of Baton Verte's first settlers. Like Mage Meadowbrook, they had been tree-based, though only a few were able to go to the same extent she had by fully hollowing out a tree. Most simply used the trunks as a support structure, and had built their floors in the space between. Even today, they still hung, suspended from the long-dead trees by a spider’s web of cables, twine, and plain old rope, even when the rest of the house's construction had begun to sag from moisture damage. However, this introduced a new problem: the trees had continued growing after the houses were built.

As the staked supports had shifted upwards over the course of decades, nailed deep into the tree and dragged upwards by the stubborn, unyielding growth, the connections to the rest of the town had moved upwards with them. Some paths that connected the homes to the network of bridges—that were the lifeblood of the town—had simply been repaired and extended upwards, eventually becoming steep staircases or outright ladders. Others had thought slightly ahead, and created spiraling staircases that could be added onto as needed. One particularly enterprising pony, long ago, had even created a clever weight-and-basket system that looked fascinatingly unsafe, were it still in operable condition.

As time had gone on, this quirk likely went from being a minor inconvenience, to an actual problem to be solved, to a desired quality among the long-term residents. Various signs had been set up, long-rotten, but still legible. Scrawling scripts of a dozen different hooves warned us to "Stay off my porch," "Don't play on our ladder," and "Go rut yasself,” and several made oblique threats against trespassing zebras, kirin, minotaurs, and tax collectors.

All this, Dinky and I took in, as we tried to determine which buildings were even still occupied. Only about two-thirds of the houses still had thin trails of smoke curling upwards from their chimneys, which gave us a decent starting point. Of those, we eventually decided to start with the nearest house on our left.  A switchback ramp led up to the front door, and I limped behind my friend as we climbed up. It was quiet, but we could see movement through the window, so it seemed like somepony was home. The door itself had a window set into it, and Dinky tried to peer inside, but it was too grimy. Eventually she just shrugged, and gave it a knock.

There was no response. Dinky frowned, and we turned to watch the town while we waited to see if anypony came. In the distance, we could see Snips and Snails, who had just started to work their way through the underbrush to talk to everypony fishing. Snails was able to step over most of the obstacles in his way, but Snips had to leap over them, and he often came up just short when he jumped. Already, his armor was beginning to get soaked through with muck and reeds.

After they passed behind another cluster of cattails, Dinky shook her head. “I’m gonna knock again, but if nopony answers in a minute, we’ll just head to the next one.”

I nodded, and Dinky turned back to the door. She knocked her hoof against it a bit harder this time, and we heard movement from inside. “Good, that must’ve woken them-”

She was interrupted when the door’s window burst outwards, and showered us in shards of glass. A long-Hollowed hoof reached through and swiped wildly at us, but all the Hollow inside managed to do was slice their foreleg to ribbons on the jagged frame.

Dinky swore loudly, shaking her mane to dislodge any errant shards of glass, and I jumped back in surprise and fear. Hollows, of course there would be Hollows. Suddenly, Meadowbrook’s warnings of our own fragile existence rang clearly in my head. Every fight could be my last, and I didn’t want to become Hollowed. But we had disturbed this Hollow, and started this fight, even if we hadn’t meant to do so.

A moment later, the latch of the door clicked open; either the Hollow inside remembered how doors worked, or it had been loose enough in the frame that the random flailings of a feral pony could push it open. Either way, I grabbed at my cavalry sword as the door loudly creaked open, and Dinky drew her new silver rapier.

The Hollow emerged sloppily, with one foreleg still caught in the door’s window. Another Hollow behind it was trying to push past. I was surprised when I saw them, and pangs of sadness shot through me; They had been old and withered even before they’d been afflicted by the curse. It looked like they had been an old couple, left alone in their house, and they’d succumbed together. Now, they were nothing but mindless Hollows, lurching and snarling towards us, and I could hear their arthritic joints creaking as they moved towards us.

Dinky winced as she stepped forward, and thrusted her rapier forward in a quick stab with her magic. It punctured the leading Hollow almost too easily, and she staggered as she turned to face Dinky, lurching in her direction instead. As soon as she moved away, I was left with the stallion, who had finally managed to free himself from the door. His leg had not fared so well, however, and when he tried to take a step towards me, it instantly collapsed with a snap.

Even now, I froze up, as I was afraid to approach him. Even an errant swipe could knock me to the ground. I had to fight, but I had to be careful about how I fought, as well. My cavalry sword wasn’t sharp or heavy enough to remove his head in even a few chops, and he looked like he was at a bad angle for that anyways. I could try and stab him through the eye, or his chest, but he could still swipe at me with his intact foreleg, which made that idea alarmingly risky..

Eventually, I stepped back to shift my grip, and I held it upside-down instead. With the blade positioned that way, I could much more easily stab it downwards through his head, without getting too close. I clenched my eyes shut as the tip impacted, and pierced through far too easily. It didn’t go all the way through, however, and I was forced to open my eyes once again.

The empty, dead sockets of the fallen Hollow stared at me, but the embers had flickered out for now. The blade had punched an ugly hole through the side of his skull, and it shifted unsettlingly as I tried to pull it free. All I managed to do was bounce his head against the wooden planks that he lay upon, and eventually I had to brace a hindleg against his shoulder for leverage. I would not be without a weapon when we were in danger.

The sword scraped free, and I busied myself by wiping it off on a moldy couch next to the door. Dinky had won her own fight a few body-lengths away, and I looked over to her just as she drew the glowing rapier blade out of the dead Hollow’s breast. Her blade slid out easily, and I don’t know if it was because of the design, the enchantment, or if that Hollow had been more easily pierced to begin with.

“So…Hollows,” Dinky muttered, flicking ichor from her blade. I tilted my head towards the couch, where I had left streaks of rotten brain matter, and she nodded. “Guess we’ll have to be more careful knocking on doors. Good work, Holly.”

“D-doesn’t f-feel like good w-work…” I whimpered. “F-feels l-like…we int-intruded.”

“Yeah,” Dinky agreed. “I wish we hadn’t knocked on this door. I never like slaying Hollows, and this…this house was just a mistake.”

She wiped her rapier clean on the couch, which was now even more thoroughly ruined. Then Dinky sheathed her blade, as did I, and we were left with the two corpses in front of the house. How close had we come to losing our Equinity, even in such a minor scuffle?

Dinky didn’t seem quite as perturbed as I was. “They’re gonna wake up eventually. We need somewhere to put them, so they can’t attack anypony else.”

I looked back at the door. “B-back ins-side? And ifff…we move the c-couch in f-front, they sh-shouldn’t be ab-able to op-open it…”

Dinky nodded, and her horn lit with that same golden corona of magic. “Alright, That makes sense. Then we’ll finish telling everypony, as quickly as we can.”

* * *

Together, we looked up at the next house.

This time, a staircase so steep as to be a ladder led up to a rickety platform. It made me nervous when I looked at it, since I was already clumsy enough, and the ladder looked like it would be a challenge for a pony in good health. Dinky assured me that she’d catch me if I slipped, though, so I took the lead and began to climb up the rungs.

I got a good look at the house as I climbed, though it looked more like a rickety shack than anything meant for pony occupation. The roof was made of branches with a canvas hung over them, and even that canvas was riddled with holes. The walls were made of wooden planks, and huge gaps existed where the wood had shrunk and expanded from moisture over the years, not to mention wherever boards were just missing. While there was a window facing us, there was no glass; only a layer of fishing net hung by nails to keep animals out. I almost thought it was totally abandoned, but smoke was still curling up and out of the chimney, so it was at least worth checking.

As I stepped off the ladder, I could hear as Dinky placed her hoof on the lowest rung, then paused. “Wait- Holly, don’t-!”

I took a step towards the front door, and blinding pain shot up my leg. A steel bear trap snapped shut around my leg, and I let out a strangled yelp. My own cry seemed pitiful in comparison to the noise of the trap itself; the rusted metal echoed like a thunderclap through the quiet town. I collapsed onto the platform, and instinctively tried to use my other hoof to tug the trapped hoof free. All I did was make the pain worse.

“Sire of a- Holly, hold still!” Dinky’s hooves clattered on the ladder as she scrambled up, and she paused at the top to sweep for other bear traps. There was only the one, however, and she scrambled forward to assist. I tried to follow her instructions and stay still as she inspected the blunt metal jaws crushing my leg, but the pain was incredible, and I couldn’t keep myself from letting out a few pained whimpers. “It’s all rusty…I don’t see a spring, maybe it broke when the trap got sprung? Damn it, I wish I’d seen that sign earlier-”

“It h-hurts, g-get it off!” I whimpered again as Dinky tugged at the steel jaws of the trap. “Wha-what s-sign?!”

Dinky flicked her hoof back towards the ladder. “There was a sign at the bottom of the ladder, a warning about the bear trap, it’s to catch Hollows...”

I winced and groaned through my grit teeth. Hollows like me, that didn’t see the posted sign, or simply didn’t care.

“Well, y'all be missing some common sense, but don’t look like y'all gone fully wild just yet.” The new voice caught our attention, and I looked up, while Dinky turned around. A Hollowed pegasus stood in the door, holding a long, lever-action rifle in his hooves. A scraggly, rough beard had grown across his muzzle like moss, but the embers of his eyes lit up the darkness under his wide-brimmed hat. He wore a vest covered in fishing tackle and rifle cartridges, and his expression said that he clearly wasn’t impressed by us.

“Is this your trap?” Dinky snarled. “Help me get it off her leg!”

“Quit tuggin’ at it, or it actually will break, and you’ll do more damage to your friend anyhow.” The stallion set the rifle in the doorway, and then casually cantered over to us. Dinky stepped back to let him work, while I whimpered in pain. “Also, ain’t got a spring. Springs are too sensitive to rust, though...whole trap’s a bit rusty nowadays. This might take a sec.”

Dinky rolled her eyes. “Are you in the habit of trapping your front door?”

“Only since the other townsfolk started coming by to visit, and didn’t bring their brains with ‘em.” The stallion stepped on the side of the trap, which didn’t budge, but did squeal and scrape. He let out a grunt as he stomped on the metal bar again. “Anyhow, what’s brought ya callin’? Seen ya soldier folks hanging around Meadowbrook’s, and the library, but kept my distance. Didn’t know if it was a friendly sort of visit.”

Dinky moved to the other spring-bar on the opposite side of the bear trap, but he waved her back. Apparently he was going to do it himself. Instead, all Dinky was allowed to do was sit nearby and glare at him, unable to help. “We came by to ask Meadowbrook for help with something, but she needs our help instead. There’s a town meeting at her cottage soon, and she wanted us to go tell everypony.”

“Mmm. Not one for big town meetings, myself. Gonna sit this one out.”

Dinky groaned and shook her head. “Look, it’s important, alright? Just come, I’m sure she’ll be happy to see you.”

“Important, huh? Well, if you know it’s important, then I reckon ya know what it’s about. Howsabout ya share with me, and then I’ll decide?”

Dinky winced. “Fine. Her and a commander from Canterlot are evacuating the town to Ponyville. it’s too dangerous out here, and Meadowbrook’s run out of supplies.”

The pegasus smiled, as he continued to stomp on the spring-bar. “Awww, that’s awful nice of her. Not so sure I feel like moving though…and it sure don’t feel like the gators have gotten any more ornery than usual. Something bad coming?”

“You have no idea…” muttered Dinky. “Yeah, some sort of evil…well.” Dinky caught herself, reconsidering her words. “I don’t know if it’s evil, but there’s definitely a big source of dangerous magic spreading downstream in the future. Was Baton Verte hit at all by the demons?”

FInally, the spring-bar that he was working on gave way with a metal screech, and the pressure crushing my leg eased up slightly. “Hold this down with your own hoof. Good.” He started to work on the other spring-bar as he talked. “Seen a couple of nasties, and the gators do seem to be gettin’ bigger for sure. I can still hunt ‘em just the same, though, and we ain’t had any crawl into town just yet.”

He stomped again, then paused. “Gonna be honest; your word don’t mean a mosquito droppin’ to me. But you say Meadowbrook’s worried…she done me right. I be hearin’ her out.”

The trap suddenly snapped open, and the cold air against my crushed leg made me gasp as I fell onto my side. I clutched my foreleg tightly against my breast, cradling the ugly bruise that was already forming where the trap had kept me pinned. It didn’t feel broken, thank goodness, but any feeling but pain was slow to return. I was thankful the trap had been blunt, without teeth; I might have lost my foreleg again, if that had been the case.

The stallion nodded, and shifted back. As soon as he released it, the trap clapped shut once more, and unleashed a shower of sparks as the metal shrieked. “Gonna have to scrape some of that rust off,” he mused. “Anyhow. Y'all be goin’ door-to-door?”

Dinky was at my side, and she helped inspect my leg, even though I shrunk away from her. It wasn’t her fault that probing at the bruised flesh hurt, but I wasn’t eager to endure it. “Yeah. Any tips?”

He shook his head. “Nothing general. But I do know my neighbor Hollowed out a long time back, and she attacked me herself. The house is empty now, so you can skip it. Anypony else, I got no clue; my business is with the gators.”

Dinky nodded, and stepped away so that I could try and stand. My leg was still numb, and shook like a leaf when I put weight on it, but I’d just have a worse limp than I already did. Hopefully that would fade with time, and if it didn’t, Meadowbrook could help.

“Thanks,” Dinky said. “I never did get your name, by the way.”

The stallion shrugged. “I don’t recall, myself. Think it had something to do with scales. Ain’t important these days anyhow. Watch your step going down the stairs.”

Dinky sighed, and nodded. I followed behind her, and she started climbing down. As she did, I turned back to the stallion. “Th-thank you…”

He waited until Dinky was out of sight, but he gave me a small smile. “Sorry y'all got trapped like that. I’ll be there, don’t worry.”

I nodded, and began clambering down the ladder. When I reached the bottom, Dinky was glancing at the house next to us. Just like the stallion had said, the house was dark, and we likely would have skipped it anyways. But it was good to be sure, and moved past it to the next one in short order.

This time, I was much more careful to look at the walkup. The resident of this house seemed to have relied on a spiral staircase over the decades, and had simply added steps as needed in a tight rotation. A "Missing Cat" notice greeted us at the bottom of the stairs, along with a list of tools that had been borrowed but never returned.

At the top of the stairs, the house itself looked decent enough. There wasn’t much external damage, aside from an errant branch that had collapsed into the roof, and seemed to have fallen through into the attic, where it was left in place. Still, the smoke from the chimney seemed steady, and there was a light on inside, so the branch didn’t seem to have disturbed them terribly much.

Dinky took the lead with a certain amount of confidence, gained from our progress so far. She rapped her hoof against the door a few times, before stepping back to wait. We could hear movement from inside, the sound of a creature—hopefully not a mindless Hollow, this time—shuffling around, but it didn’t seem to be approaching the door in any meaningful way. After a few moments, Dinky knocked again, and that finally seemed to get the occupant’s attention. Hooves clattered against wood, and the door swung open.

The mare on the other side of the door was a deeply Hollowed unicorn. She was hardly an old mare, but she was old enough to be my mother, at least as far as I could tell. She had crow’s feet and bags under her embered eyes that were visible even after Hollowing, a bad limp, and a loose wool coat to protect her against the cold and damp of the swamp. Her eyes scanned us for a while; she seemed to be looking for something about us, or perhaps she was trying to remember something.

Dinky took the initiative. “Miss? Mage Meadowbrook’s calling a town meeting-”

The motherly mare’s eyes lit up. “Lilypad! It’s been so long since I’ve seen you, sweetie!”

Whatever else Dinky was going to say stumbled and caught in her throat, as the mare stepped forward and wrapped her up in a hug meant for her long-lost family. As Dinky stammered in shock, the mare’s eyes turned to me. “And Stoneskipper! Look at you, in your beautiful golden armor! How nice of the both of you to drop by for a surprise visit!”

I blinked at her in surprise myself, before her living warmth embraced me tightly. Gentle pressure squeezed my leather militia gear against my sides, and the mare pressed her neck against my own. The fire in my belly flared, as I accepted the hug meant for another; the magic didn’t care who shared their warmth with me, so long as they were a fellow Equine. All too soon, she pulled away, smiling at us both with yellowed teeth. “Come in, come in, I’ve just put the kettle on for some tea!”

She turned and cantered back inside, and both Dinky and I were left, stunned, on her doorstep. I was suddenly overwhelmed with the question of my identity once more. 

Stoneskipper? Could that be my name? Sure, she mistook Dinky for somepony else, but she seemed to recognize us both so clearly. Maybe Dinky just looked like the pony she had in mind. But what about me? I didn’t have any real identifying marks left, or so I had thought…and she saw my armor as being those of a guard…

I sighed, and the spell was broken. No, the mare was delusional. There was a chance, however minute, that I was actually Stoneskipper. But to have left Baton Verte for Ponyville, only to come all the way back to meet with my estranged family…the chances of that were so unlikely as to be impossible.

“Come in already, you’re letting all the warmth out!” came a shout from inside the building. Gently, I shook Dinky’s shoulder, and that seemed to break her out of her own confusion, at least for the moment. She glanced at me, then back at the door.

“Follow my lead. I really don’t like this, but…It’s for the better.” Dinky said with a sigh, before she stepped inside. I followed her, and looked around.

The interior of the house was incredibly comforting. While there was clearly some water damage and general wear and tear, knitted cosies still managed to brighten up a few of the more dull surfaces, though I noticed they seemed to be kind of a mess so far as the actual stitching went. The patterns were a chaotic mess, often changing several times in the middle. A few looked like she’d had the presence of mind to recognize that she had messed up, but hadn’t cared enough to start over, or maybe she’d forgotten about that shortly afterward and continued on as she had before.

The furniture wasn’t in great condition; most of the chairs had permanent divots in the seats, and the leather of the chairs and couches was cracking and ancient. A sewing table near the back looked like one of the legs had broken. Sharp, splintered wood was left exposed, and dried blood stained the tips. A woodpipe stove near the back was crackling gently with a low fire contained within, though I noted there was not actually any kettle on the stove, or anywhere in the room at all.

The mare herself had taken a seat on an ancient armchair, and was busying herself with sewing a patch onto a pair of overalls. A small basket of clothing sat by her side, as well as some fabric scraps; it seemed that she was functional enough to repair clothing for the town, though I couldn’t guess at the last time any of those clothes had been worn by the ponies outside. Perhaps that was what she did for the town?

Dinky didn’t intrude too far into the living room, and stopped to stand awkwardly by the door. “Uh…M-Mom?”

The mare looked up, beaming happily. She didn’t need to stop her knitting as she looked away, though she did occasionally glance back down at the needles held in her magic. “Yes, dear? Oh, don’t stand so awkwardly! I know you’ve been gone for a while, but it hasn’t been that long since you both left for Baltimare! Sit down, both of you!”

Dinky winced uncomfortably again, before she shook her head. “We’re…not gonna be staying long, Mom. We just, uh…just stopped in to tell you that Mage Meadowbrook is holding a town meeting at her cottage, and she wants everypony to come. It’s, uh, it’s really important.”

“Oh, surely not as important as talking with my daughters!” The mare beamed. “How long has it been? I haven’t gotten any telegrams from you in a few weeks, hopefully they haven’t gotten too expensive. You know you can always just send me an old-fashioned letter if they have, I don’t mind it taking a little while to reach me.”

“I…it’s not…not that, I just…” Dinky stammered nervously. She seemed to want to say something, but she was stiff as a board, and the words wouldn’t come.

The mare glanced over to the stove. “Honestly, you look like you’ve seen a ghost! Oh, I should put the kettle on. Come, sit down and relax while I do that.”

She stood, and passed by us on the way to the old rusted iron stove. As she started to open cupboards in search of her teakettle, Dinky turned back to me, and hissed under her breath, “We should leave. Now. While she’s distracted.”

I blinked at her in confusion, but I did start slowly backing towards the door. “Wha-what’s g-going on…?”

“I’ll explain later. Outside. Come on!”

I was still confused, but we managed to turn and scamper outside without the mare noticing. Dinky quietly shut the door, and pulled me back down the staircase, firmly out of sight. I felt awful about the entire thing. Somehow this was worse than having to put down a fellow Hollowed pony. “W-we just l-left her by hers-self…”

“Yeah, well, we told her. Job done there. If she doesn’t show up, then that’s on her.”

There was a lump in my throat. “But…sh-she thinks we’re her d-daughters, she’ll th-think...they j-just ran out wh-when she wa-wasn’t looking-”

“And what can we do about that?” Dinky growled. “We don’t know her daughters, but we’re definitely not them. Maybe they’re dead, or Hollowed, we can’t know. And besides, you think in ten minutes she’s going to remember we were even there?”

“B-but…” I trailed off. What did I want? I wanted to help her, but how? Should we have tried to break her illusion, help her think straight? Or maybe played along, and pretended that we were her daughters? Both felt like awful things to do to a sweet old mare, but what other options did we have?

Dinky let me argue it out in my own head for a few moments, but her eyes kept flicking back to the stairs. I think she was watching to see if the mare followed us down. After that went on for a short while, Dinky squeezed her head with her hooves, like she was trying to push out a headache. “Look…look. You can go back up there and help her, if you really want. I’m not gonna stop you. And you can do that for every single Hollow left in this town, if you care so desperately. But I’m not going to play along with her delusions, she’s most certainly not my mom, and I’m starting to think coming along on this adventure was a mistake.”

I whimpered but nodded, and Dinky took a deep breath, before we both stood. “Come on. Let’s tell them and get this done. Those that’ll listen will listen, those that won’t…I don’t know. But that’s Meadowbrook’s problem, not ours. We’ll do our part, she can handle her own.”

Awful. I felt awful. This wasn’t like seeing a pony die, or be drained. This was seeing a mad pony that I wanted to help, that needed help, and knowing that even if I did…it wouldn’t even matter. This was our fate, all of us. I was going to start going crazy and losing myself soon, just like that mare, and it scared me down to my core. Being Undead was an awful fate, and if I didn't already, I began to truly hate the curse that had afflicted all of us so.

The encounter had affected Dinky deeply as well. She tried to hide it, or shove it out of her mind to stay distanced. But every few steps she’d mutter something under her breath, and she shook like a leaf as we plodded forward over the walkways and continued knocking on the doors of Baton Verte, so we could talk to the Hollowed Undead within.