//------------------------------//
// Breakthrough 
// Story: What a Strange Little Colt 
// by Lynwood 
//------------------------------//


Saturday


"Gabriel, I'd like to ask you a question." Sandy Hills drew a deep breath in and slowly let it out through her nose. 

Across from her, a little green colt spared her a curious glance as he got comfortable on his pillow, setting his hooves on the foal-sized table between them. "Sure, shoot."

Her heart began to beat a little faster. This was going to be like pulling teeth. "Can you tell me where you're from?"

He tilted his head. "Um, Westfield? Didn't I already tell you that?"

"Yes, you did." The mare swallowed and shuffled her wings, mentally forcing them to stop clamping against her back so tightly and just relax. "I looked through every register I could find. I even went to a cartographer. There is no town in the country named Westfield, Gabriel."

The colt kept his eyes locked on her in a way that, frankly, made her shift on her pillow. He opened his mouth, then closed it again, thinning it into a line. A moment passed before he tried again. "So, uh, you found out, huh?"

"Sweetie, did you make that town up? Are you from somewhere you're embarrassed by?"

The colt narrowed his eyes. "No, no, it's definitely real. Born and raised, kind of. It's just not in Equestria."

"Gabriel, there's no town on the continent with that name. Nopony knows of a town called Westfield."

He blinked at her several times. The clock ticked from its place on the wall, giving the empty air an unnerving rhythm. "...it's really, really far away."

"I can't help you if you aren't being honest."

"Who said I wasn't being honest?"

The two stared at each other, and, somehow, the counselor found herself a little intimidated by the look at the back of Gabriel's eyes. There was... something there. It was that something that she'd been trying so hard to reach. What was stopping him? She straightened her spine, fixing a disapproving look on the colt, but did nothing more to try and demystify where Westfield actually was.

She glanced down at her clipboard. Her pathetically sparse notes stared back up at her, offering painfully few talking points. How much did she really know about this colt? How much was a lie?

"Have you been dishonest with me before, Gabriel?"

He blew a little air out of his nose. "No, Ms. Hills. At least, not that I'm aware of."

"I’d say being deliberately misleading counts, Gabriel." Sandy tried to look as caring as she could, but it didn't feel quite right. "You never specified that Westfield wasn't in Equestria. Can you see how that might lead us to the wrong conclusion, even if you didn't actually tell a lie?"

She saw his jawline harden. "You never asked."

"Gabriel, what if you have family that you aren't aware of? Wouldn't you–"

"You're not gonna find my family. I can promise you that much." He cut her off with the slightest bit of venom in his voice, but when he spoke again, it was softer. "I just... figured it wasn’t worth mentioning. That’s all."

Sandy reminded herself to count to ten and breathe and jotted down a note. Self-reports family permanently unavailable. She envisioned the colts and fillies that had come before Gabe, nervous, aloof, scared, annoyed. Playing with toys and hiding under the table. Anything to avoid confrontation. Countless times, she had sat in here with them and calmly spoken to them, slowly but surely drawing them out of their shell. They were always so honest, so... pure. 

She had never seen such... unnerving defensiveness in any of their eyes. Not like this.

"Well, can you tell me a little more about what Westfield is like?"

His face fell, but he didn't look away. "It isn't like anything. Nobody lives there anymore, I think."

She blinked, deciding to ignore the fact he'd used 'nobody' instead of 'nopony'. "It was... destroyed?"

"No," he said, "just emptied."

How could everypony in a whole town be... removed? Just like that? "What, um, what happened to it?"

He set his little green hooves on the table, one folded over the other. "I'm not comfortable talking about that." 

Another roadblock. Regardless, the counselor recorded the status of Westfield in her notes. It looked right at home, surrounded by a dozen other miscellaneous facts about the colt's clouded, murky past that painted a dark, dark picture. 

History of violence. Reacted overaggressively when provoked, displayed clear willingness to hurt others to ensure own safety. Caretakers: self-referred parents, sister - deceased. Non-pony (self-reported), likely abductors. 

And there, at the bottom, in the corner where she would have to look at it least: Taken another being's life - possibly multiple.

At this point, the trafficking theory was all but out the window. I have practically no idea what I'm dealing with.

All the while, he gave her that guarded, mistrusting look. She clenched her jaw and forced herself to keep her back straight. She needed to get him talking about something, it didn't matter what. Once foals began to speak, once she coaxed them out, they usually told her everything she needed to know to give them help. With any luck, it would work on him, too. 

"So, dear," she said after a silence that was entirely too long, "I'm told you spent yesterday with some fillies from school?

His shoulders relaxed just the tiniest bit. "Um... It was fine, I guess."

"Did you have fun?"

The slightest smile graced his face, and for a moment, she glimpsed the foal that she knew was in there. "Yeah, actually, more than I thought I would. We hung around after school and went to the park and stuff. They're good kids."

That's it, there we go. "Oh? I'd love to hear more."

"Um, well, they initiated me into their little club the other day and had this whole ceremony, so I'm uh, officially a Cutie Mark Crusader. They gave me a cape and everything." He twisted around to look at his flank. "I wonder if I'll ever get one."

Finally, an issue she actually knew how to address. What foal wasn't nervous about getting their cutie mark? "Oh, don't worry, dear. Everypony grows at their own pace, there's no hurry. I promise you'll get your mark when the time is right," she said with a comforting smile, "I promise."

He raised an eyebrow and bit his lip, still giving his rear a somewhat quizzical look. "I dunno, I'm not exactly like you guys. Who knows if I've got that weird... whatever, magic, in me."

She giggled a little. "Take it from a mare who went through the same thing, I'm confident that you do. We've all worried about it at some point in our lives, but all ponies have that magic, it's part of who we are."

He bit his lip and furrowed his brow. "Sure."

He's closing off. Switch the topic! "Well," Sandy said, sounding as casual as possible, "what kind of cutie mark do you want?"

"None," the colt said with a snort, "Not really my style, I think." 

She bit her cheek. It wasn't the first time she'd seen this―sometimes foals denied wanting a cutie mark because that was easier than admitting they actually did want a special talent, and just hadn't discovered it yet.

"Well, what if you had to pick?" He only shrugged. "Come on! There are so many cool, fun talents to have out there."

Gabe rolled his eyes. "Knowing myself, I'd actually rather not know."

"What about stunt flying? Ooh, or exploring?" Sandy did her best to sound enthusiastic. "I hear Rainbow thinks you're quite the little artist! How about a drawing mark?"

"Can you stop?" He stuck out his tongue with half-lidded eyes. "You're gonna make me sick."

What? Had she misstepped? "What's wrong? I need you to use your words to tell me if I upset you, Gabriel."

"Ugh! That!" He gave the table a light stomp with his hoof and huffed. "You just—you don't have to be so condescending all the time! I'm not a little kid."

This again. He was so wrapped up in this need to act adult-like, and Sandy was no closer to understanding exactly why. What had she done wrong? She furrowed her eyebrows. "But dear, you're–"

"Yeah, believe me, I know." He lifted his forelegs and inspected them, disdain painted across his little face. "I'm tiny. I can see that."

Where is this coming from all of a sudden? The colt had had no problem with this before. Rainbow hadn't mentioned any resistance against being treated like a foal—then again, Rainbow also hadn't told her about the lightning incident. He'd agreed to go to school, and he even hung out with three little fillies who Sandy knew, for a fact, were not the most mature girls in town. "If I've been doing something that you don't like, Gabriel, I'd be happy to stop. Why didn't you tell me earlier?"

Some of the anger evaporated from the colt's eyes and he slumped back into his seat, shrugging as he spoke. "I dunno. The novelty wore off, I guess? I'm tired of pretending I'm something that I'm not."

"And what made the, erm, ‘novelty’ wear off?"

He chewed on the inside of his cheek and folded his hooves over one another again. "When I broke that kid's leg. It was a real reminder."

"Oh, honey," she said, "nopony blames you for what happened. We all know that you didn't mean to hurt Diamond." His eyes jumped to hers in a flash, full of fire again, and the counselor knew that she had made a mistake.

"What did I just tell you, lady?! Come on!" He reared up onto his hind legs, stomping the table. "Were you even listening to me? Did what I say register?" 

A flash of anger jolted up the counselor's spine. I'm trying to help you! 

He clenched his jaw as they stared at one another, forcing air through his flaring nostrils. "What is it, huh?"

Sandy blinked, drew in a breath, and slowly, very slowly, let it out. She had failed to reach him again. The conversation had been going somewhere, and then what had she done? She'd fallen back on her experience. On her training, on the past. What had made her do that? 

This colt is the opposite of normal. Why am I using my normal methods?

The counselor chewed on her cheek. Gabe stayed perfectly still, eyes still locked on her. It was like he knew how to stare right into her soul.

The clock ticked on. Tick, tock.

Fine, she thought, let's try something new.

"I'm sorry," Sandy began, "I didn't mean to offend. That wasn't my intent."

The colt's mouth thinned into a line. "Okay then. Alright." He let out a sigh as he settled back into his seat, his gaze wandering around the brightly painted room. "Just, uh... don't do it again."

"I don't plan to," the counselor said, completely honestly. The colt produced a hum that implied that she would have to prove it. So, prove it she would. The mare glanced over her shoulder. "It's getting pretty close to lunchtime, and I didn't have a big breakfast. Would you like to grab a bite to eat with me?"

Gabriel blinked and cocked his head. His eyes danced over her face, searching for something. What, I wonder, Sandy thought to herself. Dishonesty?

"Um, sure. I can't pay, though."

"Oh, that's quite alright. My treat!" She began to strap on her saddlebags, drawing an even more confused look from the colt.

"What, you mean right now?"

"Of course," she replied as she pulled her bags' belly strap tight, "why not?"

"The, uh, therapy session?"

She smiled at him. "I thought we could talk on the way, or while we eat. Get out of this stuffy room for a while. Sound good?"

He stared at her for a long while. Once again, Sandy tried to guess what was going on behind those deep brown eyes. She came up empty.

"Yeah, I guess."

"Well get your saddlebags on, then!"

Gabriel took a little longer to get ready. He had a bit of trouble with the strap on his bags, fumbling with its buckle, but Sandy didn't try to give him a hoof. The colt managed on his own after a few moments and nodded to her after making sure it was good and tight. She wondered if the strap hurt, pressing against his fresh scar.

What am I thinking? Of course it does.

The sun shone hot and bright as the two left the Ministry office and headed towards Mane Street, particularly fitting for the last few days before the scheduled rainstorm. The streets shuffled and shook with the hoofsteps of a colorful herd, vibrant and lively with ponies enjoying their weekend, and a healthy cloud of dust hung in the air, kicked up by the mass traffic. It smelled rich and earthy - the smell of an enthusiastic day, and the ponies around them only made it better.

Sandy felt the mistrust and frustration of the stifling therapy room escape into the open sky as the two made their way along. Carrot Top smiled from a corner as she chatted with Colgate. Bon Bon showed off her sweets to little Rumble from behind her stand, winking as she pressed one into his hoof. 

Mrs. Cake and Pinkie Pie yelped and hollered as they tried to corral two rambunctious little scamps dashing and flying through the multicolored forest of ponies' legs. The latter paused for just a moment to give the duo a big, excited, two-hooved wave and promptly tumbled over, taken out by little Pound's surprise crash-landing. Sandy's eyes widened in brief alarm, but she relaxed as soon as she heard the foal giggling louder than Pinkie.

The counselor turned to the colt with a smile. "So, Gabe, where would you like to eat?"

"I'm not the one who's been living here for more than two weeks," he said back at her with a lopsided smirk. "Any ideas?"

Sandy rubbed her chin with a hoof and hummed. "You know, I've been craving a big, greasy hay burger recently, and there's a good place nearby. How does that sound?"

The sight of his grin refreshed the mare's spirit. "That sounds fantastic."

It ended up being a superb idea. The cook must have decided to put something special into his work today because the picturesque, perfectly cooked burgers tasted absolutely incredible. The two devoured their lunches ravenously, any thought of talking forgotten, and as they leaned back, satisfied and oh-so-full, Sandy let out a particularly undignified burp. It was loud enough to turn heads, but she couldn't find it in her to care. "Whoops! Excuse me!"

Gabriel chuckled and took a sip from his vanilla shake before leaning back in the booth. "You weren't kidding. This place is pretty good."

"I'm glad you like it! I used to come here all the time before I noticed a little too much of it was going to my flank," she said with a wink, drawing a laugh out of Gabe.

"Are you from Ponyville? Has this place been around for a while?"

She shook her head no. "I moved here, oh, three years ago, and it was here back then, too," Sandy said. It felt nice to just have a normal conversation. Not that she didn't love her work, but it could get sad when you only talked about ponies' problems. "I'm originally from Manehattan."

"Oh, city girl, huh?" He threw in the twang of a country accent, but it wasn't quite like the Apples'. Something about it was different, something she couldn't quite describe. "What made you move out here?"

"Honestly?" She leaned in close, smirking. "Don't tell anypony I said this, but Manehattan kind of stinks. It’s crowded, the ponies there are all so stuck-up, and city life is exhausting! I don't know how my parents stand it!"

He chuckled. "Ain't that the truth, sister." Then he paused, blinking, before looking at the table for a while. 

The colt coughed and cleared his throat. "Hey, uh—I'm sorry for kinda blowing up at you earlier. That wasn't cool of me." A quiet moment passed and he coughed. "So, yeah. Sorry."

"Apology accepted," Sandy nodded, "Thank you."

"Hmm." He took another sip from his shake. He's much more relaxed now, and his spirits seem a little higher. If there's a time to ask about what's troubling him, this is it.

"You mentioned that Monday's incident reminded you of something," she began. "What did that remind you of, Gabriel?"

The colt rubbed at his face with a hoof. "Reminded me of, um… y’know. Things I’ve done. Who I am."

Getting warmer... "And who are you, really?"

"Somepony capable of breaking little kids’ legs in a heartbeat, apparently.” He grumbled as he looked towards the kitchen. His ears twitched at the sounds of hissing grease and orders being called out. “Not like you.”

The colt was clearly struggling with some intense feelings. Guilt, she guessed, likely over past actions. Did he see himself as scarred over what he was made to do? As less deserving of a try at happiness? 

"Well," she began, "for what it’s worth, I don't think you and I are so different. For example, we both love these burgers." She looked down at the grease-stained red and white wrapper on the plate before her. "Um, I'd hold mine up to make my point, but I ate it."

He smiled. "I guess."

"And we both like Ponyville!"

"You've got me there."

"And... we've both lost family we care about."

The colt's ears snapped up and his eyes widened. "Oh, I didn't... Um, who'd you lose? If, uh, you don't mind me asking."

"It's alright," Sandy gave him a reassuring smile, though it was a little sad. "I don't have any brothers or sisters, but I was very close with my cousin growing up in Manehattan. She was older than me and just about the most stubborn filly you ever could have met, but we still did everything together. School, flying, messing around, whatever. You didn't see one of us without the other."

"Hmm." The colt smiled to himself. "Reminds me of my sister."

"You want to know the funny thing? It was always her talking about wanting to become a psychologist. She loved learning about ponies' minds, and she had a real knack for helping ponies talk through their problems. Her cutie mark was a lounge chair, for Celestia's sake!" The two ponies shared a bit of a laugh over that.

"But then..." Her smile fell at its corners, fading, but she didn’t let it disappear entirely. "Well, to make a long, sad story shorter, she got sick, and never got better." Sandy swallowed. "Her passing was the final push that convinced me to enroll at the school she always talked about. It helped me, too. Every time I help a foal talk through their problems, it's like she's still there beside me, you know?"

He nodded, but Sandy already knew how perfectly he already understood. "What was her name?"

"Gentle Breeze," she said. It felt almost wrong to say it out loud. She didn't remember the last time she'd done so.

"She sounds really nice. I wish I could have met her."

Sandy chuckled at the thought. "You two would have either been fast friends or absolutely despised each other."

"It sounds like she would have gotten along great with my sister, then. We fought all the time." He hummed. "I guess you have a point." 

Now we're getting somewhere, Sandy thought. 

"But," he continued, "I've done some things in my life that I'm really not proud of, Sandy. That I don’t want to do anymore." It felt more than a little strange to hear him use her first name. "I, um... I've done some really messed-up things." He swallowed. “I’ve hurt a lot of people.”

"I don't think that just because we've made mistakes in our past, or have been made to do bad things, that we shouldn't get a chance." Sandy smiled. "You're no bad pony, Gabriel. You’re a better one than you believe, and I think you deserve to be happy."

"Um..." The colt tapped his hooves together and looked down, but she caught a shy smile. "That's nice of you to say. Thanks."

"You're very welcome." 

The colt sipped on his shake a little bit, and a comfortable silence passed. 

“You said you wanted to know about Westfield?” Gabriel said, out of the blue.

Sandy raised an eyebrow. “Only if you’re comfortable sharing.”

He shrugged. “There isn’t that much to share, honestly. It was a normal town. Not that different from here, actually." Gabe's mouth twisted up for a moment. "I used to live there, and I had to leave. We all did. For all intents and purposes, it doesn’t exist anymore. No family, no people, nothin’. It's gone.” He nudged at his empty burger wrapper with a hoof. “I didn’t talk about it because I figured it didn’t matter. I wasn’t trying to lie or trick you, just… not draw attention to things that don’t need it.”

The counselor smiled gently. “I know what you mean,” she said, “everypony has things they’d prefer not to talk about. I just want you to remember that I’m trying to help you, and not just because it’s my job. If it takes time for you to be ready to talk about your past, that’s okay. We're not on a deadline or running out of time or anything like that.”

The colt smiled at her, but he didn’t respond and looked away a moment later. Sandy listened to the grills behind the restaurant counter sizzle as she watched passers-by outside the window and smiled to herself. This was the way to reach him. 

It's tragic to see a foal forced to grow up so fast... but it's the truth, and there's no going back. It's time I started acknowledging that. It would take hard work and a lot of time, but it'd be worth it.

The colt made a polite little cough. "So," he said, "you wanna get another burger?"

"Oh, absolutely."





Rainbow Dash came in for a landing next to the most secluded spot in the park. A single tree capped the little hill, providing shade and the quiet rustle of leaves to compliment a beautiful view. She set down Gabe's drawing bag as her rear hooves touched the ground, careful not to let it tip over, and Gabe hopped off her back a second later. 

"I'm glad your session went well," Rainbow said as she stretched her wings. They continued to complain incessantly along with every other muscle in her body, rebuking her for yesterday's exhausting shift. "It sounds like you had a pretty good lunch. Honestly I kinda wish I got a hayburger now, you made that joint sound almost as awesome as me!" She gave the colt a wink.

He grinned. "Well, Miss Awesome, I do love me some burgers. We can hit it on the way home if you want."

"Sounds good to me, dude." She poked her hoof at a curious grasshopper and watched it bounce away, disappearing into the grass. 

From their spot on the hill, Rainbow could see nearly the entire park. Lonesome trees punctuated the rolling sea of green and shining gold, offering a welcome reprieve to dozen or so ponies enjoying their day out across the yard. 

Two special someponies shared a picnic under a wide-brimmed oak, leaning against one another. A distant trio of foals yelped and whooped in a desperate race. Past them, Rainbow could just barely make out Pinkie, who was performing some pretty elaborate gymnastics for the Cake twins while their mother napped in the shade behind them. 

It was a place that Rainbow had looked over countless times before, just from a far more elevated angle. It's honestly kind of weird to watch from the ground.

Gabe hooked a foreleg around his bag of stuff and dragged it across the grass with a loud, papery crinkle, upending it once he reached the shade. Rainbow followed at a lazy trot, watching him flip his pad open to a fresh sheet. "So, kid," she said as she found a spot next to him, "whatcha gonna draw?"

"I dunno yet," he replied. "We'll see."

Rainbow flopped onto her side and stretched her legs with a long, satisfied grunt. She would have preferred a cloud's soft, welcoming embrace to the somewhat scratchy grass, but there were none to be seen; every drifting wisp of white in the Ponyville skies had been used for the storm. 

She could see it from here. It churned out past the fields, an angry, roiling gray, bubbling and flashing with power. That's gonna be one heck of a storm. We really outdid ourselves.

She drew her forelegs up and rested her chin on her crossed hooves, staring out at the distant tangle of shadowy trees that formed the edge of the Everfree and listening to the intermittent scratching of pencil on paper. "You've been hangin' out with the Crusaders a lot, huh?"

"Mmm." Gabe nodded with a stuck-out tongue, his little face screwed up in concentration.

"You like 'em?"

"Yeah," he said without looking up. "They're nice kids. Scootaloo didn't like me at first, I think she was jealous."

He still held his pencil in his fetlock. Doesn't that hurt? Rainbow thought, watching the way he twisted his hoof to hold it. She furrowed her brow. "Jealous? That doesn't sound like her."

"You're pretty much her idol, Rainbow. She talks about you all the time, so it makes sense." He looked up from his paper. "Random colt shows up and you suddenly start spending a bunch of time with him for no obvious reason?"

"Oh, yeah." Rainbow bit her lip. "Wait, is that why she hasn't been asking to hang out and stuff?"

"Uh-huh. You should maybe spend some time with her. She'd like that."

"Ah. That's probably a good idea." She watched as he twisted his hoof this way and that, manipulating the pencil in a way that didn't seem comfortable at all. The mare found herself a little enraptured by the quick, controlled movements. 

How's he doing that? Rainbow looked down at her own cyan hoof, bending it back and forth and picturing holding a pencil with it.

"I'm also pretty sure Rarity's sister has a crush on me."

Rainbow's eyebrows shot up. "Wow, really? Are you sure?"

"I had a hunch before, and then when Applejack took us to get ice cream in town Scoots dared me to go up and ask the spa ponies if I could have a date. I thought it'd be a good way to find out." 

The mare blinked. What kind of story is this? "Well, did you get a date?"

The colt laughed a little. "No, they thought it was cute, though. I did go back and say I got a date at first, and Sweetie blushed really hard and got pretty upset, so yeah. I'm pretty sure."

Rainbow raised an eyebrow. "Did you do that just to see if she liked you? Dude..." She blew an orange strand of mane out of her face. "That's... kinda mean, kid. What the hay?"

He looked up at her and pulled the corner of his mouth to the side. "How is that mean?"

What? "Kid, you messed with her emotions for fun! How is that not mean?"

"I didn't actually get a date with those mares, Rainbow, and besides, it's not like her crush is anything more than wishful thinking. Better not to let her get her hopes up, and I don't think it's that big a deal anyway." 

She tilted her head and frowned. How could he be so... unfeeling? Wasn't Sweetie his friend? Rainbow bit her cheek. "So, I take it you don't like her back?"

From the face he made, somepony would have sworn that she just asked him to pick a dead worm up out of the dirt and grind it between his teeth. "What? No, of course I don’t like her that way, Rainbow! She's, like, eleven!"

"Okay, okay. Geeze." Sheesh, touchy subject, even though you're 'like, eleven', too. She pinched a bit of grass between her hooves and pulled, tearing it out of the ground. "I just think that it's mean to play with somepony's emotions."

"Hmm." The colt frowned and tried to burn a hole in his paper with just his vision. "Shit," he said after a while, "you're right. I just... I keep forgetting how different things are here."

Rainbow huffed but didn't say anything more. The kid was still getting used to life in Ponyville, so she supposed it made sense that he still did stuff like this. It was still weird, though... and just a little concerning.

A ladybug buzzed across her vision, drifting through the air in lazy swoops and whorls and landing on her hoof. She watched it waggle its tiny antennae and scuttle over her fur, stopping here and there to inspect its very warm, very blue surroundings. 

What's it looking for? she thought. My fur must seem kind of like grass, just warmer and brighter and bluer. The bug crawled around in a circle on her foreleg. I wonder if it's confused. How much does it understand? 

Then she blew on it a little, and it flew off.

The dry wind played with her mane a bit as it rustled the leaves above them. She laid her head back down on her hooves and closed her eyes, content to feel the breeze on her coat. Her ears twitched at the sounds of far-off shouts and Gabriel’s surprisingly near-rhythmic scratches on paper. 

It had the same patternless beat as rain on a window, endless and soothing, the perfect background for staying home and diving into the latest Daring Do book with Tank. Those days were the best, just sinking into her cloud bed and getting lost in the adventure, imagining how cool it would be to forage through an endless jungle wrought with dangerous beasts and pony-eating plants, searching for a priceless, ancient treasure...

A particularly frigid draft flowed over Rainbow and she opened her eyes. Purple had overtaken the pure blue sky, stretching across the roof of the world, and, in Ponyville, many of the windows glowed in yellows and golds. The park was empty now, save for them. 

Rainbow yawned and dragged a hoof across her eyelids, rubbing out the sand. "Sorry, kid, looks like I took a pretty long nap."

"Hey, if you slept that long, you probably needed it." The colt was still drawing, but now a thin pile of paper sat next to him on the grass. "Don't worry, I don't mind."

"You weren't bored or anything?"

"Your boring is my calm. Just fine with me."

“Cool.” Rainbow smacked her mouth and rubbed the side of her head. "How long was I out?"

He shrugged as she got to her hooves and stretched. "Few hours maybe? Three, four? I dunno." 

The pegasus twisted her head and stood with a very satisfying series of pops and cracks, then trotted up to the colt's side, peering over his shoulder. Her eyes grew very wide and she looked up at the view, then back down, then back up again.

"Wow, kid, this is incredible!" 

Somehow he'd reproduced the view from the hill in startlingly accurate detail, from the fragmented light reflecting off the grass to the paths that crisscrossed the grounds to the dappled shadows beneath the trees. Only two ponies populated the picture. They sat on one of the many benches installed beside the paths, silhouetted by the setting sun. 

The real ponies had disappeared since then, but their moment of peace was recorded in their paper-bound copies, forever watching a colorless yet beautiful graphite sky.

"Oh, thanks." Gabe smiled. "I've gotten a lot better at drawing with my hoof."

"No, Gabe, this is, like, really good! Where'd you learn to do this?"

"Some classes and a lot of practice. Good to see I still remember, after all this time." 

Rainbow didn't understand. When had he taken classes to make stuff like this? Most foals were still drawing stick-ponies at his age. For Celestia's sake, the best she could do was a stick pony! "Must've been some pretty good classes."

"I liked 'em." He added a few strokes to a shadowed patch of grass across the park, and Rainbow's eyes fell to the little stack of paper beside him. She flipped the top one over with a hoof and an image of herself greeted her.

The other Rainbow lay on her belly, with her chin buried in her forelegs and her tail curled around her side, lost in a comfortable nap. The landscape had been drawn in careful, detailed lines and immaculate shading, but this drawing's edges shuddered and shook, just at the verge of falling apart. Quick, sharp strokes made up her form and the monochrome grass she lay in. Her mane and tail stood alone as the only things Gabe had chosen to fill in with differing shades of gray.

"You like it?" She blinked and looked up. "I dunno if you're one of those people who hates getting their picture taken. Or drawn, in this case."

"No, no, I..." How'd he make her look so peaceful? She'd never been drawn before. It put an uncomfortable feeling in her stomach, something in between embarrassment and pride. "It's, uh, it's good." Rainbow carefully set it to the side and flipped over the next drawing.

Her muzzle screwed up. Gabe had created, in the same sketchy detail, a remarkably unsettling, ungainly, awfully strange-looking type of creature that Rainbow had never seen before. 

The thing was built like a scrawny, shriveled minotaur. It stood on two misshapen black paws and its hairless skin hung down in wrinkly, droopy folds. A strange mottled pattern of uneven shapes and varying shades covered most of its body, and it cradled an awkward, angular-looking black mass against its chest with thin, lanky arms that ended in strange, dark, knobbly claws. 

Only its head seemed even remotely appealing to look at. It was small and mostly hairless, with much smoother skin, a little nose, and a thin mouth. A mess of dark fur sprouted from its crown, snaked into what appeared to be a braid, and trailed down to lay on its misshapen shoulder. 

Most strikingly, its two tiny eyes stared out of the page and into her own, but, as weird as it looked, its expression wasn't angry or scary. It smiled a small, closed smile at her, looking like it had somehow just finished an exhausting double-shift of storm duty—an uncomfortable emotion to recognize on such an otherworldly face. 

"Gabe, what the heck is this ugly thing? Why is it shaped so weird?"

He set down his pencil and looked down at his drawing. His smile disappeared. "Oh. That's my sister, Rachel."

Her eyes shot wide open. "Erm, uh, I mean–" A thousand questions immediately began to surge in Rainbow's head. What in Tartarus is that? Why does she look like a mutant? They obviously aren’t actually related but how can he think of that as his sister? "I... What?"

He stared at her for an uncomfortable second. "...Rainbow. I should tell you something." He chewed on his lip. “Can you keep this between you and me?”

Huh? Rainbow's head spun, but she shuffled her wings and tried her best to seem calm and cool. "Uh, of course, dude, what've you got?" Was that too laid-back? I hope it doesn't sound like I don't care!

He fixed a stare on her. "Promise."

Rainbow gulped. "I promise." 

"I'm, uh..." The colt studied the grass with an almost violent intensity. "...I'm not from Equestria. I'm from far away. Really, really far."

She pursed her lips. It kind of made sense. No, scratch that—it made a lot of sense. He's real different, and the world's pretty big, and there are an awful lot of weird-lookin' creatures on it. 

Twilight had mentioned lands across the sea before, vast continents full of mysteries unknown to Equestria. She supposed one of them, far, far away, was home to these strange, wrinkly beings, but it was odd that she'd never heard of them before. Then again, maybe this was one of those things that only really mattered to fancy political diplomat eggheads and snooty nobles. 

"How far?"

"I, um... I don't know. I don't know how I got here. I think maybe someone or something brought me here." Another question that Rainbow seemed to never get closer to answering. Somepony out there had to know what happened to this foal, right?

Right?

She frowned a little and looked back at the picture. “So these, uh, people live where you’re from?” 

"Yeah. Quite a few, actually." 

It must have been so darned weird to be a kid surrounded by these things. "Erm... Why is their skin so wrinkly?" She pointed a hoof.

He raised an eyebrow, then blinked and chuckled. "Oh, that's not her skin. That's her clothes, her, uh, uniform. I drew this from a picture—er, a memory of a picture that I looked at a whole bunch."

"Uniform? You mean like Royal Guard armor?"

 Gabe nodded. "Yeah, exactly."

"Oh." Rainbow bit her lip and tilted her head, examining the drawing. "It, uh, it doesn't look like it'd protect ya from much."

The colt chuckled to himself again. What's so funny? 

"Well,” he said, “it wasn't made to stop spears or magic. It's supposed to help protect against different weapons. See that vest she's got on over her chest?"

Rainbow looked closer and discovered that she could make out a strange, square-ish article of clothing clinging to his sister’s upper body, wrapping around her shoulders and wrinkling the uniform underneath. "Yeah?"

"It's made to carry a special piece of really hard, tough, uh, stuff that's supposed to keep all the important bits sloshing around in there intact." He tapped the paper. "There's also a helmet, but she's not wearing it here."

It looked so uncomfortable, all wrinkly and baggy. How could anypony stand to wear something like that? Wouldn't it chafe? "Do all, um, do they all wear clothes like this?"

Gabe hummed in thought. "No, not all of 'em, but a hell of a lot do."

"Oh, cool, I guess." The mare tapped her hoof on the angular black mass his sister clutched in her forepaws. "What's that? Some sort of weird sword?"

He rubbed his foreleg again, then rubbed the back of his neck. "Uh... it’s a kind of weapon, I guess."

Rainbow blinked and looked at the strange shape. How was that supposed to be used? There were somehow no bladed parts and no blunt parts and the handle sticking out the end looked far too thin. Maybe it was magical―but then, where were the crystals, the inscriptions? Where was the telltale glow? 

"It sure doesn't look very dangerous."

"It is," he said, his voice flat. "Take my word for it." Rainbow decided that would be a good idea.

A gust of wind rustled through the trees, carrying the wet smell of a brewing storm.

"So, uh..." The mare swallowed. "So your sister was a guard?"

He looked up at her. "No, she was a soldier."

She cocked her head and frowned. "What's the difference?"

"Well, uh… she and the others, they... They're kind of similar, but..." Gabe tapped the edge of his hoof on the grass. "Rainbow, what does the Royal Guard do?"

She bit her tongue. "Um, their number-one job is to protect the princesses. Sometimes, if something really bad happens, they'll show up to help with medicine and police work and stuff like that. They also used to keep Equestria safe from invaders and stuff, but that was a long time ago."

"So, would you say a guard keeps the peace?"

Rainbow smiled. "Yeah, that's a good way of putting it."

Gabriel's voice was gravelly when he spoke. "A soldier... doesn't." Her smile disappeared. "They try to get it back. One way or another."

A soldier gets back peace? That didn’t make all that much sense. Rainbow was no history nerd, but she knew that kingdoms had soldiers even when they weren’t at war. Soldiers did things besides just fight, right? What kind of soldiers does this kid’s home have?

The colt looked down at his hooves again and rubbed one against the other. Some of his mane fell over his face. A cold, wet stone settled in Rainbow's gut as she began to put two and two together. 

"Something really, really bad happened in your homeland, didn't it?" she asked, her voice low.

The colt looked up at her with a deep sadness in his eyes. "I had better show you the last drawing." He flipped it over.

This, at least, Rainbow could identify. A far-off urban skyline stretched across the entire paper underneath a dark sky, a mass of blocky buildings and towering spires—including a titanic onyx spike near the middle—giving form to a massive cityscape. 

He’d drawn it with sharp, jagged lines. The skyline looked kind of like Manehattan's, but bigger. From what she could tell, much bigger. It must have been his homeland's capital, just like Equestria had Canterlot.

At first glance, the cityscape looked tall and majestic, but it didn't take long to notice that something was wrong. The structures were all marred and pitted. There were gaps in the skyline, and some of the towers were even missing large chunks. When she looked closer, Rainbow could make out smoke billowing from shorter towers and curling around the larger ones, dissipating into the air. Most striking of all, the clouds above the desiccated urban sprawl appeared to be streaked and cracked with wispy, snaking lines of some strange light. 

"What is this?"

The colt took a very deep breath. "This was a city from my homeland. Its name was Chicago."

"’Chicago,’ huh?” Rainbow tilted her head. "Wait, was?"

Gabe shrugged. “I mean, I guess the buildings are still there, they’re just… empty.”

What?! Rainbow’s eyes widened and she looked back at the picture. The city was massive. Thousands and thousands of these strange people could have lived there. What could do something like that? “What happened to it? Why's it so messed up?"

A moment passed.

"A war," the colt said, his voice empty.

A war. Rainbow swallowed. Wars were something old. Something outdated. Something that ponies weren't supposed to worry about. The tribal wars? Nightmare Moon and her dark army? The Griffon Invasion? Those were for history books and for eggheads that obsessed over dates and the names of long-dead ponies. They were something to point to when you had to write a two-page essay on how Equestria had changed in the last thousand years. Wars weren't something that happened anymore.

But... Gabe's home was different. Gabe's home still had wars. There, they still fought... and died. That's what destroyed this entire city, she thought. Maybe that’s even what killed his family. 

For a moment, Rainbow felt her heart seize at the sight of Cloudsdale streaked with snaking, uncanny light, torn apart and dissipating, its buildings sinking through their disintegrating foundations and out of the sky, crumbling as they fell. 

What would it be like, Rainbow thought, to see my father with those deep bags under his eyes, trying to keep a stiff upper lip while asking for a place to stay? To listen to my mother bawling her eyes out over losing all the photos in our family's home? Then her blood ran cold.

What would it be like to wake up to a next-of-kin letter in my mailbox instead?

Her lungs began to burn and Rainbow realized, with a start, that she had forgotten to breathe. She sucked in the cooling afternoon air and slowly let it whistle out as she stared at the drawing. Gabe was looking at it, too. 

Had he seen this with his own eyes? Had he watched this place be destroyed? What could have done this? Who could have destroyed a city so massive?

"Um... who were your people fighting?"

The colt let out a snort and a bitter, bitter laugh. "They were fighting themselves."

His words struck a little bell in the back of Rainbow's mind, and she furrowed her eyebrows trying to remember the term, reaching all the way back to blurred and broken secondary school memories of sleeping through her most mind-numbing classes. What's it called when people fight themselves? "A... civil war?"

He laughed again. What was so funny? "No. Well—it depends how you look at it." A tired shrug. "It’s complicated."

Okay… "How'd it start?"

"That’s... also complicated." He rubbed a hoof across the end of his muzzle. "Long story short, times got real tough, some people ran out of something they needed, and they decided to take it from somebody else.” The colt drew his mouth into a tight-lipped grimace. “Everything unraveled from there. Slowly at first, then, uh, really, really fast."

It felt a little strange to hear him say ‘somebody’ but she supposed they weren’t talking about ponies. Rainbow pushed the feeling away and cleared her throat. "Well, uh, how'd it end?" She rubbed one hoof against the other.

"It hasn't," Gabe replied. "At least, not that I saw. Last I remember, it hasn't even slowed down." 

The pegasus mare's head spun and she couldn't help but focus on the horizon. Somewhere, far over the seas, this war that had taken so much from the colt beside her was still raging. Were cities still burning? Were people still dying? How can things be so terrible over there, but so peaceful here? 

Thank Celestia for that.

A wave of cool relief washed over her, immediately followed by a stab of guilt. It must be a terrible war, to see such a scale of death. Hundreds of thousands of these strange creatures must have lost their lives... maybe even a million. 

It's not right to feel so relieved. Wait… “What happened to, um, Rachel?”

Gabe clenched his jaw. “I never found out.”

Rainbow almost recoiled. “Wh–” She bit her lip. Should I even ask this? “Um, what do you mean?”

A few seconds passed before he answered. “She messaged me almost every day,” Gabe said. “One day, she stopped.” He swallowed and shrugged. “That was when things were really getting bad. Wasn’t too long after that we stopped seeing many soldiers at all.” His voice lowered to a grumble. “Ours, at least.”

“Dude…”

"In a way, I'm kind of glad," he continued, still looking at his drawing. "I'm too young to really remember life before. I knew people who lived back then, before everything started to fall apart, and I think it was way harder for 'em. 'Cause they knew what they'd lost. Not many of those folks around these days."

Rainbow found herself at a loss. "Oh... wow."

"And here I am," Gabe said. His eyes looked tired and empty in the way a foal's eyes never should. "While everyone back home is suffering, I'm here, and nobody else." He waved his hoof at the park. "Green grass, clear skies. Warm beds, good food, school, friends. The way life is supposed to be. And I love it here." 

His voice wavered as he spoke and he refused to meet her eye. "There are people back home, Rainbow. People I know, that I… that I miss. We all did what we had to do, but they’re good people. They do their best. They would do anything to have this. These are people who've lost it all. And now I'm here, and I don't even have a clue what to do with the best second chance you could ask for. I..." He sniffed and swallowed hard. "How stupid is that?"

Rainbow opened her mouth and tried to speak, but her throat closed up. What could I even say, anyway?

Gabriel turned his head away from her. "I'm violent," he said. "I—Rainbow, I hurt that little girl. I know I didn’t have a choice, but I’ve, I’ve k-killed people. I’m not even supposed to be here, so why? Dumb luck? Did someone put me here on purpose? To teach me a lesson?" 

The colt stomped his hoof into the ground with surprising force and Rainbow's stomach flipped in her gut. She remembered the way he’d held onto her as she flew him home after that terrifying catch. 

"I shouldn't be here. It doesn't make sense, it's not right! I just—it shouldn't be me, I’m only gonna fuck things up. What am I supposed to do? It doesn’t make any fucking sense! I-I don't understand. I don't understand!"

He sank to the ground and buried his muzzle in his hooves. "I don't understand..."

Icy lead flowed through Rainbow's veins despite the warmth of the early evening air. His shoulders shuddered, even though he wasn't making any sound. She should be doing something, right? But what could she do? What could she say? She blinked, hard, and rubbed a foreleg across her eyes. What am I supposed to do?

Streaks of brilliant red and purple ran across the early evening sky as Rainbow watched the colt shake on the grass next to his drawings. She twisted up her muzzle. It was just wrong. This was a day for relaxing. A day to enjoy. This colt didn't deserve to be tortured like this on a day so beautiful. Celestia, he didn't deserve any of what had happened to him! 

And yet, Rainbow could do nothing to fix a torn-apart homeland. No words she could say would make the pain of having everypony you know or love go away. All she could really do was just... be here with him. And I've been doing a crap job at it.

Rainbow swallowed, shuffled up next to the colt, and lowered her belly to the grass. She pressed her side against his and spread her wing over his back to hold him close. It felt so pitiful, so useless, so insignificant in the face of such titanic loss... but it was all she could think to do. 

I hope it helps.

She stayed like that for a long time, listening to the deep grumbling on the edge of the wind with a tight heart and a head filled with visions of a burning city far, far, far away.





Twilight Sparkle pushed open her front door and nearly fell through it, catching herself in the nick of time with jelly-like legs. She stumbled out of the late-evening dimness and into her home, twisting and shutting the door behind her, then let out a sigh, slumping against it and squeezing her eyes shut.

"So, um," a voice said from the table, "I take it the meeting didn't go so well?"

She groaned. "About as well as you'd expect, Looking." Twilight forced herself to her hooves and plodded across the living wooden floor, collapsing onto one of the table's stools.

"Well, no word from the Princess, yet..." The stallion sent her a concerned look from behind Anima Thaumaturgia. "Pardon me, Twilight, but you look downright ragged. What happened?"

"I spoke with Sandy Hills, just like we planned. She told me a lot after I said I was concerned about the safety of the other foals. She's eager to put the incident with Mr. Rich's filly in the past."

"And?"

Twilight set her chin down on the table. "And nothing. She was completely confident that his 'episode' occurred due to a stress disorder. She said it was probably a flashback." She drew in a breath and let it out in a long, tired sigh. "There was nothing past that. Aside from a self-reported history of violence, he's been completely willing to peacefully integrate himself into pony life."

"Exactly!" Looking sprang up out of his seat, letting the textbook fall to the table with a loud whap! "It's blending in perfectly. It knows what it's doing. No real foal could be so calm when being introduced to such a strange, new environment."

Twilight frowned. "I don't know," she muttered, "and she really doesn't seem to think so. Sandy Hills may think the colt is strange, but she doesn't think he's malicious. It's the same with Rainbow. Shouldn't I take that into account?"

"Of course," Looking said, "but you also need to consider the possibility that their proximity to the 'colt' will sway their decision-making. If it's around them so often, it would make sense for it to know how to fool them better than other ponies."

"It still doesn't feel right."

He nodded. "And the interloper's counting on that. It's up to us to push through." He looked her in the eye. "Don't forget, the princesses are relying on us." The stallion coughed. "So, unfortunately, we'll have to write off Sandy Hills as a possible source of assistance. It seems we've gained all we can from her."

“We shouldn’t give up on that just yet. Who knows? We may find some way to convince her.” Twilight propped a foreleg underneath her chin and rubbed her eye with a yawn. "So, what's our next move?"

"We're going to need some heavy-duty equipment if we're to account for every possibility. Aura wrote that some of the summoned creatures had incredible magical powers, and it'd be simply disastrous to spring an underpowered trap–"

"Yo, Twi!" Spike shouted from the top of the staircase. She winced and flattened her ears against her skull.

"Spike! Not so loud, please!"

"Erm, sorry." The little dragon trotted down the living wooden steps. "Just got a letter for you. It's from Celestia, so I figured you'd–"

Twilight had already snatched the scroll from his claws with her magic, working to undo the seal as Looking Glass scurried around the table. 

Spike snorted as he walked back upstairs. "Yeah, you're welcome." 

She didn't notice. Her heart was too busy trying to pound its way out of her chest as her eyes danced over the thin, inconspicuous sheet of parchment floating before her.

"What's it say? What's it say?" The stallion hurried to her side, poked his muzzle over her shoulder, and gaped.

My dearest student,

I apologize for being unable to respond sooner. It is a great relief to learn of your discovery of the interloping creature, and I can assuage your fears of a foal's abduction. The caster has informed me of the methods used and, thankfully, no foal was harmed. 

The creature inhabits a true physical form borne from magical power, but it would not surprise me to learn that it has modified it to its own ends. Take great caution procuring it.

However, I fear I have not been entirely honest with you about the nature of the situation at hoof. I had hoped that the problem would be solved without the need to tell you, but I see now that this is not the case and that you need to be informed if we are to avoid a disaster.

My sister, Princess Luna, was the one who cast the soul magic spell.

Please be discreet with this information. I can tell you the unfortunate reasoning behind her decision at a future date, but it does not currently matter. Far more dire is the fact that this action has severely injured her. 

At first she seemed stable, but unfortunately, this is not the case. Her condition worsens by the day, thus my haste to find the creature. In the future, there may be time for research and study, but now is the time for action. 

You must return the interloper to Canterlot as quickly as possible if Luna is to be saved, so you have my personal support in acquiring any materials you need, but take great caution when acting—you are already well aware that it could be extremely dangerous. 

Do not panic. Please use the utmost care and subtlety, and should something go wrong, contact me immediately. 

I have not yet involved the Guard, but should I deem it necessary, I won't hesitate to do so.

With much love,

Princess Celestia