CHAPTER FIFTY-ONE - A PRIVATE PARTY
"Anything that’s human is mentionable, and anything that is mentionable can be more manageable. When we can talk about our feelings, they become less overwhelming, less upsetting, and less scary. The people we trust with that important talk can help us know that we are not alone." - Fred Rogers
The Powers That Be. Had they known all along? Was this whole thing just another mission? A step in their transcendental plan?
If Red Eye was predict-ified in Pinkie's tarot deck, then that meant that I was destined to meet him here. And if I was destined to be here, then logically, I'd also been destined to sneak into Screw Loose's door. Destined to find out her horrible brain secret. Destined to drag my friends through Misty Mountain's door, and plummet several centuries into the future.
Did Fate know all of that? Did I ever have a choice? Does anypony make any choices? If everything that's ever going to happen is completely fucking scripted in some giant book floating around in the cosmos somewhere, then what's the point of anything at all?
* * *
"Maybe it's like the blues," said Cliff Diver after hearing a thousand of my rants, fears, and existential what-the-fucks.
"That rusty old donkey music?" Foster said.
"Hear me out," Cliff replied.
I strained to listen to him through a haze of my own thought-mist.
"Legs was a band leader," Cliff continued. "Back when record players were still pretty new. So all this Traveler Music of his got heard for the first time. A lot of folks loved it. But a lotta ponies didn't understand it.
'You see, when Legs did a magazine interview with some Manehattan socialites, they asked him some of the dumbest questions in the world.
"'Don't you ever get tired of playing the same three chords over and over again?'" Cliff mimicked the voice of a socialite - or at least what he imagined a socialite might sound like. "And do you know what Legs said?" He snorted indignantly in his own voice.
"I confess that I do not," Foster replied.
"He said, 'Blues is like a journey,'" Cliff Diver started doing bad impersonations again. Strangely enough, it didn't detract from the story being told. "'...With the blues, you know where you're starting. You got a good idea of where you're gonna finish. And yeah, if yer just counting chords, there's a pretty clear path from Point A to Point B. But when you gather the right ponies together, it's magic. And it's different every time.'
'Maybe all of this fate stuff is like that," Cliff continued, speaking as himself again. "Pinkie Pie did your tarot reading. She told you that you're The Foal card. We know you're not the first Foal card. And you won't be the last. But think! What else did Pinkie tell you? She said that the universe is like a kid who wants to hear the same story every night. But...each time, there's a different pony playing the characters in the deck. Remember? Different Foal. Different Magician. Different Empress. Different Emperor.
'Maybe whatever force sends you on these missions doesn't actually know everything. Maybe they just know, like, three or four blues chords, and all they do is set up who's in the band?
'What if after that, the actual magic is up to us?"
Hearing Cliff's theory somehow snapped me out of my trance. It chipped away just a little bit of that pointless existencey dread, and replaced it with a far more practical dread. Of Safety. Of Red Eye. Of being lost - unable to find Misty Mountain, (who was clearly the key to everything going on) - and to get the hell out of there. Not to mention the fact that we were in Filly-fucking-delphia - a city so terrible that mere mention of its name had made the cage kids of Trottica squirm!
One-by-one, my senses returned, and I started to feel like myself again.
The walls were plum-colored. The paint, thick, hiding cracks and crevices in the wall. But Safety spared no expense making sure our dorm had everything we really needed. Cots. Desks. A little table for snacks. A sofa for relaxation. Even a latch that locked the door from the inside so we wouldn't feel like prisoners.
"Do you think they can hear us?" I asked.
Foster shook her head no. I don't know how she knew for sure. But Foster was confident. So I was too.
"How are we gonna find Misty?" I asked.
"Blueberry Milkshake," Bananas said. "Get in the habit."
"Sorry."
"And I have no idea," she added. "Why are you asking me?"
"'Cause you're like...amazing at this deep cover stuff."
"No, I'm not." Foster scoffed at us so hard she actually started to choke. "You just don't know the difference because you're both so bad at it."
"Exactly," I said.
Foster facehooved. Sighed like there was a one-ton anchor tied to her neck. "We can't keep this up for very long. We have to find Blueberry soon."
My hoof drifted to the mojo pouch around my neck without even thinking. I closed my eyes. Thought real hard about Misty Mountain's hair. About our bond as survivors. As time travelers. As friends.
But there were no clues in that headspace. No scent to track. No trail of breadcrumbs. That hair of his had led us into the correct ducky. The correct future. The correct town. But now we were on our own.
"What if you pretend to be Miss Honey?" Cliff said.
Bananas Foster pried her hoof off her face. Brushed her bangs aside. "No," she said.
"Why not?"
"We'd have to kill or incapacitate the real Miss Honey first."
"What? Why?" I asked. "All we need is answers. You'd only have to be her for, like, a minute. And in some part of Safety we know that she's not gonna be."
"What then?" Foster started pacing. Back and forth and back and forth and back and forth and back and forth and back again. "I go around asking the teachers about Misty Mountain? When everypony here knows that Miss Honey has an eidetic memory...That means photographic, by the way."
"I know what eidetic means." Cliff puffed out his chest.
"I didn't," I replied.
"Really?" Cliff said. "You're usually good with the big words."
"No, I didn't know that one."
"Agh!" Foster grunted in frustration. "What happens when the real Miss Honey finds out about the weird conversations that she's supposedly been having?"
"What about turning into a different grown up?" I asked.
"Believe me," Foster said. "I've been thinking about it."
"What we really need is access to those devices they were holding," said Cliff. "Glowing clipboards, I guess? Every time they needed to jot down information, they did it on one of those. Every time they had to look up information, they did it with one of those. If Misty - I mean Blueberry - is here at all, then those clipboards will tell us where."
"Any idea how to operate one?" I asked.
No answer what-the-fuck-ever.
"So what do we do, then?"
More silence. Once again our eyeballs drifted toward Bananas Foster.
"What?" She snapped. "Why are you looking at me? I'm no good at plans." Foster shot me a don't you dare fucking compliment me look. "...And even if I were the filly for the job, we'd still need to know more about this place first. You can't just make stuff up as you go along. In order to run a good con, you've first got to figure out how to use the local surroundings and culture to your advantage."
"But…" Cliff fidgeted with his forehooves. "They're gonna emotionally educate us tomorrow. After breakfast."
"Fuck," I said. "You're right. Do you think we'll even be able to look for Misty after that? Dammit. I mean Blueberry."
"What do you mean?" Foster asked.
"...What if it's like that time when Pinkbeard's whole crew got jellyfish on their brains, and the jellyfish told them to surrender their treasure?"
"I don't think Safety has access to those kinds of jellyfish," Foster answered dryly. "True, there are techniques of mind control they might be using. But Elderberry Sunset said that emotional education was a kind of class. Which means that whatever they're planning, it's gonna be a slow burn. If it was as simple as a magic potion or an evil jellyfish, they wouldn't bother to brace us for it. Whatever they're doing needs at least some cooperation from the other ponies."
"They're using food to buy that trust," Cliff added.
"It would seem so, yes, and we have the advantage of bellies that are not yet empty enough to be bought. So let's not hinge everything on emotional education. We're gonna have to keep cool, and take it one step at a time." Foster held up a hoof to indicate the number one. "Comb every crowd. Attend every class. Keep our eyes open. That was good work you did in the cafeteria - both of you. Safety only has three-hundred-some-odd kids, and we looked over a sizable portion of that in a very short time. If we keep that up, we're bound to find Blueberry Milkshake tomorrow."
"What if he's not with the other kids at all?" I asked.
Bananas Foster looked at me like she had a mouth full of lemons. "You think he's in the building without windows?"
"What building?" Cliff asked.
"The one with the mural on it," said Foster. "There's a lot of pain in there."
"How do you know?"
"Same way that you know not to bite into a rancid sandwich," Bananas replied. "Emotivores have a nose for this sort of thing."
"Wait," I said. "I thought that you were picking up on what my Rose Brain was sensing...'Cause of your hive mind or whatever. Are you saying that it wasn't my Rose Brain? But your bug-nose? And that I was actually picking it up from you instead?"
"Now you're just hurting my head," Foster plopped down on the couch.
Cliff Diver opened up a shiny black box by the kitchen table. Fog like winter's breath spilled mysteriously out of it. He produced a juice box. "Do you think Misty's in there because he's in trouble?" Cliff said. "Or because his mission is sending him there to rescue other kids?"
"Mission," said Foster.
"Trouble," I said, equally sure of myself.
Cliff looked to me. Concernitty. His juice box went slurrrrrrrrrrp. But he didn't take his eyes off me. Foster outdid Cliff, and looked at me with screaming eyeballs that demanded to know: What horrors had I seen???
"Well," I gulped. "Uh...when I stepped into his dream door. And fell through time and space...Right before I woke up in that hole in the ground, I actually heard Misty...He was crying."
"You think he's in trouble?" Cliff mumbled, mouth full of juicebox and straw.
"Yeah, kinda. I can't explain it. I just know it's really important that nopony finds out that we know Misty. I mean Blueberry!"
I cringed. Waited for Foster to throw me one of her disapproveitty looks. But she didn't. "I'm tired," she said. "We'll figure out the rest in the morning."
"What? You okay?" Cliff asked.
"Yeah," she replied. "I just need to rest, and meditate on our options. " She laid herself down gently. Right there on the sofa. Ignoring her cot completely.
"You sure?" I asked.
"Yeah."
Cliff and I dimmed the magic lights, and fiddled with some snacks in the kitchen area - chips, and juice, and oranges - while Foster lay in bed, (or rather, in sofa).
"Is she okay?" Cliff whispered.
I shook my head no. "Let her rest," I said. "It's been a long day." And before I could even finish that thought, a yawn leapt right up out of my fucking soul and ripped its way out of my mouth. Exhaustion had caught up with me too.
* * *
So we called it a night, and hoped for better luck in the morning. But here's the thing: hours later, I still couldn't get any rest. No matter how tired I was. I just lay there in the dark like a lump-of-not-sleeping. Till a whisper came from the direction of the sofa.
"Hay," said Foster.
"Yeah?"
"Are you awake?" Her voice trembled even as she whispered.
I reflected on the obviousness of the question. Decided against a sarcastic reply. "Yeah, I guess I am."
The room fell quiet again. I stared at the ceiling tiles. In the dull gray light, I could just barely make out the seams.
"I have a confession to make," Foster said.
"What's wrong?"
"Do you remember right before we got here? There was this...screaming?"
"Yeah," I answered.
"I can't get it out of my head, Rose."
"I know what you mean," I said.
"No, you don't," Foster replied. "When we were falling through the tunnel. Those screams, those voices, those souls? They got in. I heard them. I felt them. Deep in that secret room in the back of my brain - the place that not even the shadows could find. Mother used to come to us there with love - with food. And comfort." Foster whimpered. "It's where you and Cliff live now." Donk donk donk. Foster tapped her noggin. "I heard the screaming from in there."
"That's awful," I whispered.
"I'm really sorry." Foster sat up. Pled with me, "It's not even supposed to be possible. I don't know how I let it happen."
"You passed through a fucking apocalypse hole in the blanket of time," I said. "It happened because it happened. Not because you let it."
"Nice of you to say."
"You did nothing wrong in the first place!"
"Ungmum nugum znom zz," Cliff mumbled in his sleep.
"Sorry," I threw my hooves over my mouth and whispered.
Cliff's mumbling faded as if in reply. Then that deep dark quiet sunk in all over again. Foster brooded for a bit. While I watched the patterns in the ceiling warp and move in the dark as my eyes failed to focus on them.
"You know the weirdest thing about it?" She said.
"No. Tell me."
"I got the most surreal feeling. Where there's, like...something terrible happening to all these other beings. But it makes you feel really bad somehow. Even though it's not happening to you. Or anyone that you know."
"Empathy," I said.
"Is that what it is?" She cried. "You ponies actually live with that kind of feeling? Like, all the time?"
"Not every second of every day but, kind of, yeah."
"Ugh," she said. "That must be dreadful. I'm so sorry."
I snorted. Just a tiny fraction of chuckle - the kind of laugh you need a microscope to see. But when Foster rolled over in her sofa, and asked, "What's so funny?" Something about her confusion just sorta set me off. For no reason.
A real laugh exploded out of me, like a cannonball ripping through an enemy ship. "Bwahahaha!"
"What?" Foster said. Not even offended, just puzzled.
I shook my head, cackling. "We're gonna die here," my lips said out loud (without even bothering to consult my brain first).
"Ugh," Cliff groaned. "What's up with you two?"
Then Foster started to snicker. "We're going to die here," she said. A laugh honked its way out of her too. Like an elephant blaring its trunk.
Cliff sighed, all long-suffering-like. Which, of course, just fired that laugh-cannon through both of us all over again.
"Unng." Cliff rolled out of his cot, and dragged his weary hooves across the floor.
Click. He mashed a button on the wall, and the magic lights came on. Shunk. He yanked open a drawer. Crinkle. Out came a little burlap sack full of pretzels. Cliff plunged his face into it.
Foster and I kept on laughing. For no reason at all. On and on and on. Till at last, our chuckle-ships sunk, and we got air through our lungs again. "It's nice to have somepony to talk to at night." She smiled.
Cliff quit his snack mid-chomp, and threw me a sorrowful look.
This could be it. Our last night as roommates.
We didn't know what was gonna happen once we found Misty Mountain. Whether we'd ever have the opportunity to just sorta...be alone together again.
Once we actually finished the mission and got home? It was totally gonna be worse. There are no sleepover visitors allowed at the hospital. For all we knew, this was the last chance we were ever gonna get.
"You two wanna have a slumber party?" Cliff Diver said.
"What?" Foster replied.
"You know," he squeaked. "A slumber party."
"Isn't that what we're doing right now?"
"Yeah, sorta," said Cliff. "But if we do, like, slumber party stuff, it's different."
Foster poked her head up from behind the couch. "Different how?"
Pomf! A pillow flew across the room, straight into Foster's head.
"Hay!" She leapt over the back of the sofa, big thick couch cushion in her teeth.
"No, wait!" I cried. That thing was like a sack full of bricks.
"Aah!" Cliff threw his hooves up to protect his face.
But the pillow never came down. Foster just stood over him. Until at long last, Cliff got the courage to peek.
"Pbbbt," Bananas' tongue wagged.
And dompf. The Giant Sofa Pillow o' Doom dropped to the ground. Anticlimatical-like.
"I understand how sleepovers work," Bananas boasted. "I've had a lot of time to read up on the bonding rituals of your cultur--"
Pomf! I tossed my pillow at her too. A grip of the teeth, a whip of the head, and it hit her right in the back of the neck. But Foster didn't react, just leaned in close to Cliff Diver for a conspiratorial whisper.
I couldn't hear a word of it, but when he flashed her a villain's smile in return, I knew I was in trouble. On the count of three, they both charged me, whirling pillows around like fan blades.
"Eee!" I rolled off my cot. Right on to the floor. Scrambled to my hooves shaking a hind leg loose from a sheet that'd tried to grapple me like an octopus.
But it was too late. Cliff rounded the sofa. Foster cleared it in one leap. And they both flanked me.
Pomf! Pomf! Pomf! Pomf! Pomf!
Like Muleius Caesar, I lay there. Dressed in bed sheets. Assaulted by my closest of friends.
Dooonk. I took a pillow to the head.
"Et tu, Cliff Diver?" I strained against the urge to laugh; against the post-clobbering-dizziness - the urge to collapse on the floor and shield myself like a doodle bug getting pummeled by pillows at a doodle bug sleepover.
"Pony Latin?" Foster paused. "Limguam alienam loqueris? Quia tu, cum legitur textus antiquorum?"
Cliff quit wailing on me. Crunched his face in confusion.
"I don't know," I replied. "I just saw it in a play once. Roseluck is a theater nerd."
"Wait a minute." Cliff dropped his murder-pillow. "You taught yourself Pony Latin?!"
"Well, sort of, yeah." Foster blushed. "I couldn't physically scope out locations like my brothers did, so when I got to Canterlot to scout Equestria as a potential invasion site, I researched everything."
Bananas looked to our slack-jawed faces, and realized that we were more-than-just-a-little-bit fixated on her for being a super scholar mutant freak. "Languages come naturally to us." Foster reared back and threw up her forehooves. "Even the dumbest of my brothers - that's number Forty-seven," she chuckled - a knowing laugh at private family jokes we'd never hear. "He knew...maybe...two dozen tongues and dialects."
"Hay," Cliff Diver interupted. "You never told us about your time in Canterlot. What was it like?"
"A dump," Foster replied without batting an eye.
"What?!" I shook my head so hard that my eyeballs made a googly rattling noise. "What, what?!"
"Big cities are always cramped," Foster explained. "My room was tiny. My bubble? Tinier. I hated every minute of it, except, of course, for one thing." Her lips curled into a devious smile. "Canterlot has a totally amazing interlibrary loan system. I took the form of a sickly old scholar doing research from my bubble, and got the opportunity to read everything."
"How?" I asked.
"It wasn't terribly difficult," she said. "I forged the paperwork."
"No, I mean how did you stay in the shape of an old pony for so long. I thought being a grown-up was hard for you."
"It's the size," she replied. "Not the shape."
"So you could turn into Miss Honey," Cliff said. "For a long, long time if you had to. She's short!"
"Let it go, Cliff. It's a bad idea."
Cliff Diver harumphed.
"...Aaanyway I got to read so much about your history, and your culture. Mother initially considered Equestria too formidable a target. Until I did some digging and discovered the caves." Foster beamed with pride.
"Caves?" I said.
"You know, the crystal caves under Canterlot Castle."
We looked at her blankly.
"...Where my mother imprisoned the real Princess Cadence?"
"The newspapers didn't mention anything about caves," Cliff scratched his head.
"Neither did Cheerilee," I added.
"Weird," Foster said. "I guess they don't want anypony to know…Which is why learning about them was so hard to do in the first place. Kind of a security breach, I guess."
"Wait, so there's a network of caves under the castle?" Cliff squeaked.
"Well yeah," Foster snorted. As though the answer was obvious. "That's the point of a castle. They're meant to withstand a siege, but also to allow escape routes in case citizens need to sneak out. In the event of a prolonged attack, tunnels are typically used to smuggle food supplies back in. Canterlot may not have much of a military history, but they still thought of stuff like that. Every castle everywhere is built with sieges in mind. Always. Staircases spiral in one direction to make it easier to defend rather than to attack. The windows are easier to shoot out of than into. Oh! And of course, there's the location."
"The location?"
"Why did you think they built Equestria's capital on a mountain top? The view?"
"Well, yeah, kinda."
"...So everypony tugging a supply cart has to do it uphill...just so the castle can look cool?"
"I never thought of that," Cliff sighed. "We all just take the train."
"Wait a minute," I said. "Every castle?"
The room fell silent.
"...So...logically there's got to be a way in and out of...you know."
"I don't think the shadows designed it for escape," Foster replied grimly.
"Yeah but the shadows didn't design it," I said. "We don't even know who did. Princess Luna found it floating around somewhere. I had a vision of the inside, remember? I saw what it was like when Luna was in charge. There were...these...kids...hiding. 'Cause they'd broken into the beard wizard's room to look for a weapon. And he was mad." I shook my head. "It turned out that they were just scared. Terrified that Luna wouldn't be able to fight the nightmares all by herself. So I guess, the castle must have been under siege. Even the beard wizard seemed worried about it."
"But they didn't evacuate," Cliff said.
"I don't know. What I saw was, like, a two minute conversation between three ponies. Who knows what went down on the night that the castle actually fell? My point is that, even back when it was a dream castle, it was designed to withstand a prolonged attack. So there might very well be a way in through abandoned hatches or whatever."
Foster shook her head. "If there were tunnels in or out, the shadows would have shored them up."
"Tunnels that they know about," I said. "Screw Loose got out, didn't she?"
"Yeah, but did she grow a conscience first, go insane out of guilt over what she'd done, and then escape; or did she leave the castle as an inquisitor, only to snap, and turn into a dogmare somewhere on the outside? The distinction is important. Especially if we're making wild guesses about their security."
"Well...Fuck, now I'm confused."
"Let's just ditch the shadow talk altogether and focus on one epic task at a time," Foster said.
"Right," I said. "So...Misty - sorry, I mean Blueberry Milkshake."
"I was referring to the slumber party," she replied.
"Huh? Seriously?" Cliff said.
"I like learning about your customs." Bananas shrugged. "What do we hit each other with next?"
"Makeup," Cliff said dryly.
I laughed through my nose.
"Huh?" Foster said.
"Makeovers," Cliff said. "That's when--"
"I know what makeovers are," Foster snapped. Grumpy that Cliff had dared to insinuate that she might not know something.
"Well, we don't have any makeup," Cliff said. "And that's just as well 'cause it wouldn't be a good look on me anyhow."
"To be honest, I've always found your beautification rituals intriguing."
"Intriguing how?" I scoffed. "You just sorta goof off and mess with each other's manes and stuff."
"You ponies go through such extraordinary lengths to alter your appearance...manually." Bananas Foster somehow make that sound both exotic and quaint at the same time. "Can I let you in on a little secret?" Foster leaned in close, beckoned us forward till we were all huddled together real tight. Primed for conspiracy. "My hive has conquered a lot of worlds. And I've had the chance to observe a lot of cultures - even from the inside of my cocoon. Every civilization that has ever had contact with ponies - everycreature who's ever even heard of ponies. They. All. Really. Want. To. Brush. Your. Hair."
"Um...What?" Cliff said.
I could see it. The changelings. The windigo. That Sombra guy who came out of nowhere just a few months ago to attack the Crystal Empire, (which we also only heard of a couple months ago). Every villain that Equestria has ever faced - they really only wanted to trap us in some sort of torture salon of eternal brushing. Except maybe Discord. I couldn't imagine that guy getting friendly with a pony - any pony. Ever.
"Wait," I said. "So changelings tried to take us over... to...groom us?"
"No, no, no," Foster said. "The love-based societies that we conquered did. Our motivations were pretty straightforward."
An old dagger that had been stuck in my heart a long time - suddenly twisted - reminded me of what her hive had done. How Foster'd moralized it with her us versus them philosophy.
Not ten minutes ago, Bananas had confided in me on how awful it was to feel a world dying. But even now, she still had no problem doing that to other creatures. Other worlds!
"Rose." Foster waved her hoof in my face to get my attention.
"Huh?"
"I'm sorry," she said. "I'm trying."
I nodded.
Tok. Tok. Tok. A hoof knocked lightly on our door. My friends and I exchanged eyeballs. Then looked to the bolt that secured our door from the inside. I don't know why, but my heart started racing. I instantly gained a deeper appreciation for why that bolt was there.
Cliff Diver nudged me with his shoulder. I nudged Foster. But she just shrugged and nudged me right back.
"Hello?" I said.
"Hi. You don't know me," said a squeaky little voice, trying its darnedest to whisper. "I live next door."
"Oh my gosh," I said. "Did we keep you up? I'm so sorry."
"It's not that," The Whisper replied. "Can you open up a sec? I promise I don't bite."
While my friends and I looked to one another for answers that none of us had, the voice quickly added in a panicked tone, "But if you don't want to, that's totally okay."
With a flip of the latch, the door was open and there stood a filly. Purple. Unicorn. Yellow hair all done up in ribbons and stuff.
"Okay. Again, I'm real sorry to bother you," the girl bounced up and down Pinkie Pie-ishly, even as she whispered. It was an odd combination. "And I know we're supposed to leave you alone the first night. 'Cause getting settled in is totally overwhelming. Lemme tell you, I was soooo freaked out when I got here that I--;" The girl shook her head like a ketchup bottle, struggling to squeeze the right thoughts out. "Oh, yeah. Anyway, we're having a party on the roof right now. And, well...your lights were on, and I didn't want you to miss it, and then find out about it later, and get real sad." The girl threw up her hooves and waved them all around to reassure us. "Buuuut it's okay to miss the party if you want to. I'd never tell you how to feel. That's not how we do things around here."
Blink-blink. All of our eyelids clapped up and down like a circle of castanets.
"We'd be delighted," Bananas said. "Just give us a second to grab our coats."
"Cool," the purple unicorn whispered. "I'm Bubblegum, by the way."
The three of us gave our names in exchange.
"Great!" She replied. "Meet me in the stairwell."
We all nodded politely as Foster eased the door shut. But Bubblegum thrust her head in at the last second. "One last thing," she said. "Elderberry shouldn't know. She's a party pooper, and well, teeeeeechnically we're not supposed to be doing this."
"Cross my heart, and hope to fly, stick a cupcake in my eye," I said. And mimed zipping my mouth shut.
Bubblegum just looked at me like I was crazy. "Yeah, so, uh, see you in a few minutes, I guess," she said, and disappeared into the hallway.
Once the door was shut, Cliff spoke up. "What do you think?"
"If they're breaking the rules, maybe they're not as brainwashed as we thought," I said.
"Or they've been emotionally educated into thinking that they're breaking the rules," said Cliff. "Or they're testing us."
"From what I've read of boarding school culture," Bananas said. "This is the part where we get hazed." She grabbed a coat off the hook on the wall. Slung it on her back. "But the lack of social pressure? The idea that she's supposed to respect our space? I believe her when she says that intruding is not their way."
"What is their way, anyhow?" Cliff asked. "These Safety ponies never shut up about it."
"I'm not a hundred percent sure," Foster replied, "But everyone here seems to treat it like something sacred. I think we should be careful. But I also trust Bubblegum - her good intentions anyway. All we have to do is keep cool, and we might learn something."
"But should we even be going?" Cliff protested. "Do you really think that Misty - I mean Blueberry Milkshake - would spend his time partying in the middle of the night when he's on a mission?"
"Yeah, kinda," I replied.
And that was that.
Fully dressed, we made our way out. The door to our room had the kind of hinges you never notice until you start sneaking around. EeeeEeEeEeeee, it screamed as though it had legs and they were being twisted off by some kinda evil leg thief who preyed upon helpless young hinges.
But nopony came running. No guards. No soldiers. No Elderberry Sunset.
Bananas Foster poked her head out the door. Cliff and I followed. The corridor was long and green. The floor, cold and brown. It mighta kinda almost sorta had a foresty effect. Except for the buzzing lights. And the waxy antiseptic smell.
The three of us shuffled our way down the hall in our standard issue bedroom slippers. I'd like to say that we'd left our boots behind 'cause we were super stealthy and smart. But we just plain forgot.
Shuuuush shuuuush shuuuush, the slippers rubbed against the floor. Like a tooth getting brushed really really slowly.
"Don't worry," Cliff whispered. "They can't hear us."
Shhhhhuuush. Shuuusssh. Shuuush.
"Are you sure?" I asked.
"Did you hear Bubblegum coming?"
"Good point."
As we made our way down the hall, we passed a bunch of doors. Just like ours. Only covered with drawings and messages written in paint.
Lemon Drop Rules, said the first door.
Keep Out, said the second.
Unicorns Only, said the third, scrawled in blue lettering, only to get crossed out in green. Just kidding said the replacement message right below it. Silver Shimmer is a Doofus, the green paint expounded. After that, it was just a series of scribbles, crossing out Silver Shimmer and replacing it with Pistachio. And vice versa. An epic battle that covered the entire door - a war to establish once and for all who the true doofus was.
The door at the end of the hallway had Elderberry Sunset's name on it, written in that strange shade of green that all of their technology seemed to glow with. The letters were drawn in a pattern made up of razor-perfect squares.
Cliff and I tiphooved. 'Cause Elderberry was a party-pooper, apparently. We oooooozed passed that doorway at the pace of a snail who'd just finished guzzling a gallon of camomile tea and then decided to see how fast it could drag a wagon full of anvils across the room.
Just in case we woke Elderberry and ruined everypony's party.
But Foster darted ahead in a hurry.
Damnit! Sneaking around quietly only works if everypony does it. So Cliff and I hauled flank over the finish line. Straight through the door that led to the stairwell. And eased it shut behind us.
One by one, we poked our heads up over the window in the stairwell door. Cliff. Then me. Then Foster. And finally, Bubblegum, who popped up from out of nowhere
"Whatcha lookin' at?" She asked.
"Oh, hi," I said.
"Hi." She smiled at me. Then went back to the extremely serious business of spying through the window to the corridor. "So what are we looking for?"
"We wanna make sure we weren't followed," Foster replied.
"You're fine," she said. "Come on!" Bubblegum led us up the stairs - the kind of staircase that zigs and zags around and around and around. Till we came to a kid. Orange. Earth pony. Sprawled out across the floor of the stairwell. Doodling on a sketch pad with a stick of charcoal gripped in her teeth.
"Hey, you got the bunker stunkers," she mumbled without taking her eyes off her work, or her mouth off the coal.
"What are you doing here?" Bubblegum said. "Party's upstairs."
"I just took a little break," the artist pony mumbled.
"That's Scribbles," Bubblegum turned to me and said. "Always drawing. They actually managed to get her some paper. Can you believe it? Paper!"
"Wow," Foster feigned disbelief.
But I was genuinelly speechless. A world without paper?! Were there no trees left? Had the big bomb wiped out everything?
I knew, of course, that millions of ponies had died. I knew that it would take centuries to recover. I knew the Wastelands were barren (from what little I'd seen, and from what the ponies in the trenches of No Mare's Land had told me). But I had never actually stopped to think about the trees before. Trees are just sort of...a constant. They'd been hanging around Equestria long before ponies got there, and we all just sorta thought they'd keep hanging around long after we were gone.
Did these Wasteland ponies even know that we were supposed to be running leaves off them in Autumn. Wrapping up Winter the day before Spring? Had they any idea at all that it was our job to take care of the land? And the sky? And the trees and rivers and fields and stuff? That that's what makes ponies who we are?
Did they even remember that that's who we used to be?
"I'm almost done," Scribbles mumbled, teeth still gripping her charcoal. "I jusht need oooone momemt."
She took a final look at her sketch, grimaced, and slid the charcoal right into her coat pocket. "So," she said, finally looking us in the eyeballs. "You must be the new kids." She grinned a black-toothed grin.
"That's us," Cliff said.
We ascended the stairs to her level. Exchanged names.
"If you hold on a sec, I'll go with you." Scribbles stretched herself out. Motioned to close the sketch pad. Ever so delicately. But not before I leapt up and thrust my muzzle into it. Getting nosey.
She'd drawn bird cages. Rows of them. The metal doors were all bursting open; birds were flying free. I can't say it was a perfect photographic likeness or anything. But it had been scrawled with passion. It had a lot of sharp, angry edges. And tiny ponies, drawn in pencil on the bottom, were pulling levers to open up even more cage doors that lined the margins of the page. One filly smashed an entire pile of empty cages. As a building in the distance labeled "CAGE FACTORY" burnt to the ground.
"I love it," I said.
"Thanks," she blushed. "I messed up the shading on the cage factory, and the second filly on the left - her head's too big. But I'm glad you--;"
"It reminds me of my escape," I blurted out, already forgetting Foster's advice. Don't give too much away. Listen more than you speak.
Scribbles' eyes lit up like fireworks, even as she shied away. "You just made my day."
"Well," Cliff interjected before I spilled any more bean secrets. "Uh, we should be going. You know, to the roof...for um...reasons."
"Sure." Scribbles slipped the sketchpad into her saddle bag. And joined us on our climb up the final flight of stairs.
It was grated metal instead of concrete, and noisy under our hooves. Tang-tang, tang-tang, tang-tang. We all moved slowly. One step at a time. Like tiny foals still figuring out what stairs were.
At the top was a narrow platform and a rickety metal door. Bubblegum reached it first. "Okay," she turned around and whisper-squeaked. "Is everypony ready?
"Can the theatrics, will ya?" Scribbles snapped at our escort all the way from the bottom step. She was a lot more assertive now that nopony was complimenting her on her drawings.
"Pbbt. You're no fun." Bubblegum nudged the door open with her flank.
A wave of unnatural light poured in behind her. Pink. No, blue. No, pink again. Almost like a dance party. It caught the yellow highlights in Bubblegum's hair and made her head glow.
None of us could see what was going on, but the strobe effect was enough to get all of my hairs standing on end. Cliff musta felt super weird about it too. 'Cause he spun around to throw me a what-the-hell look.
Bananas Foster, on the other hoof, managed to play it cool.
"C'Mon," Bubblegum commanded us with a giggle. "Check it out!"
She disappeared into the haze. Cliff followed. And Foster behind him. Clang clang clang. Up the stairs we went. Braced for anything.
When Cliff Diver made it to the top, however, he stopped dead in the doorframe, as if paralyzed by the mysterious light, and shrieked. "What the--?!"
"Stay cool," Foster growled, and shoved him out the door.
Scribbles came up from behind. Rammed both me and Foster up the last of the stairs, and out the door, chiding us, "Shh! Shh! Shhhhh!" All the way till we staggered out into the open air.
That's when I finally saw what all the fuss was about. Off in the distance was a bazillion lights. They moved around and tickled the underbelly of the clouds above. Like the special effects at a Sapphire Shores concert.
Below all the dazzle was an amusement park. A fucking amusement park. It had a roller coaster and everything! But it wasn't a happy park full of cheer and wonder like Las Pegasus. No. The rides were all flanked by brick towers, springing up all over the place like weeds. And each one had army guns mounted to it - so big, I could see their steely muzzles from blocks away.
Fworrrsh! A burst of flame erupted from Luna-only-knows-where, casting an ominous light below the giant balloons surrounding the perimeter. Monstrous things that loomed over the four corners of the park like guardian spirits. Each one had eyes painted on it that somehow managed to stare right into your fucking soul. All of them, shaped like...
"Pinkie Pie?" Cliff said.
The Safety kids rushed forward as all three of us stumbled onto the rooftop and stared at the park in horror. "Are you alright?" One of the children said.
"I told you the new kids wouldn't be ready," snapped another voice.
"I'm sorry!" Bubblegum cringed. "I thought they'd already seen it in on their way in!"
"It's okay," some random colt said to Cliff Diver soothingly. "Pinkie can't hurt you."
"Pinkie Pie wouldn't hurt anyone!" Foster cried out suddenly, and stunned the entire party into silence.
The Safety kids backed off. Even as Bananas Foster dropped to her knees.
Scribbles looked to me as if to say, What weird fucking island have you been shipwrecked on your whole lives that you don't realize that Pinkie Pie's face should inspire terror in all who see it?
But how could I explain? How could I get these kids to understand that Pinkie Pie was courageous, and kind? A pony who'd do anything - anything! To make someone else smile. The sort of pony who'd show up to the hospital, and try to bring cheer to the utterly miserable. Even when she couldn't get a smile in return. The sort of pony who did it just because it was worth a try.
Scribbles put a hoof on my shoulder. But it wasn't to offer me comfort. She darted her eyes sideways. Gestured at Bananas Foster with her orange head. "Go to her," she whispered.
Instantly, I saw the Safety Kids in a whole new light. They weren't gawking at us blankly like pirates entranced by the toxic green glow of the Talking Lighthouse of Hypnotizia. One of them ran to get a blanket. Another dashed for a thermos of water. Yet another guarded the rooftop door for signs of grownups. And they all stood on standby. Waiting to follow my lead and Cliff's - the kids who knew Foster. The kids who understood her suffering.
I dashed to Bananas. Knelt by her side. Cliff was already there. We hugged her as she huddled there.
"I'm sorry," she whispered.
I shushed her, and ran a hoof over her mane.
Cliff beckoned the blanket girl over. And draped the dull tan fleece over Foster. Not to shield her from cold. But 'cause he knew that Bananas had a nautical fuck ton of shame to hide.
"It happens to everypony eventually," said Bubblegum.
I nodded back at her so Foster wouldn't have to.
The door creaked open, and every head turned - even Foster's. A pistachio green colt stepped out, and waved a pip-bucked forehoof in the air.
The whole crowd sighed and slouched, and murmured a bunch of relief-y sounds.
"What?" Cliff said. "What's going on?"
"Pistachio scouted downstairs," said Scribbles. "And you're good. No grown-ups. No party poopers. The coast is clear. When you're ready - and not a second before you're ready," Scribbles added. "Pistachio will make sure you get back to your room without getting in trouble. I don't know if you've met him yet. But he's a Stable Tec kid like you, and he lives on your floor. And he's good at this."
A small crowd of kids nodded in silence. They seemed content to let Scribbles and Bubblegum do all of the talking. Since we actually knew them, or at least had some prior rapport, however small.
"I'm ready." Foster rose to her hooves, slinging the blanket over her back.
"You don't have to--;" Bubblegum tried to reassure her.
"I'm ready," Foster said firmly. Dryly. As though nothing had happened at all.
She ambled over to a random unicorn in the crowd, produced the blanket, folded it delicately with her teeth, and passed it to her. "Thank you for your hospitality," she said.
Foster had actually managed to take note of who had given her the blanket. Even though she'd been huddled up at the time. A total wreck.
I didn't even remember who it was, and I'd been looking right at the kid.
"You're welcome," the blanket girl levitated it into her saddle bag. "You're one of us now."
Foster walked past her toward the ledge. She took one final look at the amusement park. A staring contest that she definitely won. She didn't flinch. Even as flames burst yet again, casting boogie mare shadows on the evil Pinkie balloons, like they were telling spooky campfire stories. Foster didn't blink. Didn't budge. Even as the giant guns spun around in search of prey below. Not a flicker of expression from Foster at all.
But it sent shivers across my spine.
Our escort back "home" was gracious, and the trip uneventful. Pistachio let it be known that he'd be there for us if we wanted to talk, but was also content to guide us quietly.
We chose the latter.
* * *
Later on that night, I found myself lying awake in bed, staring into the darkness again. Every event of the last twelve-hours-or-so clobbered me in the head, one after another. Like one of those mechanical clobber-majigs with a whole lot of boxing gloves on a wheel that just keep punching you and punching you and punching you over and over and over and over and over again. Till it all blurred together.
But one thing popped out above the surface. One memory stared back at me from the deep dark gray that shrouded our ceiling.
Scribbles. The way she'd looked at me back on the rooftop. At the time, I'd thought that she was appalled - scandalized by the fact that I'd dared to think of Pinkie Pie as anything other than a monster. I'd presumed that Scribbles was just like the kids back home. Sensing how weird I was. How foreign. Unrelatable. Impossible to understand.
But Scribbles didn't care about any of that. She was horrified at me. For not running to Bananas Foster's aid. That was the Safety way. A model of friendship built on a cycle of trauma, crisis, and support. They had it down to a science.
But I didn't. That look on Scribbles' face - it itched at me like a cut at the roof of my mouth that I couldn't stop tonguing.
'Cause she was right. No matter how supportive Cliff Diver was - no matter how good of a leader Bananas Foster was turning out to be - no matter how much she loved being out in the open air, moving on her own four legs - we were still in danger. And that breakdown on the rooftop? That was on me. Everything was.
'Cause I'm the one who brought them there.
Bananas Foster coughed. Turned over. The uneven springs of her cot croooooaked beneath her weight.
"Psst," I said.
"I'm awake." Foster replied.
"I've been thinking."
"Don't do that," Cliff jumped in. "It's bad for you."
"Probably."
I stared at the shadows on the ceiling a little more. Hoping for a clue. But all I got was a kick in the face. Twinkle Eyes' old 2 x 4 o' Friendship telling me to quit moping around. "There's another way out," I blurted out.
Both of my friends turned to face me.
Roooooaoaoakakkkckk, Creeeeeewwweeeee, went their two cots in terrible harmony.
"...At least I, uh...think there is."
"Out with it," Foster said.
"Okay. When I got back from No Mare's Land, Princess Luna met me in my dreamscape - told me that 'The Wanderer' had been scratching outside my brain-door the whole time - thrashing against it so badly that it had to be reinforced or she woulda run into my dreamworld. Or worse, straight into the future." I rubbed my mojo bag idly with my forehooves. The sock was in there. Screw Loose's favorite toy. "I think I can call her. Even through time. My brain'll bridge the way."
"What about the Inquisitor?" Foster said.
"Maybe she didn't get out."
"Maybe?!"
"I don't know. Probably. The point is...it's an option. And if we can't figure out what exactly happened after Screw Loose's door slammed shut, we can at least make a pretty good guess about it."
"You mean it's a way out. In case we don't find Misty - I mean Blueberry - in time?" Cliff asked.
I nodded.
"...In case we're stuck here...." Cliff added.
I nodded again.
"...There might still be hope."
"Yeah," I chuckled nervously. "Or if you wanted to...you know, go right now, we could try it."
…
…
…
"What about fate?" Foster said. "The cards?"
"Yeah," I answered. "I'm probably gonna have to face Red Eye at some point. There's no way around that. But there's a lot going on here, and I just wanted to give you two the option to, you know, go somewhere safer. Like Cliff's dream or something, where you could still walk around and do stuff outside your bubble...only with no weird future-history looming over you. It's not fair to you to have to endure this weird Pinkie-hating city."
"Nothing's fair," Foster said indignantly. "Who cares about fair?"
"She's just Rose Petal'ing again." Cliff softened the mood.
"Rose Pe--?"
"I'm not mad," Foster interrupted before I even had a chance to register my own shock at having been transformed into a verb. "I know you have a lot going on. I know you've lost friends on missions before, and you don't wanna lose us. I get that. Really, I do. But you need to figure out - like soon, or even better...Right. Now. You gotta decide. Are the three of us a pirate crew, or aren't we?"
"Pirate crew?" I whispered to myself.
It dawned on me then and there: everything that I loved about pirates. Sisterhood. Loyalty. Pride. Standing tall, even with the whole world out to get you, knowing that the only thing that matters in this universe is staying true to your crew, (and flipping your tail at the East Equestria Trading Company).
I had it all right there. In my friends.
As terrified as we were. As twisted as that Pinkie Pie theme park was. As creepy as emotional education, and that weird windowless building were - Cliff, Foster and I had each other. Like pirates.
The very first thought of it sparked a little lantern inside of me. Melted away the anchor that had been crushing my chest - a weight I hadn't even realized was there. I felt myself floating above it all.
A smile rose up from my lantern-heart to the surface of my face, and tingled like cool breeze under a hot sun. But I didn't have words for how I felt. It just wasn't possible to tell them how touched I was to know that I needn't blame myself for their fate anymore.
'Cause we were pirates together! Through thick and thin. From the Isle of the Oracle Crab to the Port of Sunken Dreams.
A magnificent feeling swept over me like a wave. And I couldn't think of a damn thing to say except, "Yaarrrrr."
"Yarrr?" Cliff chuckled.
"Yarrrr." I replied.
"Glad you've come around." Foster said.
"Yarrrrr."
"You can stop that now," she said.
"Yarrrrrrrrrr."