//------------------------------// // Chapter 6: Those Left Behind // Story: FiO: Even the Strongest Heart // by Shaslan //------------------------------// A week after Mom left us, I found myself in front of my dad’s desk, staring at the middle drawer. The one I knew contained my ponypad, locked away since that awful morning we found the note. I knew I shouldn’t…I didn’t even fully want to. But the days had been so long, without Strongheart and the others to talk to. And Dad wouldn’t speak to me. He just…left the room when I came in. Went to work. Looking so blank and empty I couldn’t even tell if he was sad or not. Maybe there wasn’t much of a choice after all. I took my ponypad out of its drawer. One tap on the screen, and it blinked into life immediately. I was in my tent, the woven blankets covering me. Little Strongheart sat beside my bed, and looked up as soon as she heard my avatar take a breath. Immediately, she scrambled to her hooves. “Cedar Shield! Oh my goodness, are you alright? How do you feel? What happened?” I frowned, surprised. “What do you mean?” “I mean you went to bed a week ago and just…never woke up! I’ve been working around the clock with the medicine woman to try and figure out what might help, but nothing she did was any use!” Her voice was indignant, but her hooves, as she reached out to embrace me, were trembling. “I was so scared for you.” “No…it was…it wasn’t me that something happened to.” I finally said. She pulled away, frowning. “It was my mom.” “Shady Pines?” “N-no, my real mom.” Instantly, her face clears. “Oh! You mean in the Outer Realm.” “The real one,” I nodded. “My mom, she…she…” my words tailed off and I finished the sentence in a whisper. “She died.” Strongheart’s face twisted in anguish and I saw her forelegs tighten around me. I wanted more than anything to be able to feel that hug. To have someone hug me. “I’m so sorry, Cedar.” I bowed my head so that my hair fell across my eyes, and sniffed hard. “I…I…that’s okay.” She held me for a while, and then moved a little, making enough noise to get my attention so that I looked back at the screen. “Actually, we have a visitor…that you might like to meet. A pony.” I sniffed hard and nodded. Maybe a return to our battle against the Appleoosans would be just what I needed. An escape. “Did the townsponies send an envoy? Are they trying to make a deal?” “No. She’s not from Appleoosa. She’s — well, maybe you’d better come out and see for yourself.” Still fighting back my tears, I followed her out. The camp was just as I had left it, peaceful and tranquil, the walls of the arroyo rising high on either side and the stubby trees reaching their branches towards the scorching sun. Buffalo called out friendly greetings to me, and Victory Stampede waved furiously at me from a distance, but didn’t approach. In the centre of the circle formed by the tent stood Chief Thunderhooves, his huge bulk dwarfing the pony beside him. Cautiously, I approached, Strongheart beckoning me onwards, and the chief and the mare ceased their conversation and turned to face me. She was pink-coated, with a fluffy black mane. An earth pony. Her cutie mark was some sort of twist of light with stars at either end. She was a complete stranger. But her face, when she saw me, softened into a heart-wrenching smile, desperate and sad and happy all at the same time. “Maggie,” she said, and I knew that voice. “Maggie, you’re really here.” My hands fell away from the ponypad, and it clattered to the floor. No. No. “Maggie,” whispered the earth pony, pressing closer to the screen. “Maggie, it’s me. I didn’t leave you. I’d never leave you.” My lips felt wooden, but I forced them apart just enough to get one word out. One question. “Mom?” She beamed and nodded frantically. “Yes, yes, it’s me! I came to see you — to be in your shard with you, if you’d like. I know it hasn’t been long for you, but for me it’s been — years — so many years — and I’ve had so much time to think.” I started to back away from the ponypad, lit up pink as she pressed her face close to the camera, her hooves reaching for me. Her words flowed thick and fast. “I know now that I was wrong, your dad and I both were. I should have been here for you. I should have spent more time with you — we should have played Equestria Online together.” “No, no, no,” I muttered, my hands rising to clutch my temples. My mom was dead. My mom was dead. “But it’s alright!” she said, her voice climbing higher and higher. “It’s okay, because we can play together now. We can play forever if you like! And Princess Celestia said I’m finally ready to come back and see you, and she said you’d like it if I was to stay with you — that it would satisfy you—” I staggered backward and stumbled, my back colliding hard with the kitchen counter. This couldn’t be happening. My mom was gone. But she was there, on my ponypad, her voice breaking. “—And I’ll never go to work and leave you again, Maggie.” She strained to see me. “Maggie? Come closer to the camera, sweetie! Maggie? Maggie?” My searching hands finally found something. Closed on it. My dad’s rolling pin, a gift from my Nana, who loved to bake. I don’t think he ever used it even once. “Maggie!” Her cries were growing more frantic, and Strongheart was trying to step in between her and the camera. “Please, Starwine, I think you’re upsetting Cedar Shield—” “—No, I only want—” I bought the rolling pin down on the screen with all of my strength. It impacted with a sickening smash, and jagged cracks in the glass radiated out from the impact zone. I hit it again, and again, until the sparking stopped, and the apartment was silent and empty once more. Shoulders heaving, I stood over the corpse of my ponypad, my second life, and shuddered. How was it…possible? How could it have happened? First Matteo, Jésus, and then my mom. All gone, and then somehow returning. Different. Living as their avatars, ponies and buffalo. No longer human at all. Maybe Carolina was right. Equestria Online was eating people.