Origins of Sunny Town

by Zero Zivan

Origins

...Using the magic of the Elements of Harmony, she defeated her younger sister, and banished her permanently in the moon. The elder sister took on responsibility for both sun and moon, and harmony has been maintained in Equestria for generations since.

...Legend has it that in the longest day of the thousandth year, the stars will aid in her escape, and she will bring about nighttime eternal.

“Well, that one’s already been proven.” I closed the book and used my wings to carry it up to the top shelf where I’d found it.

Oh, sorry. I probably should have started by introducing myself. My name’s SkyJagged. Most ponies just call me Jag. I’m one of the Weather Team leaders for Ponyville. It’s my job to help make sure things go smoothly when we’re moving the clouds along. Although, frankly, I think that Rainbow Dash character is more capable of handling the job than all of us combined, being Manager and all. But, that’s another story. Weather isn’t all I do, of course. I have a thing for adventure. Pretty much everything I can use to uncover big secrets is myths and pony tales.
And that’s what I was doing that day. Princess Luna had returned to Canterlot only a day ago, and her first arrival as Nightmare Moon sparked an interest in me. That was one pony’s tale that had proven to be true, as far as her appearance was concerned. She didn’t ‘bring about nighttime eternal’, though. Those six mares were responsible for bringing Luna back to… well, herself.
But I was sure there might be something more to this myth, some other foretold prophecy that hadn’t been fulfilled. But, those were the last pages of the book that pertained in any way to the legend of Nightmare Moon. I figured it was time to consult somepony who I trusted more than anypony else with history. It was time to pay a visit to Great-Great-Grandpony Axel.
Now, don’t get me wrong. I respect the old prophets and theologists as much as any other pony. But my family was special. See, Grandpony and Grandmare Clockworks were really wise. I’m not bragging, really I’m not. But they had a gift: whenever something new happened in Ponyville, they made a record of it. Think of them the way Starswirl the Bearded was known in Canterlot. Whenever something needed knowing, they were the ones ponyfolk went to see.
The greatest gift they left me when they passed was that ruffled old book they kept their records in. I always love to go through it, at least to see what they saw when they wrote something down. I left Twilight’s library home and took to the skies. In seconds I was through the front door of my home sweet cloud-home. I passed the mirror along the main hall, and I admit, even in my hurry to revisit old times I stopped for a minute. My mane had gotten a little ruffled, see. That happened when I was in a rush, and I always had to push it back again. I gave the reflection a once-over. Now, I don’t consider myself a very handsome pegasus – I can’t imagine anypony being attracted by the seaweed color of my mane, contrasting the sky blue of my coat. Top that off with the hazel eyes and red shield cutie-mark, I find myself pretty unattractive. But hey, a colt’s gotta look his best. I pressed on.
The tanned leather volume was squared away in the center shelf, just where I always kept it. I glided over to my fluffy bed – for you ponies who don’t know, cumulus is a great mattress – and thumped down on it. The date of Luna’s banishment still fresh in my mind, I turned the pages to that entry and began to read. The first few pages mentioned her disappearance, and I noticed that the lines carried a heavy load of sorrow. I can only guess now that my grandponies were at least familiar enough with Luna to feel her loss. But then they cut into other things: tax changes, the arrival of a traveling market pony. But after a few pages, three days later, the story picked up again.
Today Princess Celestia visited us personally to establish the change in her rule over the kingdom, now that her sister Luna has been sealed away. Nopony had any argument, but there was one who expressed concern for the late Princess Luna’s whereabouts. Ө ێ
ℓ (here I couldn’t help but stop and even try to rub the page to see if there was some dirt splattered in it, but the writing stayed firm) cited Starswirl the Bearded’s new prophecy: Nightmare Moon’s return on the night of the longest day of the thousandth year. He insists that although Equestria may be safe from threat now, there will be future dangers.
Even without closing my eyes, I could see the whole thing in my mind as I read on.
Princess Celestia begins to cry. Gently, silently. Enough that only the ponies that are standing closest to her can even notice the glimmer in her eyes. Her voice stays firm, however. “By ensuring the safety of Equestria, we have lost our dear sister. Please do not demand more of us.”
The unnamed colt stands equally firm, although the citizens of Ponyville have given him a wide berth of six steps in each direction. “We all mourn the loss of Princess Luna, Your Majesty. But we also know of the prophecy your wisest subjects have made. Nightmare Moon shall return, and what then will we do? If she is able to free herself from a prison the very Elements have made, what could hold her back from destroying our land? We are not safe here.”
“What, then? If Equestria is not a safe place, where would you live?”
“There is only one place I can name. The forests, south of here. A place that is untouched by pony hooves. There the land is rich, the weather free as a bird, and animals able to fend for themselves.”
A gasp goes through the crowd. Celestia herself is shocked. She waits for the murmurs to die down before responding, “Those forests are far from safe. Dangerous creatures have moved into that forest since our departure. Even if this were not so, the same prophets who foretold our sister’s return have felt a dark magic within. If you venture into those woods…”
Celestia’s voice becomes firm, each of her words stamped out like a hoof against stone, “We cannot protect you.”
“I had expected as much. But I cannot agree to stay here under a trembling foundation. Therefore, I will go into the woods, along with any who will accompany me. If it proves as dangerous as you say, we shall return. But if not, we shall remain. Any who wish to join me and my friends are welcome. I fear though, Celestia, that if you will not come with us, this will be our last meeting.”
The farewells are courteous but stiff. The colt, along with five of his closest earth pony friends, (the book offered five more obscure signs where names should be), venture into the dark woods.
I browsed over the pages one more time. But that was it, no more information about the six ponies or any background about where they were from. I had to assume they came from a place away from Ponyville. But the strangest part was how the page ended. In a darker, newer-looking ink, the last words regarding the six ponies were written:
They were never seen again.
Creepy. I felt a chill go up my back when I read it. Grandpony and Grandmare, between the two of them, always had at least a rumor, if not a quote from some letter, about a pony who had moved away. But nothing. That was it. “Never seen again”. Gone.
I put the book back on its shelf and, on a whim, walked over to the window by my bed. Peering down, I could see the edge of Ponyville, including Fluttershy’s house and the forest nearby. The Everfree Forest.
South. The book had said south. A forest where plants grew, weather came and went, and animals lived without supervision. That was the most accurate description of the Everfree Forest I’d ever heard. And it was the only forest I knew of that ponies feared because of that. But should I look into this one? They were never heard from again. If this was that same forest, and those six had gone in and never returned, would I be any safer than they had been?
I swallowed. Hard. But, there were two things I had that made me different from the other ponies in that story. First, I was a pegasus. Those other ponies were all described by Axel and Gera Clockwork as earth ponies. That meant no flying, and no magic. Second, their cutie marks. The six ponies may have had cutie marks, but mine is special. When I got my cutie mark, I had been standing up for one of the smaller colts in my high school class. The one doing the bullying didn’t back down, though, and tried to pummel me. I didn’t even know my cutie mark had appeared, but I did notice when the other pony went sailing through the air when I hit him. Apparently, my cutie mark helps me to beat the odds when I have a friend in trouble.
I still have no idea how that works, and I can’t control it. But whenever I get worked up, scared, or mad, my cutie mark seems to automatically find the best way to improve my strength or speed and fire up. I was pretty sure that if I got into trouble I couldn’t fly out of and I thought I was gonna get hurt, my cutie mark would get me out of it. But still, it would’ve been stupid to just go in there without warning anypony. I made sure to leave a message with one of my closest friends, Leech, that I was going into the forest. He’s an odd one, that Leech – probably from his upbringing and life in Canterlot – but that’s also another story. It was a good thing I had timed the visit just right, because it’s hard to get ahold of him any time before the sun starts to set, and he only seems to show up at night, when he wants to mess with you. Still, that meant that when I left him my message, I had only an hour before nightfall, and things went black. In the Everfree Forest, that wouldn’t go well for me. So I had to make this one a quick in-and-out.
And there I was, at the edge of the forest. Looking up instead of down, those trees looked a lot more intimidating, and the shadows inside seemed like they were gonna jump out at me. But I couldn’t back down. I forced myself to take the first step, then the next. “Calm down,” I told myself, trying to be as firm as possible. “Get over your nerves. This will be fun. Don’t let fear hold you back.” Something in the back of my mind whispered, Not now. Come back in the morning, when it’s easier to see. Ridiculous, of course; after a certain point, daylight made no difference in how easy - or rather, difficult - it was to see. I had to be tough. I had to be ready to face danger to find the truth.
I was terrified. It wasn’t long before I had lost sight of the way I came in, and then I found myself running. An animal twittered nearby, and in less than a second I was up a tree. But then two girls came walking by underneath me. One was Twilight herself. The other was a filly I didn’t recognize, a tiny little thing with a yellow coat and a bright red mane held back by a massive pink bow.
“Twi, she was right! Ah really couldn’t trust the night…”
Twilight didn’t slow down, but I could hear worry in her voice. “Well, I did tell you to stay with me, Applebloom. Did something in there scare you?”
Applebloom? Must’ve been from the Apple family, no doubt about it. She answered quickly, “Well, yeah, but Ah’m okay. Ah’ll be fine.”
I barely heard Twilight reply “Let’s get you home” before they disappeared from sight. I thought about following them back out, but then decided against it. Running out like a frightened little foal would be embarrassing, especially if two girls made it in and out just fine. “Yeah,” I muttered to myself. “If they can do it, no way you can’t.” I dropped back down to the ground and kept going. Soon, I found myself near a small patch of blue flowers. The stuff smelled odd, and if for no other reason than to protect my nose, I decided to stick to the path where they didn’t grow.
But, now that I thought about it, there was another path, barely noticeable apart from the larger, main one. It was a tiny grove worn out by hooves, just off to the left, and when I looked in I found that it led into a larger grove, this one a very obvious path. “Strange,” I muttered. Soon I was weaving in and out of thick lines of trees. Left, right, right, left, left, right, right, left, and right. It seemed to go on forever, and soon enough I was pretty sure I had gotten my directions mixed up and gone in a circle. It was too dark to see my own hoofprints, so retracing my steps would have been no help. I sighed, annoyed with myself for not bringing placemarkers of some kind with me, and pressed on. When I rounded the next corner, I was so surprised I thought maybe I had walked through the whole night and not even realized it. Right there, before my eyes, was a small arch leading right into direct sunlight! I thought for sure I had gotten so turned around in that twisting path that I had found another entrance to the Everfree Forest. Or, in this case, it would’ve been an exit. But when I set hoof inside that arch, I was in for a whole different truth.
An adventure – or maybe more like a horror story – that I could never have imagined was about to begin.

“Well, hello! Welcome.”
I jumped skyward. It was surprising enough to have somepony waiting right at the exit for me. But to find myself in a village I’d never have expected to see was something else.
That’s right, I had never left the Everfree Forest. There were still trees around the edges of this sunny haven. And like I said, it was a village. Straight ahead of me, there was a beautiful wood hut. The structure reminded me of the way my grandponies’ home had been built: old-fashioned, but strong and stable. Could this be the place the six ponies from Axel’s story moved to?
“Is something wrong?” I looked around. Somehow, I had been so surprised by the scenery that I’d just walked right in without realizing that I had completely ignored a colt nearby. I turned to face him. He was young, just about my age, with a grey coat and a black mane cut short. “Uh, s-sorry,” I apologized lamely. “I wasn’t expecting a place like this.”
“Ha ha ha!” The colt laughed pleasantly. “Don’t worry, you’re not the first pony who’s been so surprised at seeing this place. Not many have.”
“I should think not,” I replied. “How did this place… I mean, who built here? No, wait, I’m sorry. I should have asked your name first.”
“Well, now, I’m Grey Hoof! I guess you could say I’m the mayor of this town. Sunny Town! As for how the place was built, it was founded several centuries ago, I think. We didn’t find a written history anywhere when we moved in, so really your guess is as good as mine.”
Odd. I paused to soak that in, then asked, “So, how long have you been here?”
“Most of my life, actually. I had a falling out with some friends a long time ago, and tried to find a new home. Eventually I was running out of food and shelter, so I decided to make the forests a shelter until I could find a suitable place to live. And then, when I was leaving the forest on another trek, I accidentally found my way here. It was perfect. The sun shining, the beautiful scenery, and the good homes waiting to be used. I told some other friends, and they moved in with me. There’s two of them, now.”
He raised a hoof to the side, and I turned to look. Grey Hoof was right, he wasn’t alone. Sunny Town did have other inhabitants. A colt with yellow coat and blue mane stood near the first hut, accompanying a mare with a pure white coat and long red hair. “Ronio and Starlet,” Grey Hoof explained. “Oh, those two. Young love. What can you do? We’re just waiting for them to move in together.” The white mare, who I assumed was Starlet, caught my gaze for just a second, and then turned her head, hiding behind her mane. Ronio seemed to notice, because he looked at me, too, and waved. I nodded in return, and looked back to Grey Hoof. “So this is really a town?”
“Absolutely! One I love. We grow our own food and the sunlight keeps monsters away. It’s the perfect home.”
“I guess if you put it that way.” I looked around again. Somehow, I seemed to have missed the vibrant pink streamers holding up paper lanterns, and tables with cups and plates to match. “Hey, what are the party streamers and tables about?”
“Today’s a special celebration!” Grey Hoof beamed, apparently fired up by the new topic. “It’s a wonderful day. This is the anniversary of our town’s founding! I’ll tell you more about it later, but in the meantime you’re welcome to look around!”
“Oh… okay.” That was clearly my cue to leave, so I moved on. I decided to avoid Ronio and Starlet, as Ronio seemed to want a little time alone with his girlfriend. Hey, I respected that. I moved past the wood hut into a larger area of the town, with a lot more wood houses similar to the first one. There was another colt standing by the nearest house, this one with a brown coat and light blonde mane. I approached him. “Excuse me?”
He looked at me and smiled. “Yes? What can I do for you?”
“Well, I was kind of curious about something.” I walked closer, and just then I noticed a flicker in the other pony’s eyes. I couldn’t tell quite what it was, but I thought for a minute I might have hit a nerve. But it went away the next instant. “What’s that?” he pressed, when I paused.
“Um, well… I was just curious how many ponies live here, and if anypony knew who lived here before.”
“Well, there’s about ten of us now,” he replied. “Only six in town. A few went out for some reason or another. They haven’t come back yet.”
“Oh.” I looked around, but there was only one other pony I could see. With some quick head math, I realized the town was one short. “Where’s the sixth?”
“I’m sorry…?”
“Well, I’ve only seen five. Grey Hoof, Ronio and Starlet, and there’s you and that mare over there.”
“Oh, then you must mean her.” I blinked, noticing that he avoided saying ‘her’ name, but I decided not to press him on it. “She stays in the first house in town, over the way you came in.” He pointed back the way I had come. “Now, as for who lived here before… I’m afraid I can’t help you. We have no idea who lived here before we came in, so that’s kind of a mystery we can’t solve.”
“Hm. Grey Hoof said much the same thing.”
“Well, he’s no liar. He was the one who found this place and invited us in, after all. I don’t think somepony who’s willing to share a beautiful place like this with others would be the kind to lie about whether or not he saw anypony living here before.”
“That reminds me,” I cocked my head. “I also wanted to ask – that is, if I’m not being nosy – what your story was. What made you decide to live here, instead of where you lived before?”
“That? Well, there’s not much to tell. Let’s see… Grey Hoof was concerned about how our old town could support itself. We were low on resources we desperately needed, and he decided it was time to move away. I was happy where I was, I can’t deny that. But after he told me about this wonderful place, I had to know more myself. That’s why I moved here. It was everything he’d said it would be. Still is, really.”
“I can’t argue with you there. Well, thanks for your time.”
“Not a problem.” He tipped his head toward me. “Feel free to come back if you have more questions.”
“I will. Oh! One more question. I forgot to ask your name.”
“Oh, sure. I’m Gladstone. I’m the laughter here in town. I make it priority to make sure everyone’s happy. Especially newcomers. Hey, when you come back, maybe I can show you a trick or two.”
“That’d be great. Thanks, Gladstone!” I moved forward, aiming to circle the houses to talk to that fifth pony in the back of town.
“My pleasure,” he answered.
This fifth pony was someone I could relate to, at least by appearances. Her coat was a bright forest green, with a mane the color of evergreens. She knew I was coming, and waited patiently for me to approach her. When I did, she spoke up first. “Hello.”
“Hi. May I ask who I have the pleasure of speaking to?”
“What an… elaborate question!” She smiled. “I’m Three Leaf. I help around town whenever anypony needs help. I guess you could say I’m a committed odd-job worker.”
“Well, then, you like to help ponies! I’m a lot like that, too.” I smiled in return. Three Leaf – what an odd name. But as I’d noticed in Ponyville, some ponies’ names had some direct correlation to their cutie mark. I glanced at her flank to find…
Blank. She had no cutie mark. But now that I thought about it, none of the other four ponies I’d seen had one, either. Being curious as ever, I brought it up. “So, why don’t you or any of the other ponies have cutie marks?”
She frowned. “Cutie whats?”
“Well…” I was caught off-guard. Never in my life had I met a pony who didn’t have a clue what cutie marks were. “They’re… marks. They appear on a pony’s flank when they find out what their purpose in life is. Their special talent.”
“That sounds interesting. How does it happen?”
I decided not to point out mine, which I suddenly realized had been hidden under my wingtips the whole time. Better to stay on par with these ponies than try to prove I was better than them. “Um… I think it’s kind of like magic. It’s just, when a pony discovers their talent, it just appears. Like, poof! …And there it is.”
“Wow! That is very interesting. But, that hasn’t happened to anypony here. I wonder why…?” She cocked her head at this last statement, puzzling over her own query.
“Well, thanks for the help.” I left Three Leaf to ponder cutie marks for a while. This town’s story was getting stranger by the minute. Now I knew that not only did the ponies here have no idea about the original founders – who I was sure had to be the six who left Canterlot for a mysterious forest which HAD to be the Everfree Forest, but they had never heard of cutie marks before, much less seen them. It was a statistical impossibility. Nearly every pony in the world got their cutie mark before they got out of grade school. True, there were exceptions; I had never even gotten my own cutie mark until I got into the middle years of high school, myself. But still, I had seen hundreds of other ponies with cutie marks, heard them being talked about all the time, and I had one now. These ponies were about my age, if not a little older, and yet none of them knew a thing about cutie marks.
I headed back to the main entrance. I had met every other pony, so maybe it was time I met ‘her’. When I got to the first hut and went inside, the first things I noticed were the steel boxes scattered everywhere. Not only that, but the room itself was patterned like a maze, with little walls around the boxes. It was a play room of some sort, but then, who would want their house built like this?
Then there was the crying. I could hear a mare’s soft sobbing coming from across, around a wall by the door. I decided to cheat the maze and spread my wings to fly across. There, just beyond the wall, was a mare with a grey coat, and a bright red mane to match Starlet’s, lying on the floor. And she was crying.
Now, if there’s one thing to know about me, it’s that I’m a complete and total soft-serve. Whenever somepony is feeling bad or confused, I always want to support them. I hardly ever know the right things to say, but I just feel like it means something to be there for ponies who are under emotional stress. Even more so than those who just need help with heavy lifting or some other physical task that needs doing.
“Miss?” The mare gasped, her head shooting up to stare at me. “I’m sorry. Is it all right if I join you for a while?”
She looked away, crying even more quietly. With the voice of an ancient noble, she answered, “I should not be here.”
I lowered myself to her level and sat down on the hard wood floor. Tentatively, I reached out a hoof to touch her shoulder. She didn’t move away, but she shuddered at the touch. “If I may,” I started out carefully, “I’ve found that whenever somepony feels bad, it helps to talk about it.”
I think she laughed then, but it was so bitter that her laugh sounded more like another sob. “To explain this? It is impossible to explain. I cannot.”
I let her breathe in to try to bring down her crying. “What’s your name, miss?”
She shuddered more, and I thought she might be close to breaking into an outright downpour of tears. I waited in silence for a few minutes, and was just about to speak again when she responded, “I am Mitta.”
“Mitta.” I tried the name out once. “That’s a lovely name.”
Mitta sobbed some more. “Not for me. It is a name I despise.”
I blinked. “Why is that?”
“Because it is mine.” She shuddered, the tears still coming. I couldn’t think of a response to that comment, but I couldn’t just leave her there. Somehow, I thought Gladstone wasn’t doing his job right if he couldn’t cheer up one pony. But then again, he had sounded just a little spiteful when he mentioned ‘her’. Maybe the reason he didn’t like Mitta was because he just couldn’t find a way to cheer her up.
Well, not me. I was willing to spend the next few hours alone with Mitta until she could dry her tears. “Please don’t say that,” I pleaded. “It’s a beautiful name, like you.” I paused. “You know, everypony is born for a reason.”
“What gives you that idea?” she murmured, looking away.
“Because, if nothing else, every one of us has touched the lives of another. My princess, Celestia, was born to command the sun and bring daylight to us all. My grandponies were born to share stories with the rest of us. My friends were born to show kindness and compassion to each other when they needed it most. And, you know what? From what I’ve seen of you so far, you were born to give Gladstone something to work for, and to give me a chance to make a new friend.”
She sniffed. “What was that?”
“I would like to be your friend, Mitta.”
Mitta’s body shook again, and she sobbed again. “I do not deserve your friendship.”
“But I want it.” I patted her shoulder. “Will you accept? Please?”
She shuddered. The tears had finally stopped, and she was breathing again. “I could never be so callous as to turn down the wishes of another,” she answered. “For you, I will accept.”
“Thank you so much, Mitta.” I thought about hugging her, but left it alone. Better not to be too personal with a mare I had just met. After she had collected herself, I braced myself. “Can I ask something?”
Her eyelids lowered, and I think her face even went a little pale. But she answered calmly enough, “What is it?”
“Why do you talk like that?”
She looked at me, startled, her scarlet eyes gleaming from the drying tears. Clearly she had been expecting some other question. About the town, perhaps? I let that one go, though, and waited for her reply. “Why do I talk in what way?”
I frowned for a minute, going over how I could make more sense. Then I decided it would probably be best just to give her an example. I cleared my throat and, in the precise, fashionable tone she had been using, I began, “You speak with the words ponies have not used for a nearly a thousand years.” She blinked in response. I thought to add in, “Why is that?”
Mitta turned away again. You’re losing her, man, I thought. Stop pushing her away. But she responded, cutting off my thoughts. “I have lived a long time.”
But that couldn’t have been it. “The language was used a thousand years ago, Mitta. You couldn’t be that old.” Mitta sat up, looking me squarely in the eyes. “Why are you here?”
Now I was the one stunned by an unexpected question. “I… came in here to meet you.” That wasn’t the answer she wanted. Staring me down with an iron red glare, she asked, “Why are you here, in Sunny Town, sir?”
Okay. Now that she had elaborated, the question made more sense. “My name’s SkyJagged,” I started off. “Let’s not go on with ‘sir’ anymore. And, I came here because I was curious about something that happened a thousand years ago.”
That last line clicked in my head. Mitta was talking like somepony from a thousand years ago. Possibly like a pony who had left the known lands of Equestria for the ‘safety’ of the Everfree forest. Could she be one of the six? Impossible! No pony could live that long other than the royalty of Canterlot! If she had any relation to—
“And what have you learned from your search thus far?”
Mitta pulled me out of my thoughts. I gathered myself and explained to her what I knew as facts. “When my princess’s sister, Luna, was banished to the moon, there was a colt who decided it wasn’t safe to live in the lands I come from, so he and five of his closest friends moved into a forest that ponies had never been in before, south of the Canterlot castle. This forest, Everfree, is south of that castle. I think they moved here, and if that’s true, then this town may have been built by those six ponies. But I still haven’t found out what happened to them.”
She leaned back a little. “Then you are close to discovering the truth. There is only one thing left for you to see. But when you do…” She trailed off, staring dismally into an abyss only she could see. Again, this particular mystery was becoming ominous. Disappearing ponies, as well as ones who claimed to have never seen or heard of a cutie mark, a mare who claimed to be much older than she looked, and now a warning about discovering the truth. And then, suddenly, I remembered the two mares who had left the forest almost exactly when I walked in. “By any chance…” I murmured, “Did you meet a little filly named Applebloom earlier today?”
Mitta shot up faster than if she had just sat down on burning hot sand. “You know her?”
I blinked. “She left the forest when I came in.” Not only that, she’d mentioned being scared by something to Twilight. Mitta was warning me that when I found out the truth, something would happen. It could only be something terrible. Something that Applebloom had seen, and that frightened her. Knowing the Apple family, I also knew that whatever scared tough ponies like them meant trouble for anypony else.
But then, could I back down? Could I leave this place now, knowing how Mitta was suffering, whatever it was Applebloom had seen?
Not a chance. I protected the ones I cared about. If something meant danger for Applebloom, it meant danger for my friends – Doc, Leech, and now Mitta. I flapped my wings once and pressed them tight against my sides, determined. “What happened to her? What did she see? I have to know, Mitta.”
She shuddered. She had been doing that a lot since my arrival. The promise cemented itself in my mind that her suffering had to stop. “It cannot be coincidence that we have been visited twice by two different ponies who wanted to find the truth.” She looked at me again. “Behind our village lies a shattered hut. It is the only one outside of the light. Inside, you will find what Applebloom had. It will lead you to the truth.”
I turned around immediately, but glanced back at her, for one last time. “You’re not coming?”
“I… I cannot, SkyJagged. This is something you must do alone.”
“Then I… well, I’d be lying if I say I understand.”
“You will.” She waved me off with one hoof, and I obediently flew over the barrier in the room and out the door. I was just barely able to hear her say, “I can never bear to watch this part.”

I circled around the edge of town as Mitta had instructed me to do, and she was right. Just beyond the fences that marked the border of Sunny Town, the forest again dropped into blackness. I was walking blindly for a while, until slatted beams of light marked my way left. Light was barely forcing its way through the boards covering windows spaced evenly away from the door of an old shack. A well sat nearby, but I ignored that, focused as I was on the prize. I pushed the door open and walked inside.
The shack was even more deserted inside than it had looked from the outside. Absolutely nothing was in there except for a table with scratches on it. Thankfully, the fireplace lit the room enough for me to see that much. I immediately looked the table over, but didn’t find anything. Aside from the scratches, nothing seemed out of the ordinary about it, other than it looking like it hadn’t been used in a while. The scratches had probably been made by some small animal that had wormed its way in here. Then I thought about the room itself. Maybe there was a hidden passage somewhere? I paced around the room, tapping on walls and feeling for hidden levers. Still nothing. I just couldn’t get it. “This isn’t all that scary. Annoying and confusing, maybe, but not…”
I sniffed the air. “Ugh, who keeps the fire up in this place? That smell is awful—” I froze when I looked into the fire. There were hardly any logs in there at all. All that I could see were smaller, white pieces of some other shape. I didn’t want to look closer, but something pulled me in, and I took a few more steps forward, leaning in until the heat made my eyes water. To my horror, my first guess had been right: the white bits in the raging fire formed the charred, skeletal remains of a pony’s body.
I’ll admit, I must have been standing there in shock for half a minute before realizing the full gravity of what I was seeing. There was no way a pony’s body could make it into a fireplace and light up on its own. Somepony else had to have done this. And worse, I knew that Mitta knew all about this.
I ran. Out the door, through the trees, and straight into Sunny Town. I had to confront Mitta. It was the only way to learn the truth— or so I thought. When I rounded the corner, Sunny Town had become a complete antonym of itself. It was dark, first of all. Just as much as in the woods behind me; the sunlight had vanished completely. The buildings were no longer solid and lasting. The wood was rotten, shingles hanging off the roofs. The road itself had been torn apart into mangled piles of roots, broken tile, and ashen dirt, meaning I had to weave through the gashes to move forward. And none of the six pony residents were in sight.
The entire place looked like it had been burned to the ground. “Hello?” I called out. “Grey Hoof? Gladstone? Three Leaf! Where are you?” I moved forward. This had to be a mistake. How had the town devolved into such a wreck? What did this have to do with the ‘truth’ Mitta had warned me about?
“We had no choice…” Grey Hoof’s voice carried over the wind. His voice was dark and dismal, and it gave me the chills. But I responded anyway. “Grey Hoof! What’s happened here?”
A brief silence, followed by “She was going to spoil the party…”
“What? Who?” Who was the pony I had seen back there in that fire? Spoil the party? That made no sense, unless… could it have been… Mitta?
“Come out!” I rushed forward. “Grey Hoof, show yourself!” I was just about to circle around the first cluster of houses, which now seemed more like an oppressive, barren wall, to head toward Mitta’s and the entrance when some motion caught my attention. A patch in the ground began to shake, and before my eyes whatever was underground rose up, erupting from the dirt like a pony who had been buried alive, and began to form a shape. I thought at first that it might be sticks and stones, but when they finished building up a moment later and two red points of light stared back at me, I knew it wasn’t what I thought at all. I was looking at the dead remains of a pony.
But not quite dead. The skeletal figure paced toward me, and then stopped. I could see rotten bits of flesh hanging from its bones, pockmarks in its flank and all four legs. The sight was the most disgusting thing I’d ever seen, but at the same time I was fascinated, in some odd, fearful sense, to the point that my hooves were rooted to the ground I stood on. Then its jaw moved, and I heard Three Leaf speak in time with its mouth. “She had the curse. She would have destroyed everything! We could not allow her to keep the child from us.”
“Yet she did,” Mitta cut in. The voice came from nowhere and everywhere all at once, echoing in the trees. For some sixth sense, or maybe just plain fear, I had the feeling that she was watching this whole thing unfold from some dark corner of the ‘town’.
“You helped her escape,” Grey Hoof snapped, his voice full of anger. “And you will be punished. You are lucky he has been here this long to forestall your judgement.”
He must have meant me. And as for ‘helping her’, I had to assume they were talking about Applebloom. Mitta had been willing to help me to find the truth, to realize that Grey Hoof and the others were dangerous. She must have done the same for Applebloom only moments before. But why were they so dangerous?
“Where are you? And why am I looking at a dead body?”
“I am Three Leaf, sir. Don’t you recognize me?”
I stared at the corpse. Just as I blinked, I saw the Three Leaf I knew replace it for a minute, and then the body returned. “No way…” But then it all clicked. Mitta’s old-age tongue and her claim that she had lived a while, and my knowledge that only the princesses could live as long as Mitta claimed to have all suddenly made sense. They couldn’t have lived that long, and they didn’t. Grey Hoof and the others had died, but somehow their spirits were still alive, trapped here. They really were the same ponies who had left Canterlot a thousand years ago.
“All we want is friendship,” the undead Three Leaf said. “We only want others, to help us feel less lonely in this solitude.”
They wanted me to become one of them. “Never,” I growled, backing away. But as I turned, another body rose out of the ground. In seconds, I was staring into the gaping red eye sockets of another pony, this one a squarish skull with strands of something hanging from its teeth. I didn’t want to think about what they might be. “Don’t go,” Gladstone pleaded, his eyes an even fiercer red than Three Leaf’s. “We would never do the same to you.”
“I don’t trust you!” I flew up above the next broken house and over to the entrance in a flash. Two more bodies joined the first ones, moving so fast I thought they had instantly broken into a gallop. I looked down. The exit was just below. I was in a sort of cavern, so the only way out was to lower myself to the ground, walk out the mouth of the cavern, and take off again. I dropped to the ground, but then another pony corpse rose up out of the ground nearby. Even before it had finished forming the body, the head turned, the same emotionless red glare as the others boring into my soul. I looked up, planning to take flight again, but the trees had somehow gotten lower to the ground, trapping me beneath them. I had no hope. Frantically, I turned, looking for another way out, to no avail. My last hope was my cutie mark, but it wasn’t even making a faint glow. I looked back at the door, now blocked by the sixth and final pony, staring in horror as it approached me. This one was different, somehow. Its head (not counting half of the jaw bone) and most of its body frame was fully intact, unlike the other heavily corroded bodies. It opened its mouth, probably to bite me, or do whatever it was they had to do to corrupt me. But instead it spoke.
“Stubborn fools. Again I say even in death they do not understand.”
I stared at the mare, mouth agape. “Mitta?!”
‘Mitta’ rushed the next body closest to me, tackling it so hard the thing went skidding away toward the others. “Stay away from him, Grey Hoof!” she hollered.
Grey Hoof pushed himself to his feet, his red eyes narrowing in a fearsome glare. “You cannot protect him, Mitta.”
“I shall. Just you watch and see.” Mitta was now standing at my side, and I glanced sideways to look at her. She had changed almost as much at the others had; her mane was now pitch black, tangled and dirty, her coat red and equally dirty, with holes in her legs and back. I could literally see her rib cage. The sight was frightening, yes, but somehow, I knew that even though Mitta had physically changed, her heart hadn’t changed a bit. “Thank you, Mitta,” I murmured.
She glanced back at me, whispered “Run,” and then returned her focus to her former friends. “This has gone on long enough. It is high time ponies knew to stay away from this accursed place.”
I turned and ran. Strangely enough, there was light in the forest now, a dull, creepy red, making it easier to see. Good thing, too, or I would have tried flying again and hit the trees. Here, too, they had shrunken closer to the earth, due to the same ‘curse’ the six had been talking about, I was sure. I had no choice but to hoof it, and I ran hard. But then, as I heard Grey Hoof call “Seize him!”, more bodies began to rise out of the ground around me. It was impossible! How could they possibly be moving underground?
Then I remembered what Gladstone had said. There were ten ponies total. Only the six had still been in the town. Who could the others be, then? But that was obvious. Applebloom had been to Sunny Town before me. Why wouldn’t others have been here before us? And clearly, four had been taken.
All this was going through my head as I ran. I wasn’t sure, but I felt like I had made it to the first large clearing, leading out to the tiny field of blue flowers, when I suddenly found myself surrounded. There were living corpses all around me, and all eyes were on me. No matter where I looked, there were glowing scarlet triangles looking back, the bodies of their owners each looking more gruesome than the last. Now, I’m not the kind of colt who gives up easily. So long as there was a fighting chance for me to get done what I needed done, I fought. And here, I had a fighting chance.
I was screwed.
Six ponies surrounded me. By my count, I had passed up more than all of the ones Gladstone had told me about. Clearly he had lied about the total. All started to close in on me in unison, step by step, almost like it had been rehearsed. My heart was beating heavily. I spun, staring at my rump, hoping for a sign of some sort. I was out of breath and scared. Why wasn’t my cutie mark helping me? “Come on! Help me here!” It was no use. Instead, another zombified form came running up from the path I’d followed at an unnatural speed, not slowing down for even an instant. For the second time, I closed my eyes and waited for the worst, but the sound of tilling soil nearby brought my focus back, and I opened my eyes to find that rather than strike me, the newcomer had skidded to a stop right beside me. The others had paused in their advance, probably from surprise. The newcomer faced away from me, with a tangled mane blocking a face with only half the jaw showing. “Mitta.”
“SkyJagged… I am sorry. She died because of me. I could have saved her.”
I frowned. “You mean… in the hut? The fire?”
The other corpses started to move forward again. Mitta lowered her head. Her scarlet eyes dropped to a paler shade. “I could have saved her, but I allowed them to… kill her. How could I have done that…?”
“Mitta…” I touched her shoulder without realizing what I was doing. Despite the situation, and the knowledge that I was touching a cold, rotten corpse, the urge to let Mitta know that she was still loved was stronger. And, remarkably, nothing happened. I didn’t change, didn’t feel a stun or shock as my mind was warped. Nothing. Mitta raised her head. “No more. SkyJagged, I will fight! This will end!” On that note, Mitta whirled, facing the other cursed ponies behind me. I copied her stance, leaning low to the ground, wings spread, ready to charge. I heard a gasp go through our unholy audience, and realized I had just revealed my cutie mark.
“He has one,” I heard Gladstone call. “The curse has reached him!”
I snorted. “I’m cursed? You guys really are messed up.”
“Don’t mind it,” Grey Hoof said, ignoring me. “When he has joined us, he will be freed of it.”
I barely heard what they were saying, because Mitta was murmuring to me while they monologued. “These bone fiends are slow and clumsy. You may outrun them if you try. There is no time. Soon Starlet will be here, and she is easily capable of outrunning either of us. You must flee, now.”
She was making no sense. Bone fiends? Starlet showing up soon? My leaving was really the only thing I understood, but somehow, it felt wrong to try. “Mitta, I’m not leaving you.”
“But first,” Grey Hoof continued, “We will punish our betrayer. Before we turn him, Mitta, we will tear you to pieces.”
Mitta laughed harshly, her will unbroken in the face of danger. It was as if she had become a totally different pony. “To what end?” she asked, challenging the leader of the zombies. “You cannot hurt me, any more than you yourselves can be hurt.”
“We can never know until we try,” Three Leaf replied. “Isn’t that right, Mitta?”
I snapped there. My fear abandoned me like darkness under a light bulb that had just been turned on, replaced by an unmatched rage stoked by the threats of the five. All that was going through my mind at that moment was that my friend was being threatened. And I was not going to let those threats come to fruition. “Don’t you touch her!” I snarled.
In reply, the six cursed ponies closed in on us again. I stiffened, ready to lash out. And then I realized that a light was firing up behind me. My cutie mark was actually glowing. One of the ponies sped up, Grey Hoof, I suppose. He jumped toward us, coming from my left. I charged forward to meet the attack, hoof drawn back for a swing. Suddenly, the light intensified incredibly, blinding me. And then I was falling. I hit the ground hard, chest-first, knocking the air out of my lungs and leaving me even more stunned than the light had. Someone started helping me to my feet, and I got up.
“SkyJagged… what’s happened?”
It was Mitta’s voice. She was still there, with me. “You’re all right?” I gasped, trying to breathe again.
“I am… unharmed.” She was avoiding saying that she was ‘fine’, I noticed. I’d have to talk about that later, when we got out of this. But for now, we still had to escape…
“Where are we, SkyJagged?”
I shook my head, trying to clear the fog surrounding my mind. My vision returned, slowly, but the light kept fading until everything was dark. “It’s night,” I muttered.
“The forest…” Mitta commented, as if she hadn’t heard me.
“Yeah, what?”
“We are outside of the forest, SkyJagged.”
“Huh?” I turned, and just a few feet away, I could indeed see the border of the Everfree Forest ahead. The leaves of the trees and vines were just darker than the night itself. “Whoah.” I looked behind me instinctively, even though I couldn’t see my own hoof in front of my face anymore. “Maybe it was my cutie mark… it took us out of there.”
“This is impossible… My curse… I cannot leave the area around Sunny Town!”
I looked at her. “But you’re out here. My cutie mark brought us here.”
“How is that possible?” Her voice was trembling. I think being in a place she shouldn’t have been scared her even more than being threatened should have.
“My cutie mark helps me to protect my friends,” I explained. “I think… Maybe it broke the curse on you.”
“If that were so, then why am I still alive?”
She did have a point. If the curse had really been broken, then by all means Mitta’s spirit shouldn’t have been in this world anymore. Yet it was. “I… I don’t know. But for now, I think I’ve had enough excitement.”
“Yes, of course. You wish to sleep.”
“No.” It was almost a lie; now that she had mentioned it, I felt incredibly tired. But there was something else that had to be done, first. “After all that happened, I can’t sleep,” I added, giving my two bits as to why. “Besides, I think we need to pay a visit to someone. An old friend of yours.”
Mitta’s ruby eyes widened. “No… I cannot do that! I do not want to make her suffer more than she must already, thinking we had died. To tell her that we suffer a fate worse than death…”
“She was your friend, Mitta,” I pointed out.
She paused at my sudden comment. “What makes you say that?”
“I read the records. Celestia was hurting after the loss of her sister. But to have the six of you abandon her stung something fierce. I think she would be happier knowing what really happened, if only to make amends with you, Mitta.”
“I… cannot…”
I put a hoof over her shoulder. “I’ll be with you, Mitta. There’s nothing to be afraid of.”
We stood there for several minutes before Mitta finally agreed. We took the night train to Canterlot, and from there I paid a coach to carry us to the gates of Celestia’s castle. The trip probably took an hour or so, most of which was spent in silence, until Mitta decided to breach the topic of our escape again. “How is this possible?”
I thought for a few seconds, and started off as lightheartedly as I could. “Well, it doesn’t mean much for me to say it’s never happened before. I didn’t even know about your whole story until today. But, yeah, it is strange. Convenient, but thank Celestia it’s over.”
“Unless our struggle is not over.”
It was a surprisingly dark thought, and I could only sit there, stunned, for a few more seconds. “What do you mean? We got away. We’re here.”
“But what if it did not happen? I cannot imagine your mark causing our escape. Something else must have happened. I do not like the explanations that come to mind.”
“Why not? If we escaped, that’s good, right?”
“It could mean that the others can now do the same. Or perhaps we have never truly left, and this is some sort of trick to turn you into one of us.”
A few more seconds were spent in silence while I pondered her theories. “Well, I doubt it. If they can get out now, I think they would have come after me as soon as we appeared outside. I don’t think it’s a mind game, either. I don’t see why they would need to do that to turn me.” I cocked my head. “Do they? There were other ponies... this has happened before.”
“No, it has not. The Bone Fiends are the remains of ponies who fell to the forest long before us, most because of the dangerous creatures that live there. Their bodies were reanimated because they were so near our village when it changed.”
“Huh. Well, then I guess you have a point. But I trust you, Mitta.”
Now Mitta was surprised. “What does faith have to do with--?”
“I believe you’re real, not some figment the others made to break me. And I believe that if something were happening, you would find a way to tell me. The fact that you don’t know anything about this either is proof enough to me. We’re free. Sunny Town won’t ever bother us again.”
Mitta didn’t answer, looking at the floor of the coach instead. But she understood; I could see the gentle smile on her face as she pondered her freedom.
When the coach arrived, we got off and headed up the hill to Canterlot Castle. It would have taken a long walk and a lot of talking to make it to the Royal Chambers (if we would have even made it that far) if I hadn’t known about a secret path, thanks to the snooping Leech had done in his time living there. By circling around one of the towers rising above the high chambers and tapping on the rock wall, ‘just where there’s an opening’, Leech would always say, I found a switch that opened up a staircase leading straight up to a hidden escape. Leech had explained to me months ago that it was designed to help the princesses escape if magic and flight were unavailable. When we finally made it up the impossibly high flight of stairs, we found the doorway blocked by two night guards. These two were ponies I couldn’t recognize, although the lack of light in the dark sky didn’t help. Like Celestia’s personal guards, they were pegasus colts who had grown larger than most other ponies. Unlike them, though, these two had bat wings and fangs. I approached them anyway, and was met by a declaration of “Halt! Who goes there?”
“SkyJagged of Ponyville,” I responded politely. I knew a colt who was in the Royal Guard, so I knew at least a little about how they operated. “I’m here with an urgent message for the princess.”
“All messages are to be sent through the mail. Besides, the princesses are not receiving messages this late at night.”
“May I be allowed to speak?” Mitta asked from behind me. They were the first words she’d spoken in a while. She hadn’t really wanted anyone to notice a zombie pony anyway, I suppose. But the guards ignored her. After a pause, I spoke up for her. “Aren’t you going to answer her?”
“Answer who?” the lead guard asked.
It suddenly struck me that no pony had noticed Mitta since the train ride. In fact, one had almost bumped right into her if she hadn’t moved out of the way in time. Now, the guards not only couldn’t see her, but they couldn’t hear her, either. I decided I’d have to start from the beginning. “Were either of you around when Nightmare Moon was banished?”
“I was there,” the lead colt snarled. “Or don’t you recognize Captain Basilisk?”
I was surprised. Phalanx was the top guard of Celestia’s force, and the one pony who fell to just about his polar opposite was Basilisk, a colt I knew fairly more about than most. I had made frequent visits to Canterlot castle over the course of Nightmare Moon’s invasion, and most of my interviews were made with him. Basilisk had been essentially out of a job since Luna’s banishment those thousand years ago, usually assigned to grunt work like night watch and schedule operations. He didn’t seem to like me very much, although he had been willing to take the interviews in the first place.
Given the amount of interviews we’d had only days before, he must have been pretty annoyed to see me again, much less without my recognizing him. “Okay… sorry, Basilisk. Do you remember the six ponies who left Canterlot just after that?”
“The Six Betrayers. Of course I do. What does this have to do with the princess’s message?”
“One of them left a message for her. I think she should hear it.”
Basilisk paused. “‘Hear’ it?”
“They’re alive, Basilisk. They’re still alive.”
Basilisk looked about ready to throw me over the railing, but then he stopped and stared behind me. “Who… is that?”
I glanced back. Mitta was still there, but she had gone silent again. She was the only pony there, so I had to assume that Basilisk could, for some unknown reason, actually see her now. Surprisingly, he wasn’t freaking out over seeing a zombie pony. “That’s her, Basilisk. I brought her here to meet Celestia.”
The captain stared for a little longer, then turned and opened the door. “Keep them here,” he told his partner. Then he was gone.

Overall, I think we were waiting about half an hour before we were admitted into the castle. Basilisk led us through the secret hallway into a main audience chamber adorned with beautiful tapestries and filled with stained-glass images which, unfortunately, it was too dark to see. We were flanked by soldiers on all sides; apparently Basilisk hadn’t forgotten to point out Mitta’s unusual condition. But now that the room was lit up by the lamps on the walls, Mitta now looked normal. I don’t think many of them could see her anyway, but I could be wrong. Nevertheless, they were fully prepared for any kind of attack from me or my companion. When we had reached the end of the chamber, Celestia was waiting for us, with another alicorn mare that it took a second for me to recognize as her sister, Luna. The princess had grown quickly in such a short amount of time; her height had just about doubled, her coat was now a much darker blue, like the very night sky she was named for, and her mane had taken on the same wavy, magical appearance as her older sister’s. Then again, having been sealed in the moon for all this time had probably kept her from aging properly, and now those years had caught up. Both of them could see Mitta plainly, I could tell, because they kept glancing between us. Celestia dismissed the guards, and most left. Only two stayed near the door where we had come in.
There was an awkward silence for a while. Then Celestia addressed me. “SkyJagged.”
I bowed low to the ground. “Your Highness.”
“What makes you think that this pony with you is one of the six who left Canterlot all those years ago?”
Mitta spoke up. She started by explaining what had happened after she and the others had left Canterlot, recounting how they had found the sunny, sheltered area that they made their home, building houses and wells to support themselves, and how they had lost their lives. So Grey Hoof lied, I thought to myself. Must have been to keep from looking suspicious.
“To this day, we do not know quite how it happened.” Mitta stared at the ground, lost in recall. “By the end of our first week, we had noticed some strange changes. First, our cutie marks had vanished completely.” (Three Leaf had been lying when she claimed not to know anything about them). “We started to feel weaker each day. And then, one night, we...” she started to sob uncontrollably, collapsing to the ground in a hysterical fit of misery. I stepped forward and placed a hoof on her shoulder. Guessing what she was thinking about, I decided to put in my two bits. “Your Majesty, I’m afraid... at least one pony was directly hurt in Sunny Town. I found...” I winced, biting the words out as if they were rotten hay, “burning remains... in a fireplace on the edge of Sunny Town.”
Mitta shuddered again, and I could just hear her whisper the words “those flames will never die...”
It took a few minutes for Mitta to regain her composure, and then a few more to prepare herself to continue the story. “We all went to bed feeling far more tired than usual. When we awoke, our homes had been destroyed, and we were these… things. Dessicated bodies whose spirits could not move on. Burned... just as she had been...” Her voice shook, but this time she didn’t collapse. “The only explanation we could think of was that the Everfree Forest itself was full of dark magic, and the worst of it had reached us.”
“That’s as good a guess as any, I suppose,” I put in.
Celestia stepped forward before Mitta could continue. “That’s a long story. It’s a bit farfetched, but I can tell that it’s the truth. You… truly are the Mitta I knew long ago.”
I decided not to comment on how Mitta had changed a lot in those years, seeing as Celestia seemed to want the company as what it really was, not worrying over petty details. “As for this curse, I think I can make an additional guess. I believe that when the six of you chose to leave ponykind behind for what you thought was safety, you threw away your very selves. I could sense a connection between each of you and some very powerful elements. Namely, the Elements of Harmony.”
I sat up. “The legendary Elements?”
“Yes. I noticed a connection in each of you, similar to the bond in Twilight Sparkle and her friends. I believe you, Skyjagged, could see something similar in them.”
“I… I think I see what you mean, ” I muttered in response.
“I believe that turning away who you were had a hoof in the loss of your cutie marks, and that, along with the actions of your friends, caused the curse that followed.”
Luna spoke up, her voice surprisingly loud and strong against Celestia’s own gentle tone. “This is impossible for us to believe… For a pony to become this… a shadow, and a spirit… Nevertheless, we are sorry for what happened to you, Mitta.”
“Thank you, Your Majesty,” Mitta replied meekly.
“Mitta.” Celestia stepped forward, coming closer to us. I moved away, letting her approach Mitta, who stared at the floor. “Mitta, you don’t have to be sad anymore. You are back. And you have learned something very important from this experience. I am only sorry it was too late for you to see it before this curse befell you.”
“Yes, Your Majesty.” Mitta looked up, facing the Princess squarely now. “Thank you.”
Celestia nodded, and to my surprise, she actually hugged Mitta in front of us all. Mitta herself seemed more shocked than any of us, but I saw her smile and accept the hug. Then Celestia turned to face me. “Skyjagged, without your help, this could never have been. I know this was a great ordeal for you, but I am glad you did it. Thank you for this gift.”
I blanched, stuttering a response. “I-it was my pleasure, Your Majesty.”
She nodded to me. “Mitta is in a world now that she does not understand. I will leave to you the task of teaching her this new life.”
“I will, Your Majesty. I promise.”
Celestia nodded in turn. “If you will excuse us now, SkyJagged, we have much to discuss. This revelation over the town in those woods bears investigation.”
“NO!” Celestia backpedaled a little. I shocked even myself with the outburst, but I think Mitta, having burst out at the same time I did, was the most surprised. I could see her visibly withdrawing into herself. It was up to me to press the issue, so I swallowed hard and continued. “Your Majesty... that place is unsafe for any who enter. I don’t think investigation will yield any positive results. Too many have already fallen to this curse of Sunny Town.”
“Agreed.” Celestia nodded. “My meaning is that we must ensure the safety of others. Something must be done to ensure that it will not take any more victims.”
“How can we do that?”
“That is for myself, my sister, and the Royal Guard to decide. You should go home. Both of you. Rest. You’ve been through too much for one day. Have faith in us.”
I glanced back at Mitta. “Yes, Your Majesty.”
We left the castle shortly after that. I wasn’t entirely secure in the decision to make any move toward Sunny Town, but the Princess was right: it was far too dangerous to just leave alone. Like she said, I just had to have faith that they would do the right thing. In the meantime, I had to be strong for the newcomer to Ponyville.

That night, we returned to SkyJagged’s home in Ponyville. By some unspoken consent, and a knowledge neither of us could explain or cared to think about, he carried the cloud low enough for me to climb on, and then pushed it back into the sky. That night I slept better than I had in many years, but first I decided I had one final task to complete. With his permission, I found the history book SkyJagged’s grandponies had left him, and put in a new entry, recounting for one last time what had happened to me and my old friends in the Everfree Forest. I finished it with this note:

Because of young Applebloom and SkyJagged, I learned today that even in the face of trying times, the harshest truths are greater than the sweetest lie. Trying to make friends by carrying them into your troubles is no real friendship at all. But when a pony wants to support you, to help you carry yourself through the troubles, that is a true friendship that cannot be matched. I am thankful for him, and I will be strong for him in return.

A recounting of the lost:
Ronio – The Spirit of Generosity
Starlet – The Spirit of Kindness
Three Leaf – The Spirit of Loyalty
Gladstone – The Spirit of Laughter
Grey Hoof – The Spirit of Magic
Mitta – The Spirit of Honesty

Throughout Equestria, relics of the past lay, forgotten and alone
Never truly resting,
Awaiting recognition

The End

But the story's not over! They may have escaped from Sunny Town, but something is pulling them back in...
Chapter 2: Sunny Town - Deadly Nightmare