//------------------------------// // Chapter Eighteen: A Heart Unburied // Story: The End of Ponies // by shortskirtsandexplosions //------------------------------// The End of Ponies by shortskirtsandexplosions Chapter Eighteen – A Heart Unburied Special thanks to Vimbert for Editing Extra Special Thanks to Valhalla-Studios for Cover Art         “Here's... nnngh... the l-last one, Macky!” Applejack hissed as she and the time traveler jointly hoisted a final stone troll into a giant wooden crate piled to the brim with the ghastly white figures. “Don't leave a single crack in the lid!”         “Eeeyup.” The red stallion nodded. He slid a wooden top over the grand box. Drawing from a few nails stuck between his lips, the muscular stallion proceeded to hammer shut the crown of the lid, shrouding the horrid contents inside into perpetual darkness. As he did so, Apple Bloom and Granny Smith marched up—towing a thick black tarp in their mouths. When the box was finally sealed, the two ponies hoisted the dark canvas over the container, blocking all possible light in identical fashion to four previous crates that lingered beside the red barn behind them.         Applejack rubbed a mat of sweat from her brow and stood back from the assembly line of boxed trolls. She fanned herself with her hat in the dim morning light and breathily managed, “What do ya reckon we do with 'em now? The soonest some idiot even thinks of takin' em out of these here boxes is the soonest chance they get to be exposed to twilight again. Nopony deserves the nightmare we've all just been through.”         “There's only one thing to do,” Harmony said. In a gentle sway, she strolled down the line of blanketed boxes, brushing them with a copper hoof. “We politely gain the attention of Ponyville's police, we tell them exactly what we've got here, and we send these frozen trolls on their merry way to Canterlot.”         Apple Bloom and Macintosh shared a violent gasp. Granny Smith merely squinted thoughtfully. Applejack—naturally—was a frazzled, spitting mess.         “Are y'all out of yer mind?! Celestia will take one look at them things and she'll slam the 'Act of Accord' mumbo jumbo on top of us!”         “Miss Applejack—”         “We'll be ruined! We'll have our land ripped out from under us! We'll—”         “AJ.” Harmony smiled sweetly at the silenced farm filly. “The 'Act of Accord' only holds merit over the harboring of living weapons of chaos. As you well know, these things are hardly in any condition to do anypony harm. They are just as helplessly lifeless as you first found them when you dug your well. My superiors at the Royal Court of Canterlot will be overjoyed to learn that you discovered several specimens and stopped them from becoming a threat to future civilizations.”         Applejack's face hung between a frown and a smirk. “They only got all stiff and harmless because you gave 'em a lickin' they'll never forget.”         “Then, if it pleases you, tell the Canterlotlian guard all about that when they come to transport these to the Chaos Dungeons,” Harmony said. In a warm and blossoming breath, the time traveler fought the joyful tears to say: “And then, mayhaps, Princess Celestia would... w-would care to have audience with the one clerk responsible for giving such a 'lickin'.” Her smile was porcelain in the suddenly silken simplicity of the moment.         Applejack smiled back. “Yes, Miss Harmony. Yes, I reckon she would want that.”         “When do we get the guards to come here and truck all these nasty critters away?” Apple Bloom suddenly spoke up.         “When else?” Harmony trotted over and ruffled the foal's fountain of red hair. “The same time as when your clients come to cart away all your apples!”         “All... our apples...?” Applejack murmured, blinking, as if the weight of the day was joyously finding its way back into her eye sockets.         Harmony spun and grinned at her. “And we will have apples to deliver by that time... won't we?”         Applejack gazed at her whole family, until one face—a gray face—was the first to nod encouragingly back. Straightening the cowgirl hat on her blonde head, the filly smirked the pegasus' way. “So, Harmony, expert on trolls...” Applejack winked. “Think you have enough of that there gumption in you to be an expert on apple buckin' once more?”         Harmony grinned wide. “So long as I have my galloping marker on the ground.”         “Ya sure do!” Applejack motioned authoritatively with her snout. “Macky, grab a wagon! Granny, Apple Bloom—get some baskets! We're gonna need the whole family on this one!”         The morning was electric.         Under buzzing cicadas and melodic birdsong, five ponies threaded the apple orchards with agile precision akin to a steam engine. Big Macintosh pulled a large wooden cart full of empty baskets. On pattering hooves, Apple Bloom moved the light containers off the wagon and onto the grass where she and Granny Smith gently laid them underneath the branches of multiple fruit trees. Then, once all of the baskets were lined up, Applejack spotted them and gave Harmony a whistle.         The copper pegasus extended her wings, galloped, and took to the air. With a sharp inhale, she twisted sideways and bounced from tree trunk to tree trunk as Applejack ran beneath her, calling out whenever she missed a few apples in one or two of the targets. Even when Harmony did have to make a return flight, the entire process was lightning quick. Before the noonday sun rose, a good half of the western orchards had already been shaken free of fruit.         The whole procedure was a rapid exercise—but no single pony bore an unnatural brunt of legwork. Applejack, of course, sweated a great deal from having to guide the pegasus in mid gallop, but she had plenty of time to rest in between apple bucking. The process of loading and unloading baskets between rows of trees consumed enough moments for breathing, and when it was time for another row of fruit to be shaken, Applejack was clearly as energized and unstoppable as her helpful pegasus companion.         Harmony reveled in the process. The weight of two days' pretense and anguish flew off her like leathery bodies rolling against her wings. With the rising of the sun came a rising of her spirit, as if for a brief and undeniable moment in time she belonged somewhere. A foalish sensation fluttered in her heart, and she felt for a brief moment as if she had just launched the Harmony on its maiden voyage all over again.         With every blink and every gasp of her twisted flight against the rows upon rows of trees, it was easy to forget that there was a horrible future awaiting everything that was. It was easy to forget that she was a citizen of twilight, and not of the glorious rays of the Sun glinting off her copper feathers. It was easy to forget that though the immutable hooves of time consoled her, strengthened her, told her during the trollish melee that the Apple Family would not perish while all of their bodies were inside the cellar—including Macintosh's—they still would someday meet their end in that forsaken ditch all the same. And yet, simultaneously, the last pony realized that as much as she could not salvage the future, she could very easily salvage this... and savor it.         This day, this moment, this heated breath amongst ponies in the gentle green sway of leaves and grass: it wasn't just a memory that festered in an unsavory corner of Harmony's lonesome mind. It wasn't some fabrication, a dream that the last pony had concocted for herself in an effort to lend credence to the lighting of a rainbow signal after every other stormfront.         This moment was dynamic; this moment was new. This was a moment filled with sweat and hope and joy, and for once the last pony could find an excuse to live in it—as the earth ponies did so naturally. For the first and only episode in the history of time, the fossils of the past and a ghost of the future were sharing an event, and there was no need for shame, not even a whiff of it. Between apple bucking, when her hooves touched the ground—Harmony squirmed in the delightful thick of it.         As the farming family got more and more acquainted with the unorthodox apple bucking process, they decided to try something more ambitious. With Harmony's approval, they doubled the number of baskets and fashioned a runway of apple tree three times as long as what the pegasus had been ricocheting her hooves against previously.         Applejack took a deep breath and got an extra running start. When Harmony took off this time, she mentally counted an entire three minutes before landing back on the ground—upon which her projected self teetered in monumental dizziness. Applejack was quick to catch her, and in a shared glance both mares giggled ridiculously. Gazing back at her hoofwork, Harmony was mesmerized to find a previous half-an-hour's work done in a single stride. After they gathered the apple baskets, they returned with even greater vigor, and soon Harmony would be sky-bucking longer and longer distances, spilling the air with the cascade of glistening apples.         The noonday Sun burned like a hot rock skipping across a green lake. For a brief respite, Granny Smith wheeled out a cart of glasses filled with apple juice. Applejack and Macintosh were relieved to have something to quench their thirsts. Apple Bloom sipped happily in between childish ramblings about one crusade or another. Harmony... was positively intoxicated with her first sampling of fruit drink in a quarter of a century. It took several chuckling sets of hooves to wrench her away from the table so as to start the next row of apple bucking.         The five ponies' harvest stampeded clockwise into the hilly northern section of the Acres. Harmony bounced so hard against the wobbling apple trees that she almost feared hurdling herself into a tunnel of green flames without warning. She kept her ears and eyes on Applejack. The orange mare was her center, the fulcrum upon which her entire day hinged. And every time she looked at her—even in a blurred glance from branch level—the orange pony was always smiling, always supportive, always faithful... and strong.         Harmony started to understand why the Apple Family never crumbled immediately after the tragic loss of Apple Shine and Orange Blossom. The freckle-faced farm mare—the one outstanding middle child that could—was the very epitome of earth ponydom. She lived in complete service to the world, and to those who lived on the face of Elektra's hoofcarving. It no longer bothered Harmony that Applejack had been so viciously spiteful to her when she first landed upside down in one of the apple trees two days' prior. A self-righteous pony could easily be forgiven, so long as her heart had been hardened by pure sincerity rather than bitter pride.         When the hundreds of rows of orchards whittled down to dozens of rows of orchards, Applejack insisted that Harmony “take a breather.” The three divided the work as they proceeded to buck the trees in a more conventional style. As an afternoon sun began its melting slide towards the western horizon, Granny Smith wheeled something else out. But instead of glasses of apple juice, the lime-coated elder provided a record player. With a liberal cranking, the sounds of Stallionivarius warbled through the air, slathering a cushion of melodic softness onto an already cooling day. Harmony beamed, feeling her projected self become more energized—if that was even possible. Applejack for once found herself humming to her grandmother's “old-fashioned” tunes, using it as cadence for every tree she shot her rear hooves into. Macintosh shoved aside the large baskets being filled by the minute, smirking amusedly as a giggling Apple Bloom stood on his backside and attempted an awkward dance to the darting strings coming from the record.         The Sun drifted further West, and the five roaming ponies dwindled to three. The blue sky turned into a copper haze, matching the dirt-flecked coat of the time traveler as she soared her way down one last row of trees, kicking them methodically and watching as the last of several apples fell. By then, even her projection's “invulnerable” lungs were panting. The joys and jolts of the long hard work day had pulled at all the corners of her mind, so that every time she closed her eyes she was seeing blurring orchards instead of blinding ash. For what it was worth, she counted that as her greatest blessing yet, her greatest gift.         She promised herself to thank the earth once the heavenly hours had long run out.                  “Nnngh!” Harmony breathlessly rammed her rear hooves up into the millionth green apple tree. Several familiar thuds kissed the air as the baskets beneath her filled up. She took a long, meditative breath, and backtrotted to take a look at her work. Her flank bumped into a large wooden object. Without thinking, the pegasus instinctually spun and kicked the “bark” behind her. A dull, hollow noise rang into the air, and Harmony blinked to see the crumpled side of an abandoned silo wobbling torturously behind her, its structure already dented by several trollish shapes that had been flung into it the morning prior.         “Watch it, copper-bottom!” Applejack chirped as she and Macintosh trotted up over a hill in the crimson sunset. Shuffling down to the barnside, they balanced a large basket full of bright apples between them. “No sense in yer kickin' an old building that's done nothing to you!”         Harmony gave exhausted, cock-eyed glances between Applejack and the ten meter tall silo. “Does this dang thing even serve a purpose?”         “Aside from bein' the oldest structure still standin' on the farm?” Applejack shrugged, then motioned towards the precariously leaning silo. “I reckon most outsiders think it should have been razed long ago. And they might be a bit right about that—But that silo's been around for a lot longer than the whole lot of us combined. Livin' on a farm has its fair share of sentiment; it gallops hoof-in-hoof with tradition. But, ever since yer righteous troll thrashin' gave it a new cutie mark—eheheh—I reckon we just might put the thing out of its misery, but not today.”         “Do all earth ponies hold value in old things?” Harmony asked, smirking.         “So long as they have character, darn tootin'!” Applejack winked. She nudged her brother, and the two of them coordinatedly lowered the large basket of red fruit. “Say, Harmony, why don't ya have a look-see beyond that hill over yonder?”         “What? Do we finally get to buck the last of the orchards?”         “Did I or did I not tell ya to take a gander?”         Harmony gulped. She pattered lightly up the hill and glanced over the huge expanse of Sweet Apple Acres stretching beyond the crest of the northernmost rise. Her amber eyes twitched to see an entire field full of green leaves, brown bark... and not a single red flash of fruity skin to be had. A hot breath filled her lungs, and she exhaled all her doubt into the scarlet bands of the bowing Sun.         “Well, I guess that means I can stop being a living pinball.”         “It means you can stop, period! We all can stop!” Applejack leaned against the basket of apples, smirking. “We did it, Harmony. Another crazy year, another crazy harvest, and another crazy last-second miracle. I swear by all that is holy, I am not going to let next year's Apple Buck Season go to the dogs again!”         “Miss Applejack.” Harmony looked at her, smiling. But after a few blinks, something cold and deathly pulled the edges of her lips down. “I-I'm sure you won't have to... to w-worry about Apple Buck Season next year...”         “No reason to be lookin' all glum, girl!” Applejack exclaimed. “If you wanna show up for the next harvest—I seriously doubt that any of us would turn down yer assistance.” She cleared her throat. “And that is by no means a proposal, ya hear?”         “R-right...” Harmony gulped. Chasing away the melancholy breath, she glanced at the baskets. Her eyes narrowed. “Say—What's going on with the fruit you've got there?”         Applejack and Macintosh exchanged amused glances. “Oh, this? We done finished the harvest in time for the delivery, haven't we? We here Apple Family ponies have a tradition which we save the last basket of bucked apples for.”         “And that is—?” Harmony shrieked girlishly as two hoof-fulls of fruit were suddenly bulleted her way like a swarm of sweet tasting comets.         “Apple fight!” Applejack laughed and giggled mischievously as she and her brother flung a cornucopia of apples, filling the air with a red blur that surged in Harmony's direction. The pegasus gasped, shielded herself with copper wings while chuckling profusely. With a daring glint in her eyes, the time traveler pivoted her body and reverse-kicked a few of the collapsed apples back, forcing Macintosh and the orange mare to duck low and hide behind the basket from the expertly aimed bucks. After two long minutes of flung apples, the air sang with fruity sweetness, corralled by the panting breaths of laughing ponies.         “Pfftt!” Harmony raspberried through a face splashed with applebits. “So much for the 'test of preservation!'”         “Oh, that hogwash?” Applejack wiped a few laughing tears from her face and finally rose up from hiding behind the basket. “Darlin', I only conjured that so-called preservation rule just to see if I could rid my farm of one persistent bureaucrat—” An apple slammed the orange mare directly in the face, splattering fruit mush and seedlings all across her snout.         “Hah!” Harmony shouted at the end of her throw. “Who's 'chicken' now, sassafras?!”         Macintosh laughed heartily at his messied sister and trotted away to catch his breath. Shaking her face to fling off the top layer of apple bits, the farm mare smirked sloppily at the pegasus and sighed in gentle defeat.         “Yes, yes. I reckon you got me. Ya happy now?”         “Heeheehee—Oh, Miss Applejack.” Harmony wandered over and extended a wing of bristled feathers. “Here, allow me.” She gently scraped the mush clean from the orange mare's freckled face.         “I done told you—Call me 'AJ,'” the hatted pony replied, gazing at her companion with sudden clarity. “Yer a blessin' from heaven above, y'know that, right?”         “Hmmmmm...” Harmony smirked lightly as she then brushed her wing clean on the grass. “Depends on how you define 'heaven.' I'm just doing my job—for the Court and all.”         “Now who's shovelin' around hogwash?”         Harmony blinked awkwardly at Applejack. “H-huh?”         The farm pony was staring at the pegasus with gentle yet firm eyes, eyes that dragged Harmony's soul in like a haunting black hollow from a gray future. “There's no more need in pretendin', sugarcube. I know why yer really here. I know why y'all have been stickin' to my stubborn hide like a frog to a lily pad.”         “Uhm...” Harmony bit her lip nervously, feeling a rise in trembles. “Y-you do?”         “Mmmhmmm.” Applejack gently nodded. Her gaze was piercing, but a loving glint cascaded across her emerald pupils. “This was never about doin' some investigation for the Princess, was it? Nopony ever does as much as you have—with such inspirin' selflessness—out of duty. No royal messenger in her right mind would buck apples, tackle trolls, and forego implementin' some infernally old 'Act of Accord' just for our humble selves. Yer kind of generosity can only come from the heart, especially when there's so much more important things yer kind can be doin', I reckon.”         Harmony gulped and glanced towards the floor. “You're r-right about one thing, AJ. There... is so much more stuff I can be doing. There's always a bigger picture—and it's not necessarily a bright one. But when I-I came here, and I saw you and your brother about to crumble to bits over your stressed selves, and I envisioned this beautiful farm stumbling into one gigantic hole or another—be it with trolls or with a missed harvest date—I just couldn't let all of that awful stuff happen. Even if I flew off somewhere far far away where there's nothing colorful or lively to match the warmth of this place, I know that I could never rip the gorgeous green land you've got here from my eyelids. I was compelled, AJ. But I don't think that's something that comes from the heart.”         “Sure it is, Sugarcube.” Applejack trotted over and nudged her face to look into hers. She smiled sweetly. “You're obviously a very brave pegasus. I know it may not be my place, but I reckon you have seen none too many pretty things in yer life. A lot of ponies pass by Sweet Apple Acres, and I'm quick to take a decent survey of them. Some of them ponies—their coats are laced with happy memories, others with a lifetime of trials, and even others with a dark shade of ignorance. You, darlin'? I see a lot of sadness cloudin' you. Ain't nothin' to be ashamed of. We all take to our own kinds of moods—like blankets that you switch with the season. I only hope that you take a deep look at the world around you and realize that maybe it's high time yer season changed as well—into somethin' brighter perhaps? Because yer heart is most certainly one of the brightest I've seen in years.”         “That's just it, AJ,” Harmony murmured, gulping a lump down her throat and gazing past her. “Where I come from... the season never changes. It's a lot easier to say that there are no seasons at all. There's only... me.”         “You say that as if it's an empty prison, Harmony. I only wish you would take a gander at yerself and realize that you have so much to be proud for... and happy, even.” Applejack grinned. “Yer bright, yer resourceful, you don't take horse hockey from no-pony—especially me—and you can buck trees like there's no tomorrow.” She gave a chuckling breath, then a wink. “Why, if I had all of yer qualities—even if the only season I had to look forward to was colored with the shades of myself—well, I reckon I'd feel right at home.”         Harmony sharply inhaled. As her eyes cascaded over the horizon, she cursed herself a thousand times over. She cursed herself because she had every impulse right then and there to tell Applejack the truth: that Equestria was ending and there was nothing anypony could do about it. She cursed herself because with one simple breath she could very easily explain that the only season left to the world would be one covered in endless ash and twilight. She cursed herself... because suddenly all of those horrible things didn't scale in importance to what she was about to say.         She cursed Spike too, fought the tears, and smiled Applejack's way, saying, “Thank you, Applejack, from the bottom of my heart; for it's taken you to show me that it's still there.”         “My pleasure, sugarcube.” Applejack nodded with a smile. She then read further into Harmony's moist eyes and added, “And I promise—on my family's honor—that I'll do what I can to get Princess Celestia's attention for you with all that's happened here. If the heap of frozen trolls don't do it, then perhaps Twilight Sparkle can make herself useful for more than just makin' sweet love to books.”         “Oh, AJ, that is most appreciated—” Harmony began, but her ears pricked at the sound of a happily giggling voice cresting up the southside of the hill.         “Applejack! Miss Harmony!” Apple Bloom pattered up into view, her crimson sprout of hair matching the burning horizon as she trucked a saddlebag full of records and beamed. “Look at what Granny Smith found in the attic! It's a bunch of songs that Rarity lent us months ago! Somethin' about a cello player that Miss Harmony fancies!”         “Octavia?” Harmony grinned wide. “This day just keeps getting better and better already!”         “Apple Bloom, darlin', watch where yer trottin'—” Applejack called out.         “Watch where I what-now?” Apple Bloom spoke too soon, for her hoof had caught in a hole in the earth. The little foal fell sideways, colliding noisily into the broad face of the dented wooden silo. As she collapsed flat on her chest with a grunt, the tiny vibrations from her plummet was just enough to add insult to Harmony's injuries from the morning previous. With a groan of somber fate, the entirety of the rustic silo wobbled, teetered, and fell directly over Apple Bloom. “Aaahh—!”         “Apple Bloom!” Applejack shouted, her eyes wide as emerald saucers.         Something scarlet billowed underneath Harmony's projected amber eyes. Not even the coldest winds of the dying world could snuff out her snarling voice. “No.” In a copper blur, she soared on bright wings and rocketed towards the falling building. Blades of grass and flakes of apple skin lifted into the air as she converged on the hapless foal.         A thunderous crash vapored outward from the scene. Applejack flinched against the blast wave, blinking in horror to discern the outcome of the debacle. As the dust and earthen bits settled, an equine form was lying on its side next to the collapsed silo. After half-a-second of stirring... Apple Bloom rose up to her tiny legs, reeling dizzily. “Nnnngh... Wh-what happened?”         In a galloping roar, the older sister skidded over to the tiny filly's side. “Darlin'! Are you okay? Oh praise Epona! Let me hold you!” Applejack squatted down and nuzzled the foal dear to her. “Apple Bloom, sugarcube—Watch where yer canterin' next time! I almost lost you, girl!”         “My saddlebag!” Apple Bloom dazedly glanced at the fallen baggage that was still rattling to an ill-fated stop. “All of Rarity's records are probably shattered now! I don't get it! What happened? Where's—” The foal glanced aside, and her amber eyes exploded. “—Miss Harmony!”         Applejack looked down. She gasped.         The heavy weight of the fallen building had formed a veritable crater in the soft earth. Where a brave pegasus had flown herself to shove Apple Bloom heroically out of the way... there was now only gnarled splinters and rusted metal.         “Oh Dear Celestia alive!” Applejack cried and shoved at the hulking body of the collapsed silo. As her every muscle strained and heaved, the wooden monstrosity refused to budge. “No no no no!” She tilted her snout towards the rows of orchards and shouted: “Macky! Macky, for the love of Elektra, get yer flank over here and help me!”         The red stallion was already galloping towards them, spurred on by the desperate shouts of his distressed sister. With wide eyes, he regarded the visiting pegasus' horrific fate.         “We can't waste any time! We gotta get this mess off of her! Grab some rope! Hurry!”         Apple Bloom was a sobbing mess, the reality of the situation cascading from her eyes in silver tears. “Oh sis—I'm so sorry! I'm so, so very sorry! This is all my fault—”         “None of that, y'hear?!” Applejack snarled, forcefully shoving against the wooden rubble from all angles while Macintosh galloped towards the barn. Winona's distant barks formed a maddening chorus to the bleeding moment. “You did nothin' wrong, Apple Bloom! But t'ain't the issue right now! Run yer hooves into town and fetch Nurse Red Heart! Tell her it's an emergency, and while yer at it we could use all the extra ponies we can get!”         “R-right away, sis!” Apple Bloom scampered off on pale yellow hooves, panting breathlessly.         “Oh dear Epona, give me strength!” Applejack hissed as she put her entire back into pushing the length of the hulking silo. It barely budged. There was nothing but dead silence from beneath its gigantic weight. She bit her lips in the strain until blood flowed.         Then Macintosh returned. With mute coordination, the two siblings fixed the rope around the largest chunk of debris sticking out the top of the collapsed pile and harnessed it to the wooden yoke on Macintosh's back. With a combined effort, they pulled and tugged and hoisted with all of their combined might.         Finally, under the bleeding red kiss of the sunset, they cracked open the hollow ribcage of the smashed structure, tossing it aside so that it joined Octavia's records with a somber series of muffled thuds. Macintosh tossed his yoke off and galloped up onto the edge of the silo, peering directly into the cylindrical mess. Applejack likewise hopped breathlessly beside him.         Both ponies gasped—frozen in mid lurch.         There was nopony in the hollow of the collapsed silo, not even the outline of one. The smashed ground beneath the building was completely and utterly blank.         “Wh-what in tarnation...?” Applejack quietly murmured. She gulped into this sudden abyss of confusion. “M-Miss Harmony...? Macky, where did she go...?”         From behind the barn, Granny Smith—roused by the sudden noise and excitement of that blistering situation—hobbled over on lime-coated limbs. She blinked dazedly at the collapsed silo, at the utter void left in the wake of their copper-coated visitor.         As the evening gave in to tears of confusion, Ms. Smith stood quietly on the sidelines, at peace with the lonely hum of the moment. The many warm shades of a lifetime full of gifts and losses flickered across her gray eyes, but for some reason she no longer dwelled on the darker colors. The sun bled earthward in a copper aura, like a spirit that could bend knives backwards and chase trolls into the future.         She smiled.         A mane of short violet stubble fluttered in purple manalight. Muscles stirred liquidly under a brown coat as a pair of scarlet eyes fluttered moistly open. Her snout resting on the stone floor, Scootaloo gazed shakily upwards, blinking.         Spike was lying on his mountain of gemstones, gazing calmly down at her. He produced a fuming breath as his emerald eyeslits twinkled at the sight of pegasus. “Welcome back to the future, child. The green flame has ended.”         The last pony gulped, shuddered: “It's so cold...”         “I know, old friend.” He reached a scaled hand out and stroked the back of her shaved mane. “I know.”         Her limbs achingly shuffled against the stone floor of the cavernous laboratory. She wobbled and struggled to sit up, her face wretching at the gray staleness around her. “I was th-there for over two days. We bucked apples. I ate daffodil alfredo. There were trolls.”         Spike raised an eyecrest curiously. “Trolls?”         “G-Granny Smith—She loves Stallionivarius. She tells a beautiful bedtime story. And Apple Bloom—” Scootaloo's scarlet eyes widened. With a gasp, she jumped up onto all fours and nearly collapsed into a stone table. “Apple Bloom! She's... She's...”         “Calm down, Scootaloo—You've just been through your first lengthy trip. Take a deep breath.”         Scootaloo conceded, but not on Spike's behalf. She gazed shakily into the bright green effigy of the past that was dissipating before her once-violet eyes. Her brown ears flickered and she said in a stronger tone, “She's alive. I-I saved her. Apple Bloom's alive. And then the silo... This large silo fell on me, Spike. But... I-I don't get it.” She looked at her ordinary brown self with her ordinary hooves and the worn metal shoes nailed into them. “I could do so many amazing things in my Entropan body, could take so much punishment. I could kick trees off their roots. I could fly loops around the orchards without breaking a sweat! I swam through trolls like a fish skims a lake's surface.” She spun and gazed confusedly up at the dragon. “I-I thought I was invulnerable! Why am I here?!?”         “Nopony is invulnerable, Scootaloo. Especially one who is so bravely projected into the past by the mere sails of her soul essence. With enough calamity and duress, your Entropan body will surely buckle—and the result is identical to leaving the range of your anchorage. You're inevitably drawn back to the present.”         “Then that's what happened...” Scootaloo gulped. “The silo slammed into me, crushing me with no outlet of escape, and I was sent back here.” She gritted her teeth, hissed, and jolted. “Spike! You gotta send me back! I-I had about two or three days left to that green flame, didn't I? There's still so much to do! I only barely scratched the surface of accomplishing our task! Applejack was only starting to suggest we get Twilight to contact Princess Celestia for me and—... Spike?”         The dragon was slowly shaking his head. “No, Scootaloo. I cannot send you back. Not right now. Not after I've concentrated so much of the green flame on Applejack—”         “—you've lost your magical cohesion, and you must bind me to another pony instead,” Scootaloo finished somberly for him. She gazed into the floor and sighed. “Will I ever be able to go back to Applejack again?”         “On another occasion?” Spike nodded his scaled head. “Absolutely—if it permits.”         “You mean if there's hope for me coming closer to finding an answer to the Cataclysm, which there isn't.” Scootaloo trotted lonesomely towards the rows upon rows of clockfaces. “Not with Applejack, there isn't.”         “You are certain of that?”         “I did nothing, Spike!” The last pony spun and frowned bitterly. “I didn't see a single eclipse, didn't smell one burning cinder, didn't feel any tremors—I found nothing to point me in any direction that might paint a picture of what killed Celestia and Luna and all of the ponies in turn! Two days of bucking apples, mooching off the Apple Family's bathtub and kitchen and I didn't learn diddly squat! Don't you see? I've wasted your green flame! And for what?! Nnngh... I swear... You should have just left me to the danged trolls in Ponyville's town square.”         “I see.” Spike nodded regally. He coughed slightly, and the violet pendant around his neck spun as the dragon slowly marched on iron haunches around the pony. “So, you mean to suggest that in all of that time spent in the past on Applejack's humble farm, you accomplished nothing whatsoever?”         “Well, I—!” Scootaloo started, blinked, and then sank down onto folded hooves. Her nostrils flared one last time as she gave up the fight, then softly murmured, “I saved them from suffering a tragic Apple Buck Season. I discovered a way to help them get rid of ancient trolls that had been resurrected on their land. I got Granny Smith to share her music, so that she began happily trotting around without her walker in a renewed spirit. I... saved Apple Bloom from being crushed to an adorable pulp. I got licked by a dog. Heh—I think I even got Big Macintosh to laugh a few times.” The brown pegasus blushed slightly at the last recollection.         “That certainly doesn't seem like nothing.” His iron jaws curved.         “Spike, in less than four months from then, the whole Apple Family will be dead,” she spat.         “And those are three months that, thanks to you, they shall now experience alive—and if I may dare say so, they shall do it happily.” Spike stood up on his lower legs and gestured his sharp arms wide. “Death surrounds us for endless fathoms, Scootaloo. That can never be changed about the Wasteland, even if you and I succeed in bringing the Sun and Moon back.” He pointed with a clawed finger. “But in a time of life—in an era of peace that only you, the last pony, can visit—you have gone out of your element and maintained equilibrium. I remember seeing Applejack in the last days of Equestria. I remember how stressed she was, keeping to herself over an Apple Buck Season during which her friends rarely saw her. But then I also remember—in the blink of a single weekend—Applejack returning to Ponyville with a smile. And now, thanks to you, Scootaloo, I know why that is the case. I can't tell you how immensely happy it makes me to know that she and her family were capable of smiling—Up until the end of all smiles.”         “She...” Scootaloo stammered, her eyes growing concave. “A-after I was done helping her with the apple bucking, Applejack told me she knew I wasn't working for the Royal Court of Canterlot. She told me I did everything from the heart.”         Spike reached down and gently tilted the pegasus' chin up. “When you're projected into the past, Scootaloo, you are merely an extension of your soul self. All things considered, you are all heart.”         Scootaloo bit her lip. She choked to say: “That's hardly s-something invulnerable, Sp-Spike.”         “But it's something special.” He smiled back down at her. “And I'm glad Applejack was capable of showing you that.”         “B-but I'm not going back into the past for myself,” Scootaloo murmured, then planted her hooves emphatically around Spike's clawed hand. “Am I, Spike?”         He stood back up, nostrils fuming in emerald thought. “You may have given Applejack and her family smiles, Scootaloo. But we have the one thing in our quest for the Cataclysmic truth that none of our pony friends will ever receive more of—and that's time. I suspect that soon, in your journeys, you will find the answers we both seek. That is...if you are willing to continue your journeys?”         Scootaloo exhaled long and hard, gazing at the far end of the laboratory. “Your green flame isn't the only thing that needs to maintain cohesion, Spike.”         “Perfectly understood. I will only send you when you're ready, child.” He smiled with an emerald wink.         Scootaloo barely registered it. She was shuffling over towards a lab table, atop which a very familiar skull rested. The scarlet in her eyes grayed a little as she navigated the hollow in the bony center—no longer afraid of the vacuum within. “Spike, tell me something.”         “Anything, old friend.” He stood behind her.         She raised a hoof towards the dusty skull, eyeing several scars where the three hundred year old dragon had flaked off necessary samples. “Have you collected enough of Applejack's ashes for any future occasion of binding me to her?”         “Absolutely. More than enough, as a matter of fact. We no longer have any use for her brittle remains—I suspect. Why, Scootaloo? What are you thinking of?”         “A gift, Spike.” She smiled gently, brushing her hoof across where Applejack's soft freckles would have been. “I'm thinking of a g-gift.”         Below the shadow of the moored Harmony, a barren plot of Sweet Apple Acres miraculously remained unswallowed by the Cataclysmic sinkhole that lingered just beyond the ash-laden trees. A bent rusted arch flanked a plateau of gray soil that was bespeckled with white stones, stained by acid rain and soot over the past twenty-five years.         Towards the front of this arrangement of rocks, just beyond a glistening pair that marked the previous generation, the last pony finished piling the last bit of dirt atop four fresh graves, atop of which she had erected brilliant obelisks of moonrock—the type of stone that could never stain.         With a sagging breath, Scootaloo stabbed a self-crafted spade into the ground and slumped down to her curled legs; she was a sweaty and dirty mess, and she reveled in the pain of it. She hoisted a hoof up and peeled a pair of amber goggles off her forehead, so that she stared naked down at the four mounds of earth covering the skeletal remains she had gracefully carried—one after another from the ruins of the storm cellar—into their respected resting places.         A few flakes of ash fell to her fluttering ears. She ignored them, engrossing herself in the reflective sheen of her scarlet eyes against the four moonrocks—like four equine spirits staring up at her from the earth. She managed a gentle smile, and then she shut her eyes and lowered her snout until she was a few centimeters away from kissing the ground.         She spoke into the shattered bosom of the world, “I know it has been forever since anypony returned to you. But, I suppose it's better late than never—because I've never met any ponies that deserved to be put to rest anymore then these four right here. And though I don't expect you to give me anything, I hope that you give them peace. For they have given so generously and lovingly to you, up until the end of time—All of them.” She shuddered as she tilted her face up and gazed at the stones upon stones upon stones. And though she almost forced herself to, she couldn't cry. She was too intensely serene, too strong. “And it is a good thing, a beautiful thing—this land. Because now it is anything but empty. A home forevermore. Perfect h-harmony.”         Scootaloo's brown face forged a painful smile, reminding herself—like a ghostly pair of green eyes once did—that she had a heart to produce it with. Shutting her lids, she raised her hoof to her lips, kissed it, and pressed it to Applejack's moonrock tombstone before getting up, flexing her wings, and returning to her airship.         Hours later, in the growling mists of the snowy Wasteland skies, Scootaloo sat calmly at her workbench along the Harmony's port side. A flickering lantern illuminated a disc spinning on the record player, but it was not Octavia's name that spun around the spindle, but rather a lone disc that Scootaloo was able to scrounge from the den room of the Apple Family's dilapidated farmhouse. And like so many other miracles that graced the pegasus' soul in so many projected days, Stallionivarius still played perfectly.         Several metal instruments graced the cramped cabin's air, instruments which Scootaloo hadn't used since she was a little foal. Before getting to work on her latest tinkering, she squinted through goggled eyes at the waves of ash billowing outside the cockpit windows. The last pony was a shivering waif of a body, with a shaved mane and gangly brown limbs that resembled a pathetic insect rattling inside a rusted iron jar. But as cramped and claustrophobic as the womb of the Harmony always was—it suddenly seemed different to her, a little less cold, and a little less... empty.         “Maybe I can't fix all of dead Equestria overnight,” she murmured to an orange farm mare who wasn't there, and yet was. She breathed gently to herself amidst the rocking of the cabin. “But small things... I've always been able to tinker small things. One thing at a time, I guess.”         That said, she delightfully returned her attention to a tiny banged-up scooter resting on the workbench before her. She replaced parts, polished parts, and restored parts—anything and everything that was directly in front of her, all the while relishing in the warm moment.         She maybe even smiled.