CHAPTER FIFTY-SEVEN - CURSE OF A THOUSAND EMUS
"It is better to oppose the forces that would drive me to self-murder than to endure them. Although I risk the likelihood of death, there is at least the possibility, if not the probability, of changing intolerable conditions. This possibility is important, because much in human existence is based upon hope without any real understanding of the odds." - Dr. Huey P. Newton
There's a world out there beyond those walls. Ponies who work, who love, who hope, and struggle, and thirst, and dream, and fear. Desperate ponies. Ponies who listen to potato machines simply to hear their own stories told.
In Safety, you're exposed to dozens of survival tales of the Wasteland. But they sound like fever dreams. Distant trauma remembered with a shudder. None of them paint a coherent picture of the wide wide wide wide world. Not like DJ Pon3 did. The landlords. The merchants. The tenants. The independent alcoves who dared to function on their own, only to get slaughtered. It was a giant ecosystem of fucked-up-itude.
And the whole time, while Red Eye painted himself as the only alternative to the madness of that ecosystem, he was actively making everything worse!
Sometimes it takes a special voice to pull that all together - to connect the dots and turn personal struggles into collective ones.
DJ Pon3 made me want to storm Red Eye's throne room, or evil lair, or whatever, and kick him in his big ugly head until he stopped!
But my friends and I weren't there to fix Fillydelphia's entire society. We had to follow Misty Mountain's objective. And that turned out to be not as black and white as I'd hoped and dreamed.
* * *
Misty had come to us, trembling. Horrified. Dripping in Fillydelphia swag. Babbling about his mission. Afraid that we'd fucked it up for him.
Foster and I sat him down in front of the kitchen table, where a plate of food - still untouched by Cliff - sat, slowly losing its steam.
Don't just stand there! All my Rose Voices chastised me at once. Make him some tea!
It was a Rose Family instinct - ingrained from generations immemorial. My hooves itched, desperate to grab a hoof full of dried leaves, pour boiling water over them, and shove the cup in Misty's face until all was magically well.
But I had no leaves. No hot water. Only Cliff's quesadilla-majig.
"Okay, so what's the plan?" I said.
"Plan?" He asked, tortilla crumbs tumbling from his muzzle.
"Let us help," Cliff pleaded.
Misty blink-bloinked his eyelids. "You are leap-before-look kind of colt, aren't you?"
Cliff's wings twisted even further inward than usual. "I'm the one who messed up," he muttered softly, almost to himself.
"Dees ees true," said Misty.
"I should make it right," said Cliff.
"Dees ees not true."
"What happens tonight?" Foster leapt in to change the subject in a hurry.
"Tonight?" Misty froze. Like a foal with one hoof halfway into a cookie jar. "Um…um…uhhhh..." he opened his mouth to speak, but for once, nothing dickish came out.
"You said it was urgent - that we had to act tonight," I pressed him. "Like, two minutes ago."
"Okay, okay, okay, okay, okay," he said. "So…" Misty sighed. De-levitated his quesadilla. Held up a hoof, like he was about to initiate a lecture. Then just buried his face in it.
Cliff Diver looked to me what-the-fuck-ishly. But I just shrugged right back at him. Misty wasn't normally like this.
"What's going on?" I said.
"Your friends - they are from your own time, yes? Dey know everythingk?"
"Yeah."
"And dey are not wuss?" He whispered conspiratorily. "You know, shy about dee fucking up of shit?"
"No," said Foster.
Cliff blushed a little. Averted his eyes. And didn't comment. Till pow!
Foster clopped him upside the head.
"Ow, what the--;"
"You threw a desk at a teacher," Foster said. "You're not a wuss."
"Fine," Cliff rubbed his head. "Yes, let's make with the 'fucking up of shit'. Now would you please tell us what's going on?"
"Okay," said Misty after a long, deep breath. "Every year, dee eve before Hearth's Warming's Eve."
"Hearth's Warming's Eve Eve," I said.
"Yes, double eve," Misty replied. "Red Eye's guards prepare for party. Dey can't do dees on dee eve itself because of other responsibility, but dee night before, the guards - they all change rotation pattern." Misty illustrated their movements by sweeping his forehooves across the table and pointing them in every conceivable direction. "Some go here. Some go there. Some get drunk. Some supervise decorations.
'During dee eve-eve, there are parts of park left unguarded."
"How do you know?" Foster asked.
It was a reasonable question. Brain hornets just sorta yell at you to do vague stuff. They don't give you dossiers on troop movements.
"Dee children of Safety know," Misty replied. "Once a year," he leaned in close - like he was whispering a great big secret. "A group of keeds break in."
"What for?" Cliff said.
"They're Wastelanders." Misty shrugged. "Ees only thing they're good at...Anyway, how much you know about amusement parks?"
I shrugged, (having never actually been to one). Cliff Diver too.
"I've read a thing or two," said Foster.
"Good," said Misty. "Den you know about dee ponies in character costume."
"Uh, vaguely," Foster admitted.
"During amusement park golden age," Misty explained. "Staff would dress up, just like famous figure from popular stories, popular books. But to keep from breaking of character, and to move from Point A to B, amusement parks had tunnels underneath. Vast networks of dem. But only one tunnel there is that goes as far as Safety, and dat part of theme park ees guarded every night...except tonight."
"Why abandon that post if it's so important?" I said. "Why not post another guard over the tunnel entrance?"
"Ah!" He smiled. "Because dey do not know about dee tunnel at all. I suspect Red Eye might have found a few of them, but he has no clue what's under dee whole park. Keeds break eento dees particular tunnel every year, and never they are caught. Dee guard posted nearby - on normal day - ees coincidence."
"What's she guarding?" Foster asked.
Misty shrugged. "Stuff? I don't know. Dee point ees: dee coast - how you say? Ees clear."
"Great," I said. "So what do we do from there?"
"Ah, we," Misty laughed nervously. "We break away from dee group. And make for bumper plows."
"Your plan is to ride the bumper plow," Cliff said dryly.
"No," Misty replied. "Dat ees slave quarters."
"Now you're talking," I said.
Ponies in need. Ponies we could help!
"No," Misty snapped. "I know what you're thinkingk. We cannot free all Fillydelphia. No Rose Petal'ingk!"
"Then what's the objective?" Foster said, get-down-to-businessly.
"There ees, um...just one slave," Misty sighed and hung his head, all dejected-like. Not the bolstering jackass-iness I'd grown to expect of him.
It was puzzling for a tiny sliver of a moment. But then, abruptishly, Misty's uncertainitude melted away. And his eyeballs got firey and feral. "I have to free her."
"I understand," I said. "But you never know. Sometimes the best way to free one pony is to free everypony. Remember?" I flashed Misty a grin.
"Eet won't work," Misty hmphed.
"That's what you said last time."
"Ees different now."
"Why?"
"Because it is!" Misty snapped.
My friends and I exchanged concernitty eyeballs. I secretly hoped that Bananas Foster would speak up - offer us some of that changeling social genius of hers. But she seemed as clueless as me.
"What's wrong?" I said.
Misty Mountain closed his eyes. His lips mouthed a countdown. '3-2-1'...and when it was over, a long, ragged breath filled his lungs. Right before he exhaled the truth. "I'm not supposed to be here."
…
…
…
"Huh?" I replied.
"I'm not on meession, Rose." Misty Mountain buried his face in his hooves. Then plunged his muzzle into the quesadilla and came up, mouth totally full. "At least," he continued. "Not dee kind of mission weeth instructions on the brain."
My stomach twisted inside me like a wet towel getting rung out. But instead of beach water, it squeezed acid all over my insides.
Our whole exit strategy - all this time - was to hitch a ride on Misty Mountain's magical mission, and...you know...surf him back to his dream beach or whatever.
"What did you do?" I whispered.
"I'm lost," he replied. "Een time."
"What?!" All three of us exclaimed at once. Even though it shoulda been obvious by that point.
Misty gawked at the floor. And fell into a sort of trance. A gloom.
He didn't look at me. Or any of us. All he said was, "There's a mare," and then that doomquiet overtook him once more. It wasn't until twenty million billion hundred thousand kajillion years of awkward silence had passed that he finally continued that thought. "On my last meession, she was...captured." Misty chose that word very carefully. "Red Eye's griffons got her. But dee Universe...will not help."
Misty spat on the floor in anger.
"Eww, gross," said Cliff.
"When meesion was over," Misty continued. "I draw line-een-sand. I was done. No more steenging een the head. No more bloodshed. No getting used and broken and tossed aside like tissue.
'So I stopped listening to voices. "Fuck dem," I say! There ees magic pill from before the war - party time mints. They make you twenty times better at whatever it is you are already good at.
'On one mission, I happenedt to find whole tin full of dem. And saved dem for rainy day.
'When Universe betrayed her," Misty shuddered. "...And they...let her be captured and enslaved, I took dee mints - two of dem. I tell you, Rose Petal. I could see beyond time. With their mint power, I reached out to other worlds. In search of her.
'But where and when I landed was always random. I tried hundreds of realms. Worlds of ponies. Of deer. One was made of candy. Sentient marshmallows. I meet peasant gumdrops. I meet dee Brittle King."
"Brittle King?" said Bananas Foster.
"Yes, but don't let name fool you. He's actually very sturdy. Made of peanut brittle. Anyway…"
Foster stumbled forward in a hurry. "I passed a sign once," she said. "When I was captured by the shadows! They carried me through many worlds - dead worlds." She propped her forehooves up on the table. Pressed her eyeballs so close to Misty's eyeballs that I thought everypony's eyeballs were gonna kiss each other. "It all went by so fast. There's only one thing that I saw clearly as we zoomed by. A sign: THIS WAY TO THE BRITTLE KING."
Misty cocked his head at Foster, and looked to me in disbelief.
"It's true," I said.
"What can you tell me about the Brittle King?'' Foster pleaded.
"I don't know! He is asshole. How about you? How did you escape?"
"I tricked them," she said. "Into letting me go."
"Dee shadows," Misty said.
"Yes."
"They...let you go?"
"Yes," said Foster. "They thought I'd spy for them, but I slipped out of their sight."
"Rose Petal! Where do you meet such ponies?" Misty turned to me, eyes as wide as moons.
"It's complicated," I replied.
"But I don't understand," said Cliff. "You took these...magic mints, and they sent you hurtling through time and space - to whole other worlds!"
"Yes," Misty confirmed. "They go squeak like rubber emu."
"You mean ducky," I said.
"Een old country, we squeak rubber emu," Misty insisted. "Dee point is thees, how you say? Universe emus - I learned to squeak dem myself - to control my course, just a leeeettle bit, and aim for specific emus. But I never found dee one I was looking for. I ran out of mints." Misty shrugged. "After dat, it was just falling. Falling. Falling...years of falling. A different world. A day at a time, week at a time.
'Sometimes, I know the language. Sometimes, I don't. Sometimes it's ponies, sometimes? Land of talking pudding. And I am pudding too."
"Pudding?" said Cliff.
"Ooh," I said. "Did you go to Sandwichia? Did you get to be a sandwich?"
Luna had told me once that The Universe won't let intruders into worlds where it wouldn't make any sense for them to be. She'd told me that dragons might even turn into dogs. But I fixated instead on the idea of journeying to the Sandwich Realm, and becoming a delectable sandwich!
"No," Misty replied. "But dee emu-verse ees very weird place. I thought I had seen everythingk. Been everywhere. After while, I am thinking: maybe I should make kill of myself. You know, so dee emus stop."
"My gosh," said Cliff.
"But then, I landed een Trottica!" Misty smiled faintly. "And I heard dee voices again! I thought: I am saved! I thought: I am back on meession. And I had hope - real hope - even though I hate dee messions," Misty laughed. Shook his head somber-like. "But the voices - they were for you."
"Wait, so you were never meant to be in Trottica at all?" said Cliff.
Misty shook his head. "No."
"So if fate never paired you two, then the whole thing isn't meant to be at all! You're squeaking hundreds of emus." Cliff pointed at Misty, then swung around and directed that same forehoof at me. "And you are making your way through duckies...and all of them are places the shadows can never go again. This explains everything!"
"What dee Hell?" Misty shook his head, and shrugged in confusion. Totally smacked out of his traumatic memory by the sheer what-the-fuckishness of Clff Diver's propositions. "What are you talkingk about?"
"Tethered timelines!" Cliff answered. "Every life that you touch is a timeline that you're bound to. Just look at Rose Petal. You two could have crossed each other's paths again at any time. Her as a foal, and you as an old stallion. But here you are - still the same age. Together...It's that way with everyone."
"Everyone?" Misty tightened his lips like he'd just licked a moldy clementine.
"Yeah," said Cliff. "That's like the First Rule of ducky traveling. No do overs."
"There are rules?" Misty growled.
"They're more like...natural laws."
Misty shot his eyeballs across the room. To Cliff, to Foster, and ultimately to me. They were accusatory eyes that narrowed with fear and anger and betrayal. "There are natural laws to travelling the emu-verse, and you never told me?!"
"I didn't know!" I said. "Trottica was my first mission ever. I only found a teacher after I got back."
"What, so you have dee time-dream, and den you wake up, and just...waltz over to local emu-instructor, and learn secrets of universe?"
"No," I snorted. "It's not like that. I almost died shoveling sleepy tea into my mouth to try to find Twink again, and then I went to the hospital, and the shadows attacked me in my dreams while attacking my friends in real life, and I went to a war, and stopped the war, but, like, this Colonel wanted to start it up again, but really didn't because she was actually a good guy, and when I got back, everypony thought I was crazy, and I attacked a little girl because I thought we were back in that same warzone again, and I ran away, and almost got killed in the Everfree Forest until a donkey helped me. And then, finally, I found Zecora who taught me ancient zebra dream magic. And I studied really really really really reeeeally hard, and tried special dreaming to protect my friends because it's the last night of Winter, and shadows loooove Winter apparently. And still I screwed it up and landed here...in your ducky emu dream or whatever." I stopped to catch my breath. Held my inky shadowy death-hoof bitterly in the air. "This hasn't been easy for me either."
Misty stared at me, with foalish awe and wonder. While Cliff and Foster flanked me and pressed up against my sides. To let me know I had their support.
"I'm sorry," said Misty. "It's just that...Never would I have taken such mints had I known."
In my head, I suddenly heard that crying sound again. The wails that had haunted me. They hit my brain the second I'd landed in Fillydelphia. I somehow knew even then that they came from Misty.
"But I took mints," Misty continued. "Long before Trottica, so ees not your fault either way."
"I heard you crying," I said.
Misty looked to me with forelorn eyes.
"When we first got here," I said. "In this emu, I heard you. After all the other screams had faded."
"Ees true," he said. "I cried when I got here. Dat ees when I realized I was inside of dee correct emu - the one I make search for - but eet was still too late for do over." Misty hung his head, staring at the remains of his quesadilla. "I have to try," he said softly. "I messed up. It's too late to undo, but I have to try to make better. Dees - tonight - ees as close a chance as I can get. I should not be here. I cannot ask you to come and endanger yourself on meession with no hope, and no guidance from above. But still, it's somethingk I have to...try."
I thought of the boy I saw in the Wasteland. My very first night. I never did find out whether or not he survived Trottica. Then there were the slaughtered children of Sub Mine F, who I knew were dead and gone.
Most of all, I thought of Pinkie Pie and her determination to bring smiles, even in the most miserable of places. How she needed to try.
"Fuck that," I put my hoof on Misty's shoulder. "I'm in."
"What?"
"Fuck the Universe," I replied. "All of it. The Universe doesn't care about your mare friend. The Universe doesn't care about my family. The Universe killed Twink. Fuck it all. I'm with you."
"I'm in," said Cliff.
Foster closed her eyes. Buried her head in her hooves. Totally aware of how rash and stupid I was being. Totally powerless to stop us. "Me too," she sighed.
Misty Mountain smiled. "Now dat you are here, I do theenk dees is meant to be after all. Fate or...whatever."
"Really?" I said. "You believe that? After all you've been through?"
"First, dere ees Brittle King road sign your friend saw. Then dere is your training."
"My training?"
"Eet was zebra who helped you. And ees zebra I must save."
"A zebra slave?" I said. "Here?"
Misty nodded. "Her name is Xenith."
The name, of course, meant nothing to me, but to hear it spoken out loud filled me with dread I could not explain. A faint, but sharp discomfort that seemed to come from far away. Like a sword dangling from a thread above me, only hundreds of miles in the air.
"Hay," said Cliff Diver. "And it was also a zebra legend that you totally...You know… lived!"
Misty pointed at Cliff, while keeping his eyes fixed on me. "What ees with dees friend of yours?"
"Your whole mission," Cliff continued. "Through time and space and duckies - I mean, emus. The zebras have a cautionary tale about it - a girl named Z'orange. Who did exactly that."
"Exactly what?"
"Took a bunch of magic herbs to travel through the emuverse or whatever. She gets totally lost forever, never ever ever ever ever to be seen or heard from again."
"Yeah, let's not harp on that part," said Foster.
"You should harp," Misty replied. "I don't know how you can get home."
Suddenly, a totally random thought galloped up to me, and smashed my brain with a hammer. A memory-hammer of the destiny prophesized for me by Pinkie Pie's tarot card game. "I'm fated to meet Red Eye," the words escaped my mouth almost too fast for me to make sense of them.
"What?"
"I saw him," I said softly. "In the tarot deck. It predicted so much."
"What are you talkingk about?" Said Misty.
"There's a magic tarot deck. It predicted everything that's happened so far. Trottica. No Mare's Land. All that stuff. But The Emperor - it wasn't a card of Fillydelphia. It was him. Red Eye. That means I'm destined to meet him - destined to get captured." My heart skipped a beat. "Fuck, Misty, if I go with you, your mission is destined to fail."
"Not necessarily," said Cliff. "Maybe the Universe itself has changed course."
A sudden hush fell over the room as we all contemplatized that.
"Think!" Cliff threw his hooves up and said. "Misty's not supposed to be here; we're not supposed to be here. We got to Fillydelphia through his dream door using a tail hair of his that Rose Petal keeps around her neck - a hair she's not supposed to have in the first place."
"You have my tail hair?" Misty turned to me, utterly confuzzled.
"Whatever plan the universe had," Cliff continued. "...The brain hornets, or The Powers That Be, or whatever? What if that plan is ruined by now?"
"Ees only a guess," said Misty. "Dere is no way to know."
We all nodded grimly, musing on the implications of such a fate working either for or against us - a power that controlled our very lives, but refused to let itself be seen. Or let it be known whose side it was on.
What if we had fucked up The Plan so badly that destiny was totally fucking making shit up as it went along? Like one of Cliff Diver's blues idols.
"Why you have my tail hair?" said Misty, unconsciously checking his flank to see if anything was missing.
"It got stuck in my teeth."
Misty crinkled his face. "Gross."
"Yeah, yeah yeah," I said. "So what do we do now?"
"The right thing," answered Bananas Foster.
"Really?" said Cliff.
"Yes," Foster replied coldly. "In absence of any clear course of action from above - a mother, a brain hornet, a voice from beyond the emu-verse - it seems that the only objective rubric is...doing what's right."
Cliff looked at Bananas like she had forty-seven-and-a-half eyeballs.
"For the family," Foster clarified. "Of course. What's right for the family."
"The plan then?" I said. "While the guards are all pouring their Wasteland egg nog or whatever, we find Xenith, and then what, Misty? What do we do once we find her?"
"My plan was sewer system," he replied. "Even further below than dee tunnels. All the troops in Fillydelphia couldn't find us weeth team of bloodhound."
"Then how would we find the way?" Cliff asked.
"Ah! I used to play there with my sister," Misty beamed. "Before dee war came to our doorstep. Before dee theme park. Before…" The smile on Misty's face faded. A darkness seemed to come over him. A brief flicker. But he never did finish that thought. Instead he shook his head. Forced himself to stand upright. "Trust me," he said, twice as arrogant as ever. "You drop me in sewer, I'll get us out of the city."
"Good," Cliff replied.
"Buuuut…" Misty continued. "Now dat I have new friends, maybe we can do somethingk better." A mischievous smirk creased its way across his muzzle.
"Like what?" I said.
"I find Xenith, and you get us all out of here with your zebra magic," Misty replied.
"It doesn't work like that,'' said Foster.
"Yeah," I added. "I can, like, use your hair to find your dream door, but I don't know how to get out of your dreams from where we are now. And I have no idea how to teach you to get out of it yourself."
"Why not?" Misty whimpered.
"This isn't a normal dream. It's a ducky...emu...thing. Dream traveling means finding a neutral landscape in your mind, and searching for a door to the outside of your brain."
"What if you napped?" said Foster. "Here and now in Safety. That'd be like a regular dream! Wouldn't it?"
Misty's face lit up like a Hearth's Warming tree. "Yes!" he exclaimed. "I sleep. Here in Safety. I have dee regular dreams."
"I still can't find your door again," I said. "I'm already in it."
"Teach me to make find of yours!" Misty cried. "If I go in your dream door…"
"No, no, no, no, no, no, no," said Cliff Diver. "That's bad...Like...really bad."
"Boolsheet," said Misty. "Eet will work. It has to!" He planted his hooves against the ground and dug in like a bull, prepping to charge. He had found his tiny shred of hope, damnit, and was prepared to defend it.
"Hell-ooo!" Cliff sang out. "Frostingsweet's Theorem!"
Misty, Foster, and I all just sort of turned to one another at once. A strange solidarity born of confusion.
"Ugh," said Cliff as he clopped his hoof to his forehead. "Okay, so...the fabric of space and time is like...well, um...fabric!" He darted to his cot, gripped a blanket in his teeth and dragged it back to us, knocking over everything in its path: clothes, saddlebags, a lamp. He laid it out over the coffee table where the potato device had been assembled only a short while earlier. "Okay, you see that red stitch?"
Cliff pointed to some of the embroidery. It was a plain brown blanket, kinda ratty and fuzzy - but it had border stitches of different colors, machine sewn, running parallel to one another.
"Yes," said Misty.
"That's you."
"I don't want to be the red one."
"Why not?"
Misty pointed to his cerulean self with vigorous indignance.
"Fine," groaned Cliff. "You're the blue one, and Rose is the red one." Cliff pointed to another zig-zaggedy stitch made of red thread, running parallel.
"Better," said Misty.
"You two are in sync, even when you're apart." He ran his forehooves across both threads. "And when you meet - which isn't supposed to happen at all - your timelines fold, and line up."
He bent the time-blanket neatly, pressed the threads against one another, and then unfolded it back to normal.
The tips of his forehooves continued to trace parallel lines along the seams of the blanket. Like two wagons riding along side one another.
"When we went through your door, it, like…undid the thread, and sewed Rose over to this side." Cliff pressed the two seams of the blanket further together. "If we were to somehow get you through Rose Petal's door…" Cliff looped one corner of the blanket around, crumpled it up, and mashed it so hard into itself, that he lost track of his own tongue and let it hang out the side of his mouth. "And then, like, your thread would rip a hole over here, and get stuck and turn the whole blanket into a knot!" He paused to pant and catch his breath.
"Dee blanket, meaning…" Misty examined it closely, as though the fleece itself had cosmic secrets woven into it.
"The Universe! The duckyverse! Emus! Time! Everything!" Cliff jumped up and down, losing his breath all over again. "You're gonna rip it!"
All four of us gawked at the crumpled up blanket. As though it were a warrant for our own execution. My own heart slammed at the inside of my ribcage like a wild hydra flailing its gazillion heads against the inside of a cave. Boom boom boom boom boom. We were doomed. Deeply and truly doomed.
"Alright," said Bananas Foster. "Let's not do that, then."
"So, how do we get the fuck out of here?" I uncrumpled Cliff Diver's time-blanket. Laid it out neatly on the coffee table. As though that would help. Somehow.
…
…
…
"There's, uh...one other pony you can call," said Cliff.
A chill fell over the room. A sort of silent dread between my Ponyville friends and I.
"No," said Foster. "Absolutely not. She's the Inquisitor."
"She might not be Inquisiting anymore when she comes to our door," Cliff rebutted.
"Rose," Foster pled. "We can't trust that. Tell him."
"I don't know," I said, clutching my mojo bag with the sock inside. "I guess it's 50-50."
"You saw her turn into a shadowy...thing, and chase you through the halls of the dream realm!" Foster exclaimed. "And you say it's 50-50?!"
"I don't know who's in charge of her mind right now," I said. "The dog, or the monster."
"What in Equestria everypony ees talking about?!" Misty shouted.
"I have a friend," I said, stroking the outline of Screw Loose's sock through my mojo bag. "She can move between dreams - better than anypony in the emu-verse - but she's fragile, and broken. The inside of her head is full of shadows. If I call to her, I don't know if she'll come, or if they will," I spoke slowly, choosing my words carefully. Screw Loose's inner demons were her own business, and my friends had already said too much.
I didn't even know if she was okay! If that shadow demon inquisamajig had managed to escape her mind, and rampage across the land of dreams. If the evil castle itself had seen and found her, and strapped her into the chair all over again. I didn't know anything!
Foster put a hoof on my shoulder. But I just stared off into space. Worrying about my dog.
"So," Cliff's tail deflated. "What now?"
Another contemplatey hush fell over the room. Totally silent but for the sound of distant laughter in the halls.
Then, out of nowhere, Misty Mountain went fucking nuts. He threw himself at Cliff's blanket and started tugging and chomping and stamping it.
"Get fucked," he growled. "Get fucked, time blanket! Get fucked!"
Stomp, stomp, chew, tear.
Cliff leapt in and tugged the fleece away, but Misty bit down like an angry dog.
"Stop it," Cliff said.
"No," said Misty. "Time ees dumb! I hate it."
"Yeah, but I need this to keep warm," Cliff snapped.
Misty froze, opened his mouth casually, and let his corner of the blanket tumble out of it.
Cliff held the ragged fleece up, and grimaced at the patches that got slobbered on.
"Maybe the mission is still the way out," I said.
"No," whispered Misty.
"Hear me out," I said. "You're not supposed to be here; I'm not supposed to be here. Our whole friendship fucks with the master plan of…" I stopped mid-sentence, tongue-tied. I reared up in frustration, flailed my legs as my brain-mouth struggled to come up with words - the kinda words that formed actual sentence that made some fucking sense. "...The Hooves of Fate," I said at last, borrowing a phrase from Great Aunt Roseroot's notebook o' lunatic ramblings. "None of this is supposed to happen. Every step we take screws up the Powers that Be, and their chess game against the shadows."
"Yes," said Misty. "Welcome to being foresaken. I know."
"Listen," I said. "Fate might still be with us. Our coming together like this. Your zebra friend. My zebra mentor. All this dream magic and stuff. The Brittle King. It all lines up." I gestured to Cliff Diver, "You pointed out that fate might be like the leader of a blues band. The basic outline of a song is there, and the rest is all improv."
"Yeah," Cliff affirmed.
"So maybe I'm not gonna meet Red Eye after all. Maybe I will. Maybe moving forward with this mission - us, here right now - is the new plan."
"Eet isn't," said Misty.
"It might be," I said. "And if that's the case, we do what Foster said, and try anyway. Do the right thing. Rescue your friend."
We all stood there in a circle, somber-like. Trying to make sense of...well...everything. While the distant laughter in the hallways slowly simmered down to a gentle hush.
"Your analysis ees not complete," said Misty at last.
Our heads all creaked toward him.
"What eef dee, um... Fate Hooves are not like jazzy musicians," Misty continued. "What eef they are rigid in plans, and want we should fail?"
I thought of Mom, driven mad by her brain hornets. Of Great Aunt Roseroot, whose mental decline was way way way way waaaay worse. I thought of Misty's zebra friend toiling away in some hellish Trottica-like mine. And the torment that Misty himself had gone through, bouncing from emu to emu to emu, desperate to undo a tragic mistake. I thought of Twinkle Eyes, lying bleeding in my lap. Begging me not to leave her. All because that was the way it was supposed to be.
"I want no part of them," I said. "If Fate wants to stop us from rescuing a slave, I want no part of it - any of it."
"Don't be stupid," Misty said. "Don't end up like me."
"At first sign of trouble," I said. "I'll call Screw Loose." I gripped my mojo bag. Felt the sock squish inside. "But we should still give it a shot."
"And if the Inquisitor comes through instead?" said Foster. "What then?"
"We'll, I dunno...improvise," I said. "Make blues music or whatever. Our alternative is to stay here, and go to stupid Red Eye class for the rest of our lives."
"Improvise?!" squeaked Bananas Foster. "One does not simply walk into Fillydelphia, summon the shadows when things go South, and then improvise."
"Your loud friend has point," said Misty. "Ees not like Trottica. You can not just...kick rock, and expect it to land one-een-meellion shot, and shatter your captor's horn. Foal's luck: it only works on messions."
"You don't know Screw Loose like I do." I clutched my mojo bag close to my chest like it was a wounded kitten. "I can get through to her."
"Then call her now," said Cliff.
…
…
…
"Um…"
"Call her."
My grip tightened around the mojo bag. Suddenly, I wasn't so sure.
"Wait!" Foster interrupted my thoughts, or lack thereof. "What if I'm doing the shadows' will right now? What if this is how I deliver them The Inquisitor?"
"Dees ees way too much shadow business," said Misty.
"Screw Loose is not a monster," I said. "She's a victim."
"I'm not going back there," said Foster. "Not for anything."
"Calling her is only a last resort," I said.
"We don't even have a first resort other than 'improvise'."
"So what's our alternative?" I said. "Wait it out? Hang around for a year going to Red Eye class? Try again next Hearth's Warming?"
"We'd have each other," Foster whispered.
Like a cart on fire, it hit me. The thing that should have been obvious. When Foster wakes up, she'll be back in Ponyville General Hospital. Entombed in her bubble. Allergic to touch.
She'd been playing it down. This whole time. She did it so well, I'd almost forgotten. These last few days with her and Cliff. It felt like we'd always been that way. Together.
But the moment we got home, she was gonna lose everything. And still, she never once questioned our plans.
We were her hive.
Cliff rushed in to hug her. I followed. Foster closed her eyes and leaned into both of us. A warmth seemed to course between us. 'Cause in her touch, there was a sad and desperate sort of magic. Knowing that this or any hug could be our last.
Foster's hoof drifted to mine. And I felt a tingly spark. A glow. Same as the day when my evil shadowhoof first pierced her bubble.
"I know how you feel," said Misty, who stood on the periphery. "...To not want to go home," he clarified.
Foster set her tingly magic hoof down. Drifted away from the hug, and towards Misty.
"I...I'm sorry," Misty said to her. Not an apology, but a condolence.
And it stung. 'Cause, like...Misty was lost in time and space and emus. For years! And his only concern that whole fucking time was Xenith. It made me wonder what was so wrong with Misty's home life that he had no thought at all of going back to it. What had happened to his sister who he used to play in the sewers with?
Misty closed his eyes. Swallowed his throat apple hard, and continued. "...But you couldn't stay here even eef you wanted to. Dee emus - they get anger-y. Spit you out sooner or later." Misty took a step back, marveling at the ceiling, and bare walls of our dorm room, as if he expected them to fizzle away at any moment. "Ees miracle I have been in Safety thees long. Eef there ees chance that we escape thees place, we should take. Even eef we piss off fate. Or have to make run from shadows. Anything beats life as bowl of tapioca pudding."
Foster stared at her hooves for a good long while. Scraping them against the dorm's hard floor. Had they been claws or monkeys' fists, she would have clenched them.
Then, a sort of calm fell over her. She didn't move a muscle. But I felt it. Maybe cause we hive-minded or something. Or maybe just 'cause feelings are like that sometimes.
But it was like a great storm suddenly fading to a drizzle.
"Okay," she said. "Let's do it."
Her voice was cold. Alarmingly cold. So fucking cold that it actually made me do a total 180, and second guess our entire 'plan', or lack thereof.
"We don't have to run in blind," said Cliff. "When we get home, we'll find a way. We'll--;"
Foster flicked a hoof of dismissal at Cliff. She was on a roll. "We have no idea how fate will react, or the shadows. Or Screw Loose. We have no idea if we can pull any of this off. But Misty has to act tonight. So let's just...try...and get it over with."
"I don't know you," Misty replied. "Or what hell you have at home waiting, but, for me, you don't haff to do anythingk."
"I'm doing it for me," Foster replied. "I finally have a body that I can put to use. Even if I could stay - even if I could avoid turning into tapioca pudding, it would be insane to spend this body cowering in some classroom, idling away my time!" Foster shook her head. "Such a waste."
She seemed to harden somehow. Like one of those statues you see in museums - historical figures looking boldly toward the horizon. Unshakable. Resolute.
A chill ran right across my spine.
Foster was prepared to go back to her bubble prison if it meant getting us home. She was also ready to die saving us in the act of "improvising" if that's what it took.
It kinda scared me. Given a choice of those two fates, Foster was clearly hoping for the latter.
"There's just one thing," Foster turned to Misty Mountain and said.
An awkward moment passed. And it grew awkwarder and awkwarder and awkwarder and awkwarder and awkwarder. It was super weird 'cause she'd held herself like a fucking queen just a few moments before. But the uncertain silence only grew worse. Till, at last, Misty replied, "Uh...yes?"
"I need you to understand that I'm not evil," she said.
"I know dees."
"No," Foster held her head up, like a stubborn pirate traitor walking the plank imperiously, determined to drown with dignity. "I've only known you a very short time, Misty. But you're family to Rose, and you've been decent to me."
Misty grumbled at the sentimentality.
"So I'm going to show you something, so that you're not surprised if it, um...happens while we're out in the field."
"Okay."
Foster took a deep breath. Then another one. And another one. She whispered a little message to the heavens, for her dead mom's ears. From what little I could make out, it was an exasperated sigh, Sweet Mother, I've only known him a day.
Then Foster closed her eyes. And in a single flash of green flame, she took on the shape of Doppleganger Misty.
The real Misty didn't blink. Just stared. Took slow, deliberate motions, expecting Foster to mirror him, but of course, she didn't. She just poof! Turned into me. Doppleganger Rose Petal. And before I could even process how fucking weird it was to see a copy of myself...poof! Foster transformed into her true self. Changeling Scout Thirteen. Complete with bulbous green eyes and dull glossy exoskeleton. "I'm a changeling," she said.
"Nice," Misty replied. "Good to know. Very very useful, this could be."
Thirteen cocked her head like a confuesitty dog. "That's it?" she squeaked. "No, 'ahhh', or 'how do I know you're not a shadow,' or...get away from me, or...anything?!"
"Meh," Misty shrugged. "I've seen weirder."