Only a few minutes passed after Izzy left, when I hear my door open again. I slowly crack my eyes open. I try to raise myself, but after a surge of stinging pain, I decide otherwise.
A red stallion stands in front of me. He stares at me with his mouth slightly agape.
“What did he do to you?” he manages to whisper.
“Sprout?” I ask with disbelief. “Is that you?”
“I heard from Hitch that you were in trouble. I, uh, I just had to check on you,” he says as he casts his eyes on the floor. “I knew trusting the unicorns was a mistake,” he mutters.
“Sprout!” I reply, raising my voice. I shuffle slightly on the couch, so that I can look at him better. “He’s not just some unicorn. He is an ancient, evil king!”
“I know, I know, Hitch told me already. I’m just saying, if we hadn’t opened the town this wouldn’t have happened.” He doesn't look into my eyes as he speaks.
Unbelievable.
“If you’re only here to lecture me, I’d rather be left alone.”
His ears flop. He quickly clears his throat.
“No, no, that’s not...” He groans in frustration. “I’m sorry. How do you feel?”
“Well you know, my leg is broken, my father’s legacy is stolen, a powerful wizard is threatening to enslave us all, and somepony who I believed had changed is doing nothing but rubbing it in!”
With each word he shrinks back further away from me. I see tears gathering in the corners of his eyes. He turns away from me and starts to slowly move towards the door.
Stars, what am I doing?
“Wait! Sprout!” I yell after him. He turns back. His expression is blank.
“No, you’re right, Sunny. I’m a terrible friend. I shouldn’t have come here.” His voice is low, subdued.
Before I can say another word, he darts out. I sink deeper into the couch.
Can this day get any worse?
I find no strength to contemplate the question. Sleep overtakes me once more.
Days pass and slowly my pain dulls. While I still can’t move around very fast, I can at least take care of myself now, without needing to rely on somepony else.
It was about time too. I find myself worrying about Izzy far more than myself at this point. The poor girl has been overworking herself since our encounter with the king.
When she’s not out there, dedicating her time to the town, she’s with me, catering to my every need. Even though I’ve told her several times that I’m fine and that it is not necessary.
I can’t help but smile.
If- No, that’s not the right mindset. When this whole thing blows over, we must throw her a massive party, I think to myself.
With a small groan I get out of my couch. We haven’t yet had the time to fix the elevator and I’d still rather not chance the stairs, so I’ve just been living downstairs. Izzy, of course, offered to bring my bed down, but I insisted that she should conserve her magic.
Who knows when he will return.
I glance at the side of the room. My trusty roller-skates beckon me, but I turn my head away. Not a good idea.
Instead, I slowly walk over to the door and open it. The gentle slope that leads to the city is usually very welcoming, but now every step is an obstacle to be conquered. But I cannot laze around anymore. I must do what I can for the others. That’s what the Princess would do as well.
I hurry as much as I can, but it still takes me a long time to get into the city proper. As I’m getting closer, I stare at the barricades erected around the city. A frown creeps on my face. They are made from flimsy planks and whatever other junk the city could salvage. I think a stronger wind could probably knock them over.
What’s worse, I can hardly see anypony around them. Only the barricade closest to me has two ponies posted next to it, the others stand empty, allowing anypony to just waltz in, without us knowing about it.
I think back to the previous few days.
Hitch was, of course, mortified when he heard the news. I don't think I have ever seen him so scared and angry before. He immediately called for a town meeting right next to my house. At first, especially after seeing my sorry state, everypony was eager to help. Though not many wanted to play military after Sprout’s little incident, the city agreed to set up a militia of sorts to protect ourselves against the king.
Though at first it seemed like cool heads may prevail, eventually a collective panic took hold on the others and they began to propose all sorts of wild ideas. I guess this is partly on me. I merely wondered aloud whether we could organize some sort of patrol or watch on a voluntary basis that could alert and buy us some time when he returns. The others were so into the idea that they quickly began to chime in with their own far more far-fetched ones. By the time the meeting ended, everypony’s minds were full of nonsensical plans like compulsory combat training or even repurposing some of Ms. Cloverleaf’s inventions as actual weapons to use against the king.
Though, at the very least, Izzy was able to convince some Bridlewood ponies to come over and bolster our defenses. It’s funny how a crisis can bring us together like that.
My train of thought is derailed by the two guards at the barricade. One of them, a brown stallion with a black mane, salutes me, before his partner, a pink mare with a light green mane, pokes him in the side. They laugh then return to patrolling. Both of them are wearing those ridiculous anti-mind-reading helmets.
I sincerely hope they’re only trying to protect their heads.
I roll my eyes and sigh as I walk past them into the city. As much as I hate to ruin anypony’s fun, this isn’t the time to joke around. My mind picks up the thread where I left it.
While spirits were high in the beginning, as time passed and the town suffered no attack, the ponies slowly became less and less concerned with the situation at hoof.
At first some of the guards decided to take longer naps and turned up late or occasionally forgot their schedule. Annoying, but manageable. But, by the end of the week, they outright didn’t even take their posts. The newest dumb movie was more interesting than staring out of your head at a peaceful meadow for eight to ten hours a day.
A few foals run past me, playing tag. As I look back at them, my eyes meet their parents’. I can see a hint of guilt on their faces before they quickly turn and usher their kids away. Both sides know, this isn’t what we agreed on. Children should not prance around on streets that could become a battlefield at any moment. I see no point in lecturing individuals though, so I continue my walk towards the sheriff’s office.
Hopefully together we might be able to convince folks to take things a bit more seriously.
The guards’ laziness was already a big hit to our security, but then the Bridlewood ponies became homesick as well. Though, I can’t fully blame them. As much as we’ve been trying to encourage the town to be more welcoming towards them, some old tensions still reared their ugly heads. An unsought word here, an accidental insult there and a lot of small conflicts eventually added up. Finally, they found it too much and decided to leave. Poor Izzy tried her hardest to convince them to stay, but she was told to chase butterflies elsewhere.
The rest of our plans didn’t go anywhere either, though I expected as much. We aren’t exactly fighters after all. There was nopony who could teach combat in either Maretime Bay or Bridlewood, and we figured Zephyr Heights was way too far away to be contacted in time.
As for that other brilliant idea? As it turned out, while the splat-a-pults are great at hurling slime at innocent ponies, they are far too frail to throw anything heavy enough to cause much harm. But even if we were to reinforce them, a powerful unicorn like Sombra could probably just swat away anything we threw at him, so this idea too was scrapped.
Other than the barricades, which were deemed to be far too big of a hassle to dismantle for the time being, life has mostly returned to its usual sleepy monotonousness. But, as much as I’d love to be as carefree as the others, I can feel it in my bones that he will come back any day now. And seeing how unprepared the town is, I can’t help but feel a bit terrified.
I am so lost in thought that I almost bump into Hitch, who is just stepping out of his office.
“Sunny, what are you doing out here?” he asks me.
“Hi, Hitch! I figured I’d drop by to see if I could help with something.” I squeeze as much enthusiasm as I can into my voice.
“Sunny, you’re still injured! You should be resting at home. Let us take care of things. Please.”
“And then what? Sleep through when he comes back?” I ask him with a scoff. “Hitch, I appreciate that you’re worried about me, but this is far more important than a sprained ankle.”
I can see it on his face that he’s not happy with my answer. But then he snorts and shakes his head.
“Fine, I know how headstrong you are. Just promise me not to overexert yourself.”
“I’m not the sort to disobey the sheriff’s orders,” I tell him with a smirk. He rolls his eyes, but I can still hear a stifled chuckle escape him.
My voice turns serious, “So, let’s get back to the point, any luck with the others?”
He shrugs and averts his eyes.
“Nah. I was hoping to call another meeting today and maybe find some new guards who’d be willing to work on a laxer schedule or something. I don’t know. This whole situation is a mess. And then there is this.”
He takes a step to the side and points at a poster on the wall. The words ”MISSING PONY” can be read on it in bold letters, below them a familiar red face stares back at me, with a less than amused expression on his face.
I look at the poster, then at Hitch questioningly.
“Yeah, your eyes aren’t deceiving you. Nopony has seen Sprout since that king came here and Ms. Cloverleaf is in a complete panic. She has been pestering me to go look for him every single day.” He sighs in exasperation and massages his temple for a second before continuing in a more sympathetic tone. “I understand her concerns and, in any other case, I would’ve gone after him already, but the town’s protection comes first.” He pauses for a second and snorts. “Let’s be honest, he was never exactly the brave type, I bet he just ran off into the forest until this whole thing blows over.”
He shrugs.
“This is probably for the best anyway, he’d just mess things up.”
“Hitch!” I give him a scalding look. “Sprout might have a lot of issues, but he wants the best just as you or I.”
“Yeah,” he says as he flicks his tail. “Last time he ‘wanted the best,’ you were almost killed!”
“Just give him some time. He will be back, I’m sure.”
“Yeah, right.”
As I’m about to give him a retort, I spot Izzy turn a corner and trot towards us. She’s wearing a small pouch, packed to the brim with small round objects. She seems to be lost in thought and doesn’t even seem to notice we’re in her way. As she comes closer, I notice with a frown that her mane is far less puffy than usual and her eyes have dark circles under them.
“Hi Hitch,” she says almost mechanically. Her voice is flat and tired, but as soon as she spots me, she perks up a little and flashes me a wide smile. “Oh, hi Sunny! Didn’t expect you to be here. Shouldn’t you be resting at home?”
“Hi Izzy!” I greet her while giving her a quick hug. “I figured I’d finally stick my nose out. I’ve been lazing around for far too long.”
“Oh okay. I was just about to pass some lunch to those two at the barricades. They really seem to take their job seriously!”
I’m not so sure about that, I think to myself, but I keep my expression positive. The last thing she needs is my doubt.
“I’ll go with you, then we can figure out what to do next.”
“Yeah, I’ll come as well, I wanted to ask them if they’ve seen anything that might help us find Sprout.”