CHAPTER SIXTY - THE WORST GENERATION
"Our leaders never learn from the mistakes of history because it's only ever the poor who pay the price." -Nicky Reid
That aqueduct-a-majig beneath the Bridge of Peril had been glorious once upon a time. Channels for water. Tunnels to access them. Thin bands of winding stairs smoothened by age, wrapping all the way around and around and around and around and around.
The sheer depth of it was a modern wonder of the world.
But already, it was shrouded in darkness. A forgotten history. Gobbled up by time.
If not for Misty Mountain's little glowy orb stunt, nopony woulda known about it at all - not even the Secret Sneaker Safety kids.
It reminded me of Columnland - the ducky that the shadows had stripped bare of everything except for crumbled statues and jagged columns reaching like broken claws toward empty skies.
How far off was a fate like that for the Equestrian Wasteland?
How close had we come the first time around? With our hate, and our bombs, and our megaspells, and wars, and schoolyard pyres of Pinkbeard books, and riots that sent zebra children scattering into alleyways.
We didn't even need the fucking shadows. We destroyed Equestria all on our own.
For the first time, I stopped to wonder: had Columnland done it to themselves too? I'd been venturing there with Cliff and Zecora for weeks, and never once had it occurred to me! The sight of those dried up oily oceans. The feel of those broken, dusty old stairs. The sound of your own breath slashing through a heavy silence. It's easy to think, "those shadowy bastards swallowed this world whole."
Especially 'cause their great big evil Shadow Castle is floating right fucking there in the sky above the ruins. On an island made of storm clouds. And you can watch that weird purple glow right at the bottom of it swallow up asteroids and wreckage - from Luna-only-knows how many other duckies - as they float over there like driftwood, and disappear forever into the vapors underneath.
Columnland could have been like us once upon a time. And we'd never know. Those statue fragments - those broken palaces. History's hoofprints of power and glory - that's all that was left of their entire civilization.
Whoever they were.
But marble doesn't rot like flesh does. It doesn't warp and decay into nothing like whittled wooden carvings do, (or any of the other stuff that regular folks make for themselves).
When you stumble into the shattered ruins of a long dead palace, you think of the kings and queens and princesses that used to live there. You think of the commanders of great armies that used to protect it. Not the bakers, and the cakes they made, nor the laughter of their children as they blew out their birthday candles.
You don't think about the folks who made it all happen. The weavers of clothes. The diggers of holes. The folks who actually built things.
Like Bananas Foster pointed out - nopony ever really stops to think about where it all comes from. Or like the sheep of Equestria. A history buried right under our noses! Or the slaves of future wastelands. Forever nameless.
No one stops to think about…you know…background ponies. Our dreams. Our love. Our passions. Our hopes. What we get to leave behind. How we push through hard times knowing damn well that there will never ever ever be any statues of us to survive the ages.
All we have is each other. And a kind of blind hope that some way, somehow, the good that we do adds up to something in the end.
I was lucky. I, at the very least, got to find out the truth about Strawberry Lemonade. What I'd been fighting for. What she was destined for.
Strawberry was probably up there on the surface of the Wasteland right now. All grown up. Doing Strawberry Lemonade…type…stuff. I wondered if she ever thought of me and Misty - the kids who'd busted her out of Trottica, only to disappear into thin air as soon as the escape truck was in the clear.
* * *
The pinpoints of unicorn light up ahead gradually took shape. Halos and silhouettes. Like a gaggle of lighthouses gathered for some kinda lighthouse party, but not, like…you know…a jubilant one. A somber occasion. A funeral for lighthouses.
As we got closer, those points of light kept on expanding and expanding and expanding into shapes. And eventually, the lighthouses became talking lighthouses.
"Took ya long enough," hollered a lighthouse that sounded an awful lot like Lucky.
"Omigosh," Iris exclaimed. "You need to check out what's under the Bridge of Peril."
"Later. We gotta get moving," Lighthouse Lucky snapped. "We're running late, and Midnight has a way of sneaking up on you."
"Damn," Iris spun around. Gestured to us new kids with his head. Let's go.
We hurried to follow.
The lighthouses up ahead quickly became actual unicorns, and the silhouettes in front of them took the shape of actual, living breathing earth ponies. Kids like Formerly Upsidedown Boy, who'd escorted us to the Magenta Building in the first place. Lemon Drop. And the other new kid, Scribbles.
They all greeted us with a chorus of good cheer.
"Glad you're here."
"Great to have you back!"
"What did you see back there under the bridge?'' a few voices whispered urgently.
"Shh," said Lucky. "Everypony stay close."
We all convergified into a cluster. Moved as a herd. Lucky in front. Iris watching the rear. My friends and I clumped together somewhere in the middle, flanked by strangers on all sides.
The Safety kids around us didn't so much walk as they marched. It was oddly military for, you know, a bunch of kids who didn't like to play by the rules. But they did it naturally. Without even thinking about it. I wondered what Safety gym classes were like. How many drills they practiced. What foul future they were being trained for, without even knowing it.
My friends and I struggled. We had to force ourselves to keep up. To keep rhythm. To keep from fucking up the formation that the rest of the kids had effortlessly made. All hooves moved in unison. All eyes were forward. Even as we sneaked.
Except for one kid. Scribbles.
She was waaay up front, but she kept looking back over her shoulder. Stealing glances at us. What the fuck glances of accusation-y-ness. I averted my eyes. Pretended not to notice.
But my hiding eyeballs were crummy liars. Scribbles knew that my friends and I were anti-Red-Eye, anti-slavery, anti-Fillydelphia. She herself reveled in the idea of rebellion, without ever considering the reality of it.
What was she thinking? What was she up to?
Did she want to stop us? Could I convince her not to if I spoke to her? Would that make everything better or worse? What the Hell was I supposed to say?
A Rose Voice started barking at me, Call out to her, damnit! Plead with her. Make her see that she can't just spend the rest of her life eating food prepared by slaves, wearing clothes sewn by slaves, enjoying streets cleaned by slaves, sleeping in buildings furnished by slave labor. Do it, Rose. Talk to her. Now!!! Make her see!!!!!!! The hopeful, eager, super-mega-virtuous Rose Petal in my head plunged down into my chest. Started doing somersaults. Kicking me with her metaphysical Rose hooves. Do it, do it, do it, do it, do it. Do it!
But I couldn't! It's not like my friends and I could take Scribbles with us. We were gonna have a hard enough time shaking the rest of the Super Sneakers. A kid who knew that we abhorred slavery, and planned to act? Fucking impossible to get away from.
"We've got to be careful with that one," Foster whispered.
"Yeah," I replied.
"Scribbles is conflicted." Foster tapped her own nose. "...Confused."
"Does that mean she won't try to stop us?"
"No," Foster replied. "It means she's unpredictable."
Scribbles craned her neck backwards. Stole a glance at us. And like super fast neck-lightning, all of our necks jerked our heads in opposite directions as we hurried to look away.
* * *
The glow of the herd up ahead revealed a dead end. Or what looked like one. The tunnel veered left. Winded upwards. Then there were stairs. Lots and lots and lots of stairs. Wiggling this way and that. Some sturdy. Some loose. Some diagonal. Some sideways. Some crumbled down to dust.
We struggled upwards. Every last one of us. Coughing up dust and stumbling. But we took it slow, and caught one another as we faltered. Helping our classmates was The Safety Way.
When at last, we all reached the top, the path widened. And led straight to a dark and jagged archway.
Everypony tensed up. Slowed down. Crept toward its entrance, murmuring and whispering.
When the archway came under our unicorn light, those edges took form. They were rusted metal cut outs. Teeth. Lips.
The whole entrance looked like a mouth. Pinkie Pie's mouth.
A hush fell over the herd. Even our 'leaders,' who'd doubtlessly seen this spectacle before.
Shuffle shuffle shuffle shuffle shuffle shuffle shuffle, went a hundred hooves. The entrance seemed to widen. Patient, yet eager to gobble us all up.
The closer we got, the more rust I saw on Pinkie's face. The more chipped paint. And the clearer the sign became, spelt out on her mildew-stained teeth.
SMILE, it said.
We inched our way inside, and the air grew cooler. The rings of the archway seemed as wrinkles on the roof of Pinkie Pie's mouth.
"Her image has not aged well," said Cliff, eyeing the rust-teeth as we passed under them. "Do you think–;" he started to pose a question. But thought better of it when the Pinkie throat that surrounded us echoed back his every whisper.
Do you think–; Do you think–;
Do you think–; Do you think–;
Do you think–; Do you think–;
Do you think…
Nopony had to tell us to hush. We just did.
My friends and I slinked in. Like everypony else. Slowly, steadily, the tonsils approached us. Or what looked like tonsils. It was actually a sign hanging askew from the ceiling. Dangling from some ancient chain that had somehow survived the centuries.
NOW ENTERING PARK GROUNDS, it said.
The tunnel curved downward again, and we all shuffled down Pinkie Pie's gullet. Shuffle shuffle, shuffle shuffle, shuffle shuffle. I could see now why the whole school spoke her name in whispers.
Part of me wanted to leap up and explain. That Pinkie was jubilant. That Pinkie was selfless! That Pinkie would do anything to bring a smile to the absolutely hopeless, just because she felt it was her duty to try.
But the tunnel itself was nauseating. The rings that made up the entrance's 'throat' put you in a sort of trance as you walked through them. And every sound - even our own tender hoof steps - came back to us as a chorus of echoes - an eerie choir of cacophony. To stand in a hall like that and argue that it was built out of anything but malice seemed unthinkable.
The esophagus narrowed at long last, and we all came upon a third sign. Larger than the others. Clearer.
It stood on its own. A cutout of Pinkie Pie herself, or at least, what remained of one. The pink figure, corroded now into a tie dye spiral of greens and rusty browns, seemed to wave a banner up in the air. Its message was just two ominous words: MANDATORY FUN.
Foster pressed herself closely against me, and choked back a whimper. I leaned my head up against her. To let her know that she was not alone.
* * *
Eventually, the path split. A crossroads, or cross-tunnels rather. Seven paths. All intersecting like the lines of an asterisk.
Lucky veered all the way right. And the herd followed.
Or tried to. The new tunnel narrowed. And we all sorta got nudged together, bottlenecking our way in.
Even the experienced Safety kids - those accustomed to marching - mashed into one another like sheep in a pen. And those of us toward the back of the crowd just sorta…got stuck...waiting. (Luckily not packed together too tightly).
"Argrgrgrg," I grumbled, stealing peeks down the other paths as we oozed past them. But none of it made sense. Just a bunch of intersecting tunnel-majigs that all looked exactly the same.
Misty, however - he studied the Labyrinth with sharper eyeballs. I could almost hear the gears in Misty's head turning - almost feel the strain of his brain muscles flexing as he struggled to figure out the way.
You see, there were pipes overhead now. Pipes meant that at least one of these stupid paths had been part of the sewer system that Misty had played in as a child.
We kept going. Step by hesitant step.
Cliff plastered himself to me the whole time. But Bananas Foster strayed off a little, and wedged her way towards an adjacent tunnel - one that didn't lead anywhere at all. It was blocked off - filled to the brim with rubble. Mounds of broken stone, clogging the whole damn path.
All that remained was an arch, and a little nook.
Foster stepped into it, extended a hoof, and touched the sediment. A wall of stones and boulders that buried whatever history that hallway once had held.
She shivered at the feel of it.
And I shivered too. I don't know how or why, but Foster's dread seemed to flood the air like a smoke bomb in an armoire full of fillies who really really really didn't want a smoke bomb in there with them.
I coughed. Wheezed a little just from the thought of it What must it might be like to get stuck in a tunnel? To suffocate or die of thirst in a space smaller than Foster's bubble back home?
Fuck! Maybe fifteen minutes earlier, dust had rained down on us from the ceiling. Just before the Bridge of Peril.
All it had taken to shake those pebbles loose was us kids calling out to one another!
My eyes drifted to the beams and pipes above us. What would it take for this tunnel to give way? How many chunks could the ceiling afford to lose before the whole damn thing collapsed?
I'm sure that some sorta math wizard could figure it out - calculate just how unlikely it'd be for this exact tunnel to collapse at this exact instant after hundreds of years. But still, it was freaky to know that that possibility was on the menu.
Did I mention that I fucking hate tunnels? Like…really really really really really really really really reeeeeeally hate them.
"Stupid tunnels," I whispered to myself.
And followed Foster into the nook.
I approached the pile of boulders she was touching. Slowly, steadily, I extended a hoof. Laid it lightly on Foster's shoulder.
She jumped. Spun around. Looking left and right and up and down. Panic-stricken. As if roused from some terrible nightmare. Like the one where you're sitting down to eat some hay-and-green-apple sandwiches with mayonnaise, but the mayonnaise starts yelling at you, and throwing the apple slices; and the apple slices cut you like ninja stars, and then the sandwich turns into a giant badger and eats you.
Foster's eyes landed on mine. Aware again.
I searched deep into my soul for the perfect words to offer her comfort. Understanding. Hope! I thought about it, and thought about it, and thought about it, and thought about it, and thought about it.
Until, out of nowhere, the words just tumbled out of my mouth without stopping to consult my brain. "Fucking killer sandwich tunnels," I said.
Bananas Foster nodded back at me. "Fucking killer sandwich tunnels," she sighed.
A gentle tug on my tail told me the herd was moving again. And Misty Mountain was eager to move with it.
"Give us a minute," I said.
But Foster didn't need a minute. With the power of a single breath, she got herself nice and composurely, swept me out of that stupid nook, and wedged us both back into the herd.
In an instant, we were together again. Cliff, Foster, Misty, and me. Shuffle-shuffle, shuffle, shuffle, shuffle.
Then Bam!
Suddenly, Scribbles was there too. Right beside us. Outta the blue.
"Ahh!" said Cliff Diver. Before I could.
(Though to be clear, I also said, "aaahhh"...so it was more like a chorus of ahhh'ing 'cause we were both startled and freaked out).
Scribbles was on to us!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!¡!! Scribbles knew we planned to do sneaky anti-Fillydelphia liberatory…stuff.
I looked to Foster. Desperate for help. But she didn't intervene. She just threw her urgent eyeballs at me. Pressing me (of all ponies) to smooth things over.
"Ahhhhhh…my gosh." I whipped back around. "So, uhh...Scribbles…hay, how's it goin'? Good to…um…see you?"
"What are you three doing here?" Scribbles shot panicky glares at all of us.
"Sneaking," I replied.
Scribbles groaned. Raised a crooked coat hanger of an eyebrow.
"We need to fit in," Bananas Foster interrupted before I, or anypony else, could say anything stupid. "Cliff Diver tossed a desk…at a teacher."
Foster leaned in close, up against Scribbles, trying to impress upon her the social urgency of our…you know…being in a stinky old tunnel for some reason.
"I guess that makes sense," said Scribbles.
Iris and the few kids lingering behind us pressed against our flanks. Herded us closer together. 'Till we found ourselves crammed in Lucky's tunnel with the rest of the herd.
We all slid forward sluggishly like an army of slugs. Slug-shoulder to slug-shoulder to slug-shoulder. Chatting and murmuring all the way. The fog o' dense moodyness had totally lifted now that there was no chance of falling to our horrific doom, or wandering astray.
"Psst," said Scribbles. "Rose?"
"Yeah?"
"Don't do anything stupid," she whisper-commanded.
(The other kids were blah blah blah'ing up a storm, so we actually had a bit of anonymity so long as we didn't leap up and down and holler, "We're here to sneak off and free a zebra slave from the evil clutches of that mechanized-red-eyeball pony you all seem to accept as your savior! And by the way, we hate him 'cause he's a jerk and he's bad and mean and his entire empire is dumb!")
"Okay," I whispered in reply. "Do nothing stupid. I can manage that."
"Good," said Scribbles.
Our hooves shuffled along the cramped old tunnel. Shuffle-shuffle shuffle-shuffle, shuffle-shuffle, shuffle. While everypony blathered on softly to one another: blather blather blather blather blather.
"Do you think I'm stupid?" I said at last.
"No," Scribbles replied. "What? Of course not. It's just...I don't know…scary. And...yeah, kinda stupid actually. Trying to change things. You're not going to win."
I winced. 'Cause there was no denying it. We were being stupid - maybe even suicidally stupid - to think that we could save even just one slave from the Fillydelphia machine, let alone liberate everypony.
But still. A Rose Voice in the back of my brain screamed at me. Slammed its words like some kinda word-hammer at the inside of my skull-brain. Drilled into me the idea that maybe, somehow what we were doing could maybe kinda sorta amount to something more.
We had to try. Like Pinkie Pie said.
"You are!" Scribbles exclaimed. "You are planning something."
"What?" I squeaked. "No, I'm not."
"Yes, you are! You just said we have to try."
"I didn't say that part out loud," I snapped. "Quit probing my brain."
"Rose, what are you telling everypony?" Cliff threw accusatory eyeballs at me.
"Nothing," I squeaked. "Just that we have to try…to, um…fit in. Like Foster said."
"You're gonna get us all in trouble," Scribbles protested.
"Will not."
"Will too."
I sulked. Got into the rhythm of the shuffle. Buried my brain in the crowd's anonymous murmuring. As if that could banish the annoying conversation elephants from the room.
Shuffle shuffle shuffle shuffle, went our hooves.
And I kept waiting for Foster to leap in, and save the day with her smooth talk. Or…I don't know. Say something. Anything.
But she didn't. No matter how much I begged and pleaded with Fate for a way
out of the conversation ropes I'd entangled myself in. It wouldn't save me. And neither would Bananas Foster.
Instead, she smacked her own eyes straight at me as though they were ping pong balls. 'Fix this,' one of those eyeballs seemed to say. 'Damn it, fix this!'
But the other eye pelted me. Ensnared me in a gaze that seemed to say, 'You can do it! You can do it! You can do it!'
And like magnets to my own eyeballs, Foster held me with her stare. Grabbed me. Drilled her confidence straight into my bones like confidence-building bone tubes.
(And before you get any ideas, no, there was no green flame, no mind control bug magic. Just a friend and her faith in me).
"Hay, uh...Scribbles," I said.
"Yeah?"
"Look, I know what you're thinking. But, uh…Fuck," I sighed. "We're not here to topple Red Eye, free all the slaves, and bring down Fillydelphia from within."
I hung my head. Saying it out loud gave the whole thing a certain finality. We really weren't gonna topple an entire civilization overnight.
"Whoa," said Scribbles. "I never said you were gonna do that."
I blink-bloinked my bloinkitty eyelids. "Oh, uh. Yeah, I know. It's just that, well…the truth is, uh…"
For a moment, my brain scrambled. All Rose Voices on full alert. But then something came over me. Bananas Foster's confidence - I could feel it.
It was still stuck somewhere in the center of my bones.
And my lips sorta…took over. And did the craziest thing imaginable. They told the truth.
"It's just that…I really wish I could, you know?" I snickered to myself. "I hate all this slavery stuff so much, and I hate that it feeds and clothes us, and I hate everything."
"Me too," said Scribbles. "But why'd you come? Why'd you come here really?"
"Misty dragged me," I said. Also truthful. "We go back a long way. It's…complicated."
Scribbles kicked a pebble. Super gently. It didn't even knock into some other kid's ankle. "Are you gonna be okay?" she asked. "Y'know. When we get to the surface?"
"I dunno," I said. "I hope so. But either way, I gotta see it for myself. Up close."
Scribbles flashed me a meek little smile.
"Here we are!" Lucky called out from way up ahead.
All the sneaker kids murmured their excitements amongst themselves.
"The Tomb of the Ancients!" Lucky used his spookiest, wobbliest voice. It echoed ominously against the tunnel stones.
"Ugh, damn it," Scribbles said. "Another stupid trial. I wish they'd get on with it already."
I chuckled. "Yeah."
We filed into the tomb. Two by two by two. Over the mound of splintery mulch on the floor that had once been a pair of wooden doors.
The Tomb of the Ancients was a locker room. Crumbling benches. Cubbies with the doors rusted off. The air was just a little bit sweeter now, though I couldn't say why. And cooler too.
We all fanned out. Just enough to avoid pressing up against everypony else. Clink-clink clink-clink clink-clink went the broken tiles beneath our hooves.
The walls were lined with rows upon rows of odd helmet-looking things with wire frames on the outside, twisted into vague shapes of faces. Masks. Mascot heads. Only all of the cloth had rotted away.
They loomed over us as we passed. Watching our every move.
"Eep!" Scribbles startled at the sight of one of them. It still had its eyes. She pressed herself against me. Instinctual-like.
But everypony else kept walking. Moving as a herd.
Scribbles laughed, apologetical-like. Pried herself off of me. And glanced at the mask once again. The one that had startled her.
It had a long snout. And unlike the others, its shape remained intact. 'Cause it wasn't cloth. It was scales. An alligator. With no teeth.
"Hay," I said. "That's Gummy."
"What?"
"Oh, uh…nothing. That's just Pinkie Pie's…alligator…friend…pet…thing."
"What's an alligator?"
"Nevermind."
We proceeded past the last of the masks. Two rows of lockers parted to reveal a giant mural on the far wall. Or at least…what remained of one. The flaking paint and brittle plaster left only the vaguest shape: two gigantic eyes. Ferocious. Glaring.
I felt uncomfortable just looking at them. 'Cause those eyeballs had stared at folks once upon a time, watching them get dressed.
The colors on the mural were faded down to shades of gray, but I knew by the faintest hints of pink and blue that those eyes were Pinkie Pie's.
Beneath the glowering portrait was a single word: REVER.
I stopped. Ogled the mural, even as the rest of the kids drifted around the corner. It was an L-shaped locker room. And their destination was somewhere on the other side. But still, I took pause - just for a moment - and got into a staring contest (of sorts) with that Pinkie mural.
I lost myself in its faded colors. Those faint remnants of pink around the eyelids. The subtle hints of blue around the irises.
I stared. I just…fucking…stared. Until, at last, the obvious question tumbled from my lips, "Why?"
Cliff came up beside me. "I don't know," he said.
Foster had no answers either. She just looked into the mural's crusty old eyes, and didn't say a word.
Scribbles, on the other hoof, cleared her throat to get our attention, 'Ahem, ahem, ahem.'
"Huh?" I said. "What?"
Scribbles gestured with her head at the rest of the herd, which had gathered in a semicircle.
"Stop with dees," Misty whispered. "Come! Make join!"
Slowly, we proceeded. As the herd looked back at us - the new kids. Cliff and Foster and Scribbles and Misty and me. Struggling behind.
"Go on,'' said Iris to his crew.
The crowd parted to make way. Just for us. And those broken tiles beneath our hooves sounded crazy loud now. Clink-clink, clink-clink, clink-clink.
We came forward. Past creepy masks and staring Super Sneaker Safety Society eyeballs. Until all of us caught up, and saw at last what they'd all gathered around.
It was a pair of skeletons. Real skeletons. Dressed in withered felt that looked like a paper bag that had been left out in the rain and trampled upon. Their mascot helmets rested beside them.
Cliff gawked. And not from shattered innocence, or anything like that. He'd seen his share of horrors. The dusts of Columnland. Oceans dried up. Shadow castles. The whole nine yards.
This shouldn't have shocked him.
But it's different to come up real close, and see dead folks. Folks who'd just curled up on the floor in desperation. Trying not to end up dead.
The skeletons had Foster a little taken aback too. Something about their huddled positions. The fear. The agony. The futility of it.
"Who were they?" I said.
Silence. No answer at all.
'Till Lucky stepped forward. Cloaked again. The scars all over her face cast weird zig-zaggity shadows. Like a picture in a newspaper that had been slashed and torn into tiny fragments.
"A lot of folks…" she stopped. Looked at her own hood. She musta suddenly remembered that it'd freaked me out before, 'cause she hastened to pull the whole damn thing down, and reveal her head.
"It's fine,'' I tried to say. "Really."
But she just threw an apology at me like a buckball pitch, "Sorry, sorry, sorry," she said. And turned to contemplatize the skeletons once more. "Lots of folks ran underground when the megaspell hit. Us scavenger kids have seen our fair share - don't even notice 'em anymore, to be honest - but we pay respect to these two."
Lucky's eyes drifted to the mural with the angry Pinkie Pie stare. "We think they were some kinda holy mares," she said. "Fleeing to their sacred temple."
I lost myself. Eyeballing those skeletons for Luna-only-knows how long.
It hurt. To see them all wrinkled up. Like they'd died in pain.
This "temple" hadn't saved them. I wished it had. But the bomb sucked ass and spared nopony.
"Fuck," I whispered.
These were ponies. Real ponies. With lives. Mothers. Sisters probably. Friends. They'd had a lousy job at a creepy amusement park, and hundreds of years later, all they got remembered for was how they died. And they were remembered wrong too.
Holy mares. Can you fucking believe that?
One by one, the sneaker kids all paid their respects, and readied themselves to move on. But I fixated on a bony eye socket of this one skeleton. It pointed at the ceiling. Like it was begging - pleading with fate for some relief. Just as I had done countless times since this whole background pony…thing…started.
Something about that one skull just sorta…drew me in somehow.
"What were their names?" I said aloud, not expecting an answer.
The other kids looked around at each other in total silence. Knowing damn well they couldn't produce an answer - that my question was an absurd one.
In the Wasteland, apparently, there were no names. No fucking answers.
Just death and death and death and death and death and pain and folks hacking Pip Bucks off of kids' legs, and landlords, and Red Eye's army raiding compounds and stuff.
"We call this one, The Dragon," said Lucky, pointing at the helmet at the skeleton's side. Scaly. Purple (vaguely). Shaped kinda like Spike from back home.
But that job's not who she was. What she'd want to be remembered for. That would be like my body turning up, a million years from now, in Cheerilee's class, and forever getting nicknamed Ms. Homework.
Who was she really? What had her cutie mark been? Her talent? Her destiny?
Did it even matter anymore?
After centuries go by, the only thing that regular folk can do to get themselves remembered is to have the Good Fortune of dying in the right fucking place.
But still, she'd had a life once. And deserved to be remembered for it.
"What were her dreams?" I whispered to myself. "Her destiny?"
Shuffling hooves clink-clanked on the locker room floor. But no answer.
...
...
...
"Poetic," said Scribbles, outta nowhere-ishly. "I like that."
And then, like a puff of smoke vanishing in the wind, suddenly, my questions weren't awkward anymore in their kindergarten naivete.
The air itself seemed to grow lighter. As the rest of the herd figured out what to do with me. What box to put me in. A way to understand me. I, apparently, was "poetic."
"Well,'' said Iris with a sigh. "You've certainly given the dead their due respect. That's the whole point of the Tomb of the Ancients."
"These ain't just ordinary skeletons." Lucky shot a fearful glance at the eyeball mural and shuddered. As though Pinkie Pie were looking right at her. Watching. Judging.
With a deep breath in, and a deep breath out, Lucky plunged the depths of her own soul and dug herself up a smile. A faint one.
"Come on, Poet," she said. "We're almost at the end."
She bent a knee and gave the skeletons a tiny bow out of respect, and headed deeper into the locker room towards a doorway at the very end.
The others did the same.
* * *
The hallway narrowed - wedged me right next to Scribbles and Misty. Even as Bananas Foster threw me eyeballs. What the fuck are you doing kind of eyeballs. 'Cause the path was drifting upwards now. And the air was growing cooler. Fresher. We didn't have much time left before we'd hit the surface, and have to leave Scribbles behind.
Beside me, Misty Mountain seemed poised and ready. Like one of those shepherd dogs with eyes made out of daggers and legs made of springs. He'd figured out where we were. He might even kinda sorta have the slightest ghost-of-a-clue where the fuck we were headed, and how to get there-and-back again without getting shot by Red Eye's heroic troops.
Alright, Rose, one of my voices said. This is it. Enough slacking off. Keep an eye on Misty Mountain. Wait for him to break off. Don't hesitate. Don't fuck it up, and above, all…don't you dare get distracted.
"Hey, Rose Petal," came a voice. Outside of my head.
"Huh? What?"
It was Scribbles. "Mind if I ask ya something?"
"Um, yeah," I said. "Go ahead."
"I never really considered this stuff before. But you got me, uh…well…considering. It's kinda silly, but, like, what if our skeletons got found some day? What will future ponies make of us?"
I thought about the trenches. The soldiers. Their idolization of the Lightbringer, and Strawberry Lemonade, and the folks who were gonna turn Equestria around…or at least start to.
They'd been so jaw-droppingly horrified to learn that I'd escaped a slave mine. That slavery even still existed at all. But these Safety kids - they lived and breathed it. They'd escaped its horrors. Yet accepted them as normal. And even found themselves an oasis where they could be its beneficiaries.
But all that was all gonna end soon. In the Safety kids' lifetimes, if I had my timelines straight.
There'd even be battles and stuff.
I couldn't possibly begin to guess any of the details, but these kids - most of them anyway - weren't gonna be good guys.
"I dunno what folks are gonna think of our, um…skeletons," I said nervously. "Does it matter?"
"I guess not," Scribbles hung her head. "But what you said still got me thinking though."
"Uh, what did I say again?"
"These skeletons you find all over the Wasteland. The assholes who broke Equestria. Maybe even they mighta had, like, feelings and friendships and cutie marks and stuff."
"The…assholes who broke Equestria?"
Fuck. That was me. And Cliff. And Apple Bloom and Scootaloo and Featherweight and Kettle Corn and everypony I knew! It was us. We were the generation that broke Equestria! For all I knew those skeletons in the mascot suits coulda been kids I knew from school!
"Yeah, you know, they had it so good. Food. Water. No radiation. And they fucked it up. For all of us."
"Not all of them fucked it up."
"They sure as fuck didn't stop it, am I right?" Scribbles chuckled.
"Oh yeah?" I snapped. "Well maybe we'll get remembered for being assholes too. When slavery's over and future ponies dig up all the cages and chains. What will they think of you?"
Scribbles recoiled like she'd been kicked in the teeth.
"Us," I added hastily.
Scribbles looked away, red in the face. And before I could even say anything, she squeezed behind us. Wedging her way past the other kids, all the way towards Iris in the back.
"Scribbles, I didn't mean–;"
I spun around, every hair on my coat standing on end. Screaming at me. To fix this. To make it right. I'd been rude. Mean. Fucking cruel.
Scribbles was a really cool kid, and she was always super nice to me, and had tried to be my friend and everything, and now I'd gone and hurt her feelings.
...Something only a member of the asshole skeleton generation would do.
But even as my heart exploded with guilt, and filled my head with throbbing guilt-blood that was probably gonna burst out of my eyeballs any second, I still couldn't make it right.
It'd be stupid even to try. We had a zebra to save. And we needed distance from Scribbles to do it.
A light was growing up ahead now. And not the unicorn kind. We were nearing the end of the tunnel.
Foster put a hoof on my shoulder. She didn't say, "it's for the best," or "you did the right thing," or any of the other stupid shit that folks tell you to try to get you to feel better. She just let me lean on her the rest of the way.