Ashes. There’s no more fire, there’s not even any smoke. Just, Ashes.
Anything that was once a building, now nothing more than rubble.
What were once vibrant forests of green, had now become long stretches of burnt wood, and dead grass.
In the distance, I see the barren mountain that once held Canterlot Castle, nearly nothing of it remaining.
I’m standing in the center of the town. Of what used to be the town.
My body feels weightless.
The silence is deafening. The only thing I can hear, are my own thoughts, jumbled and incoherent as they are.
Why am I back here? HOW am I back here?
Clip-clop.
I’m not given much to figure out an answer, as a noise catches my ears.
Clip-clop-clip-clop-clip-clop.
Hoofsteps…
“Is…is there someone there?” I call out, nervously.
Clip-clop-clip-clop-clip-clop-clip.
The steps are getting louder, faster. I can’t tell which direction it’s coming from…actually, it sounds like it’s coming from everywhere, somehow.
It keeps getting faster. It keeps getting louder.
I frantically glance at every direction, trying to see something, anything, while I stand in place, not sure if I should even move.
The noises start to slow down, and now seem to focus on a single spot to my left. I turn my head to the spot, a dark bit of space between the remains of two buildings. A figure comes out of the darkness.
A pony.
Another set of hoofsteps, this time from the right. I avert my gaze from the individual to a tall pile of rubble. Another pony walks into view on top of it.
More hoofsteps, and even more then. There are now ponies stepping into the light from every angle. All looking towards me.
I now realize that I’m being cornered.
As I gaze at the ponies circling me, I start to notice how they look. Their eyes are dull and colorless, their manes torn and disheveled, bodies covered in scars. Some of them are bleeding from their mouths, some from their eyes.
Some have entire chunks of their flesh missing.
“Why couldn’t you stop it?” one of them says.
“Why did you leave us behind?” says another.
I open my mouth, only to find myself unable to speak.
They all start moving towards me.
“You abandoned us.”
“You left us all to die.”
“Why didn’t you die too?”
I try to back away from them, but my legs have stopped working. All I can do is look at them approaching, hear their scathing accusations and questions, as they keep getting closer.
“You don’t deserve to be alive.”
I try to close my eyes, but even that doesn’t work. I am completely paralyzed. I can only stand here, as they get closer, and closer, and-
And then they stop.
I wait for something to happen, for them to start moving again, when I hear something from below me. I look down, and see that suddenly, I’m standing in 2 feet of water.
I lift my head back up. They’re all gone, and I’m not in the town anymore. I’m standing in a seemingly infinite ocean.
I begin to sink into the water. Deeper and deeper, my body is submerged. I am still paralyzed, only able to lie still as I wait for the inevitable.
But then, I see something, out in the distance.
I can’t quite make it out, but it has an unmistakable pink glow to it. I can also see that it’s approaching, quickly.
It’s arriving faster than I’m sinking. The closer it gets, the more I can make it out, but I’m still not sure what it is.
It looks almost like… a star, not too dissimilar from the one adorning my flank.
Averting my attention away from the strange entity, it comes to my attention that my head is the only part of my body not submerged in sea water.
My focus is brought back to the entity when it begins to glow brighter, lighting my face and the surrounding area in pink.
I no longer feel paralyzed.
A shape starts to take form in its center, extending out towards me. It almost looks like…a foreleg, like it’s reaching out to me.
Cautiously, I lift my hoof out of the water, and reach back to the entity, whose new found appendage extends even further seemingly in reaction.
Right as my muzzle is submerged, our hooves touch.
My eyes shoot open as I let out a quiet gasp. A dream. Just that, and nothing more.
As I adjust myself back into my current surroundings, I take note of three things:
One, I’m laying outside on the deck.
Two, there’s a blanket draped over me, even though I don’t remember bringing one with me last night.
And three…I’m not the only one laying here.
To my right, Pinkie Pie is sleeping soundly in a similar position to mine, with a blanket of her own. I definitely don’t remember that from last night.
I then also how notice how close she is to me. Were she any closer, our bodies would be pressed together.
I’m not sure why, but that thought makes me feel a bit...flustered.
Ignoring that for the time being, my mind goes to the obvious question: Why? I mean, it’s not like I mind…I don’t think, I mean, I don’t know? Whatever.
Maybe she was having the same trouble getting to sleep I was, and had the same idea? I doubt it, she looked pretty restful when I peered into her door and watched her….
Boy, that sounds worse than it is.
Perhaps her sleeptrotting had come back? Well, no, that wouldn’t explain me having a blanket…
Once again, my thoughts are interrupted when she begins to stir. I guess I could just ask her.
I watch as she comes to, her eyes fluttering open as she lets out a quick yawn.
She groggily shifts her eyes around before they land on me. In an instant, her eyelids shoot open and her expression becomes unreadable. She blinks twice as if doing a double take.
“Good morning, Pinkie.”
I keep my expression friendly, luckily I don’t have to faker my smile. I seem to smile a lot when around her, at least in comparison to…any other time.
She shakes her head, and looks at the scene before her, the two of us laying so close together out on the deck. Expression still non-existent, she begins to stare out into space. If I’m not mistaken, I think she’s starting to blush.
“I-uh-ye-uuh…”
She seems to be panicking slightly. I should try to calm her down. I should. But I have to admit….she’s pretty cute when she’s being awkward.
I stand up from the floor, and stretch my back. “Thanks for the blankets, by the way,” I say, as I do some more early morning exercises.
After a few more stretches, I turn my head back to her, and catch her staring before she looks away. She’s definitely blushing now.
Part of me wants to say something like “Enjoying the show?” but the few remaining shreds of rationality in my brain convince me that might be a bit too mean.
Actually, know that I think about…why am I doing this? This isn’t like me, I don’t go out of my way to make other ponies, especially my best friend, feel awkward.
I cease my movements and chuckle sheepishly, rubbing the back of my head.
“So, um…I guess we should…head back inside?”
Right now, my average sized pony brain is a mess of incoherent thoughts, so please excuse me if this next part doesn’t make any sense:
OhmygodohMyGOD why isn’t she upset with me is she upset with me and just pretending ohmyGOD she caught me looking at her BUTT wait is she embarrassed right now is that because of me did I make her embarrassed by looking at her butt just now is she self-conscious about her body I don’t know why she would be she’s freaking GORGEOUS wait a minute she said thanks for the blankets so she’s cool with it she doesn’t care that we slept togetherNO NOT SLEPT TOGETHER SLEPT NEXT TO EACH OTHER-
“Pinkie?”
Slightly startled, I look over at the pony who is currently causing my confused cranium’s catastrophic collapse.
She looks concerned. I try to come up with a response, and eventually something comes out of my mouth.
“Bwahuh?”
Whatever that was seems to have only made her more concerned.
“Are you ok?” she says.
I put on the most real looking smile I can muster. “Of course I’m ok, silly!” I lie through my teeth, throwing as much cheer into my voice as possible. “What, um- why would you think I’m not? Hehehe…”
For how cold it is, I seem to be sweating a lot.
Twilight raises an eyebrow, and then sighs, before smiling at me. “If you say so, Pinkie. Come on, let’s head inside.”
I’ll admit, just seeing her smile like that is enough to get me to calm down a bit. I get up from the floor and follow her into the cabin. I definitely do not stare directly at her flank as we’re walking because that we would be weird, nope that is not what I’m doing that all.
Ok maybe I’m doing it a little. Don’t judge me.
This day has been pretty standard fair, the only difference being a slight feeling of awkwardness around Pinkie Pie, owed of course to the very much not standard way the day began.
Right now though, things are just kind of boring. Looking at the water can only stimulate someone for so long.
Maybe I could ask Pinkie if she’s up for a game of Chess. Huh. Chess. Even that’s become boring to me, even if matches against Pinkie tend to be far more interesting than any other opponent I’ve had.
Thinking about Pinkie leads to me to thinking about the day before, and her mixing up the two pieces during our previous match, and then later when she bolted into her room without even finishing her dinner.
Between all that, and everything that had occurred this morning, I feel the worry I’ve been having about Pinkie starts to rise. Maybe it’s time I talk to her about it.
Getting up from loafed position on the center of the deck, I head back to the cabin. When I open the door, I’m greeted by a rather bemusing sight.
“I, King Chester, hereby do decree that all citizens may have free cake forever!!”
The table was covered by what seemed to be the entire chess set minus the board, and, laying down on the table like a school filly reading a magazine, was Pinkie Pie, who was currently griping the King in her left hoof, and a gaggle of pawns in her right.
“Yoohoo yeah alright! Free cake! Let’s hear it for King Chester,” she exclaimed while shaking the pawns around, as if they were a doll.
“I would also like to state that- AAHHH!” Pinkie yelps when she finally notices me, throwing her hoofs into the air, and the pieces along with them. Acting on instinct, I flare up my horn and catch the airborne King and Pawns in my aura before they can land on the ground.
Setting the pieces back on the table, I look back at Pinkie with a sheepish expression. “Sorry about that, hehe…should have knocked.”
“Oh, that’s fine! I just get jumpy sometimes, ya know...heh.”
The awkwardness from last night seems to have returned in full force, this time with even more intense blushing from the both of us.
Eventually, Pinkie speaks up again, as she starts to climb off the table.
“…Well, uh, I should probably-“
“No, wait!” I say a bit louder than probably necessary.
Pinkie looks back at me with a startled but curious expression. My blush comes back because of my outburst, but I compose myself, and pick up the King piece in my magic, then float it over to Pinkie.
“What…was it that King Chester was about to state?”
This gets her to smile, a real, genuine smile. She takes the piece in both her hooves and holds it to her chest, looking down at it with a dopey grin.
In almost no time at all, she’s right back where she was when I opened the door.
I trot over to the table, and take a seat, resting my elbows on the table, as I look at her.
For the next couple hours , I simply watch her as she uses the pieces to create an entire intricate story about cake taxes and mandatory partying laws, with surprisingly legally accurate court room scenes.
In that time, I feel all the concern and awkwardness I’ve felt about this mare for the last several hours wash away, and be replaced with the admiration I’ve felt for her for a very long time.
They really weren’t kiddin’ when they said “time flies when you’re having fun”. I’m not sure who “they” are, exactly, but they seem to say a lotta stuff.
I think Twilight really liked my immersive Chess theater, she was smiling the whole time and she even did that super-adorable giggle she does sometimes! I wish it didn’t have to end it so soon, but even I’ve gotta get in my 8 hours.
So after dinner (it was fish, again), we said our nighty-nights and headed to our rooms.
Standing in the door way, I think back to the whole of today. It started out kinda awkward, but it looks like things are going back to norma-
“Hey, um, Pinkie?”
I look over at Twilight, who seems nervous about something…uh oh.
Ok, don’t worry, Pinkie, maybe she just wants to ask me a favour. Maybe there’s a spider in her room, and she’s embarrassed because she’s afraid of spiders. Yeah, that seems plausible.
“Yeah, Twi?”
“Do you think that…we could…maybe…sleep next to each other again….?”
Is it just me, or did this boat suddenly get really warm?
Yet again, my brain has become a jumbled mess of thought, this time so incomprehensible I can’t even make out any words.
I then notice that I haven’t said anything for 13 seconds, and Twilight’s face goes from a nervous blush to disappointment. Oh no! She’s taking my stunned silence as a no! Come on, vocal chords! Work!
“Ok,” I say with a smile. Twilight, in turn, gives me a nice toothy one. “So, uh… your room or mine?”
Twi starts rubbing her leg, looking at the floor. “Well, if it’s Ok with you...I don’t think I want to sleep in my room tonight.”
That’s a little weird. I wonder if there’s something wrong with the room. Maybe that’s why she went outside last night?
Whatever the case, I give her a nod, and we both head in my room.