In a familiar canyon in an undisclosed location, a black mare walks around aimlessly, calling for someone who she felt was nearby.
"Church? Church, are you here?" the black mare asked as she sprinted through the canyon, never stopping. Not wanting to stop. Not able to stop. "Church, can you hear me?"
"Tex?" came a voice from several different directions. "Tex, is that you?"
"Yes, Church. It's me," the mare, Tex, said quickly, looking around for her friend. "Where are you?"
"I'm over here!" Church yelled.
Tex's eyes darted to the opposite eyes of the canyon, where she saw a base that wasn't there a few seconds ago, and a blue stallion standing on top of it, waving at her. Tex smiled thankfully and ran straight for the base. As she neared the base, a tall, snake-like being appeared above it, looking down upon her like someone would an ant. With the snap of it's claw, the base began moving away from Tex, sending rocks and dirt flying towards her.
"No. Not again!" she snarled, putting all she could into her legs to catch up with the base, letting the rocks bounce against her.
"Poor Texas," the being laughed as it sat down on the edge of the base. It lightly licked it's tail on Church, slowly turning him into stone. "Unable to save the one that she loves, no matter how hard she tries."
"Tex, don't listen to Discord, you can do it," he yelled as the magic finished turning the first half of his hind legs to stone. "I believe in you."
Tex closed her eyes and lowered her head, sprinting faster towards the base as she thought positive thoughts. She wasn't going to fail this time. This time would be different. She was going to make it. For him. For Church.
"I suppose you are built on failure, aren't you?" Discord chuckled, patting the base, making it move faster. "Ta ta, Texas. Maybe next time."
"No!" she yelled, pushing herself past her limit. She felt as if her legs were going to give at any moment, but she didn't stop. She had to make it. She couldn't disappoint anyone. Not anymore.
"Tex, watch out!" Church yelled.
Tex began to look behind her, but something hit her in the back before she could dodge it. But the thing that hit her didn't come from the canyon. Instead, it was a blow that came from the library of Ponyville, and it was a blow that woke Tex up from her sleep. Shifting up slightly, Tex could see a blue blob on her bed, walking in circles to find the right spot to sleep.
"Caboose, you know you don't have to stay here, right?" she yawned.
"I don't?" Caboose asked tiredly, tilting his head to the side.
Tex let out a soft chuckle at the enigmatic blue stallion. His hair was messier than usual, and slightly dirtier. His eyes were bloodshot and had heavy bags under them, showing that he has been overworking himself as of late. As Caboose's eyes flickered in an attempt to stay open, Tex sighed softly and patted him on the head as she would a dog who woke up from a nightmare. Caboose smiled and curled into a tight ball on the edge of her bed. As he did that, Tex laid her back on the soft mattress and plopped her head onto the pillow, wanting nothing but rest. But as with every night for the past month, she had trouble doing so. In fact, that hour of sleep she just had was the longest she had slept in that time. She tilted her head slightly to her left and looked at the spot next to her on the bed.
"Isn't Pinkie missing you at all?" she asked quietly, laying her left foreleg on the pillow next to her, reaching for something that wasn't there.
"I don't think so, she usually has really good aim," he murmured softly, eyes straining to stay open to listen to his best friend's best non-Caboose friend. "She must not have been shooting at me."
"I know, but..." she started, but trailed off when she realized that Caboose was more exhausted than her. "Never mind."
Suddenly, the sound of a door opening came from outside of the room, causing Caboose to whimper as he attempted to clamber off the bed.
"Don't worry about this one, Caboose," she muttered softly, lightly pushing Caboose onto the bed. He then looked up to the red-headed mare and pouted, but she simply shook her head at him as she got out of the bed. "I'll check on her, you get some rest."
"But-"
"Caboose, go to sleep or I'll tell everybody that you think Spike would look cool in a sweater-vest."
"But he would!" he mewled, but could no longer find the strength to pull himself up. Instead, he continued grumbling softly until he fell asleep.
Stretching her legs before heading towards the door, Tex peeked out of it and looked down the stairs to see Twilight tiredly reach the bottom. Tex quickly looked back at Caboose who was kicking his legs like a dog having nightmares, and with a shake of the head walked out the door and slowly made her way downstairs. As she got to the bottom of the steps she saw that the front door was open and Twilight was walking away. Tex sighed, shook her head, and then began walking after her. She trailed after Twilight like a shadow for several minutes until Twilight stopped by a stream and sat down next to it. The ex-Freelancer stood several feet away, staring silently as the sullen pony watched the flow of the water.
"Hey Twilight," Tex said quietly after a minute, making the unicorn flinch in surprise and then turn around.
"Tex. Where's Caboose?" Twilight asked, blinking a few times in rapid succession. "I thought that he was with you tonight. Usually he'd be chasing after you to make sure nothing happened to you.
"Yeah, I made him go to sleep. He needs his rest, probably as much as Church did," she said quietly, but regretted her choice of words as Twilight looked to the ground. "Listen, Twilight-"
"I know, Tex. I know. There wasn't any other way, but I still regret it. How can somepony turn their friend into stone and be perfectly fine with it?" the unicorn inquired, face blank as she looked up to stare at the stars.
"You can't. I can only assume it's natural to feel bad to do something like that to somebody you love. I think you should only be worried if you turned him into stone and felt nothing," she said, laughing hollowly, but Twilight simply frowned at her. Tex let out a sigh. "So how have the others been doing? I've been meaning to see them, but Caboose seems to think that I can't leave the library."
"They've been doing pretty well. Even though Rarity and Simmons were pretty much almost done, Celestia asked Flint Westhoof to delay his order for a while. Even though it was for one of their plays, he understood that there were things that happened in Ponyville, Canterlot and the surrounding areas, so he agreed to give them more time on account of the problems."
"Yeah, problems is one way to put it," Tex cringed.
"The others are doing fine as well," Twilight said instantly, not wanting Tex to feel negative. "Rainbow Dash and Tucker have been hard at work, they didn't seem to have any trouble getting back to normal. Grif and Fluttershy have pretty much remained the same as well. And as for the Apples, they've been getting ready for the last harvest before winter."
"Fun," she said quietly, looking into the distance.
Twilight squinted at Tex, whose eyes were misty. Twilight could tell that she wasn't just tired, but had an air of hopelessness to them as well. Looking in the direction Tex was, Twilight could see she was looking at Canterlot off in the distance.
"You know, this is the first spot I actually talked to Church. I mean, before I was actually his friend. He told me all about himself. The things he went through. The things he saw," Twilight said, trying to make Tex feel better. "And you."
"Yeah, I bet that was fun to listen to," Tex chuckled vacuously.
"It was. It really was," Twilight nodded as she tried to remember the talk from months ago. "At first I was disinterested and shocked, seeing as he started off telling me about... Blood Gulch, was it? He told me about how volatile the others were, how none of them were really friends and they were sort of just stuck together in a canyon, how he died. At first I didn't believe him, but as he progressed, the story got crazier. Bloodshed. Betrayal. Mistrust. I didn't think all that could happen so often to one pony, but nobody could make up what he went through. Nobody would want to. That's when I realized he had to be telling the truth. He opened up more than I thought he would. Probably because he realized that I wasn't just hearing him, but was listening to him instead."
Tex remained silent, but nodded at her, not sure what she could say.
"So what do you think it's like?" Twilight asked after a few seconds of thoughtful silence.
"Hm?"
"For Church," she said again, this time with concentration. "What do you think it's like in stone?"
"Probably pretty nice," Tex shrugged nonchalantly. "I mean, he's getting some rest and that's all he ever wanted, right? I wouldn't be surprised if he didn't care if he stopped Discord or not, as long as he got some time away from everything, including us."
"Yeah," she said weakly before sighing with a breath of relief. "I guess I should just be thankful that he went out as my friend and not my enemy. When he became the Alpha, I actually worried that he turned on us."
"I don't know, if he was your enemy you wouldn't have to worry about him hurting you. He's worse at having enemies than he was at having friends," Tex said, making the both of them laugh, doing them both some good. After they had stopped, Tex patted Twilight on the back and nodded towards the library. "Now come on, we should probably be getting back to bed so Caboose doesn't come looking for us."
"Alright," she nodded as she began walking back to her home with Tex.