//------------------------------// // Chapter 3 // Story: Pony // by RainbowsAreMagic //------------------------------// I finally decided I would return to Dodge Junction. I could not live in this cave. It was no life I wanted to live, not when any choice remained to me. I knew that if I went far enough away, the guards would leave me in peace, if they ever found me at all. My decision made, I made my way to the train tracks that led to Dodge Junction, a ways out from Ponyville, and waited for a train to pass by. I had no bits for a ticket, so I would have to be sneaky about my transportation. As the train passed by, I leapt up from the bushes into flight, quickly catching up with the it and catching hold of the last car. I pulled myself onto the balcony on the end of the car and settled in for the long ride to Dodge Junction. A little past halfway there, I was caught. The conductor, as I had expected, threw me off the train, but the town was now well within my flight range. I would have left the train before we arrived anyway, so it wasn't any great loss to have been found out. The conductor grumbled something about paperwork, which I ignored as I flew away. I beat the train to the station, and couldn't resist a jaunty little wave at the angry conductor as the train pulled in, doubtless adding to his irritation. In Dodge Junction, there is always work to be found, and ponies who don't ask too many questions. I got my old job back with Cherries Jubilee, with better terms this time since it wasn't going to be such a temporary affair as it had been before. I muttered something about "things not going as I'd hoped" and that was enough for her. It wasn't easy work. Sorting cherries requires constant attention, getting the right colors into the right buckets and keeping an eye out for bad fruit at the same time. I didn't really have a talent for it, so Jubilee moved me to the cherry picking team. Everywhere in the orchard, you could see earth ponies on ladders, picking cherries. It was a lot easier for me, being a pegasus. I could simply fly up to the tree, pick the ripened cherries, and move on, without any fumbling about with a ladder. I excelled there, and I managed a substantial income, even after food and lodging. The difference I made was enough that another two ponies had to be moved from picking to sorting, in order to keep up. The ponies in question came to me later that day. "Aegis!" I'd decided to keep my new name from Canterlot. I had no other name as a pony, after all. In all my travels, there had been nopony named Michael or Rupert or any other human name. If I wanted to fit in, I needed to avoid standing out. "You're the new pegasus picker, right?" "Y-yes?" I was a little worried about my future, specifically whether or not I'd be welcome in town anymore if I hurt these ponies when they attacked me. I had no question as to whether I could defeat them - I was top of my class in guard training, after all - but could I defeat them without anypony getting hurt? "Thanks." The expression on my face must have been priceless. "Cherries Jubilee knew we didn't like picking cherries, but she needed us in the fields too much to be able to move us to sorting. With you here, we don't have to pick anymore!" I blinked, speechless. "You're an odd one, Aegis," one of them commented as the two turned to go home. I had nothing to say to that either. * * * I worked there for years. I never forgot, however, what had happened in Canterlot. I let myself get too sure in my security, and I had to run, leaving everything behind. Well over a hundred bits, gone, not to mention everything else I owned. With that in mind, I resolved not to let it happen again in Dodge Junction. I saved up a number of bits, and once a month, I'd take a couple days off and go to my cave in the Whitetail Woods, slowly turning it from a bare cave to a true refuge, somewhere a pony could live. It was a good thing that I had done so, too. Over the years, I grew to believe that I had been forgotten in Canterlot and elsewhere. Little did I know that the story of "the one who got away" was a common one told in the guard barracks. I'd caused quite the stir when I'd fled, and ponies remembered that for a long time. So when a guard showed up in Dodge Junction, I didn't pay any mind to it. He talked to everypony, very casually, like he was on vacation or something. When he came to talk to me, without thinking, I introduced myself as Aegis Shield. He didn't even blink. "Aegis Shield," he told me, "we need to talk." It had been a long time since I had taken all those lessons in being a guard, or I would have seen what he was doing. I wouldn't have let him isolate me from my friends among my fellow harvesters. Before I knew it, I was surrounded by three guards. The first one spoke again. "You know, Aegis, you're a legend among the Guard. They call you 'the one who got away.' Top of your class, and all that; but secretly a spy. Then, when you were discovered, you actually escaped." The second one continued, "After you disappeared, Shining Armor was like a pony possessed. He tried everything he could to find you, but all he found was where you had been before you came to us. He was convinced you were a spy for the changelings." The third spoke. "You disappeared. Vanished. You left no trail to follow. Nopony saw you, nopony heard of you. Not until around a week ago. I was going over some old files, and one of them mentioned a tan pegasus with no cutie mark caught on the train with no ticket, at about the time you disappeared. Your single mistake that led us right to you." The second guard looked down for a moment. "We have a great deal of respect for you, Aegis Shield. We didn't want to do this, but my friend here mentioned that he might have caught your trail, Shining Armor overheard, and he instantly sent us out here to find you. We didn't want it to end this way, Aegis Shield, but nopony escapes the Canterlot Guard. Not forever. Not even you." The whole time they were talking, I was analyzing them. Two unicorns and a pegasus, all wearing armor. All three of them jumped when I laughed. "Do the stories ever talk about how I escaped? The reason they didn't catch me?" The looks they shared between them were all the answer I needed. "I escaped because they didn't plan well enough. They didn't take into account the advantages I had over them. And neither have you." With that, I leapt into the air, dashing over their heads. The unicorns were too stunned to react in time, and I was quickly out of the range at which their magic could have stopped me from getting away. The pegasus was a little quicker, and took off after me. The unicorns normally could have attacked me at range, and probably hurt me enough that I would have had to land, and thus they could have captured me. However, they couldn't do so in this case, because their pegasus friend was in the way, and they wouldn't risk hitting him by mistake. I was being chased by one pegasus. Once before, I was chased by three pegasi from Shining Armor's elite guard, the best of the best. Just as it had then, the difficulty of maintaining a speed that could catch me was increased by the weight of the armor he wore. I went faster, forcing him to tire himself out just to keep up with me. He was no elite guard, and it wasn't long before he gave up, and I escaped once again. My old lessons in misdirection and evasion returned to me. Once he dropped from the chase, I returned to Dodge Junction. Under my own name, I bought two train tickets, one to Fillydelphia and one to Vanhoover. With those two trains, I could reach anywhere in Equestria. I gave both of them away, so there would be no report of somepony not using their ticket. I never returned to the orchard to say goodbye to my friends, as that would have been expected. Instead, I flew east. Once I was out of sight of the town, I changed my heading, of course. I flew south, then east, avoiding the town, and went to my cave in the Whitetail Woods. It was a pretty inconspicuous place, altogether. There was no nearby road, and it wasn't visible from above because of all the trees, not to mention the fact that the door was well inside the cave itself anyway. I'd furnished the place tolerably well, but it was no palace. Even so, it made for a decent home. Sometimes, I would fly to Appleloosa and do some trading, buy some food. I'd help with the apple harvest to earn some bits, but I didn't buy a house there. It was always a temporary thing. * * * I grew old in that cave. I spent most of my life alone, and eventually I become too old to keep working. My supply of bits will dwindle, over the years, but I'm not worried. The supply I have is enough to keep me fed for a while. It's the loneliness that really gets to me. When I die, I will be alone, and nopony will remember me, save as the pony who got away from the Canterlot Guard. That is… something, I suppose. For me, it isn't enough. It isn't enough. You have heard my story. I hope that my sharing it will save some poor soul from a similar fate, because I wouldn't wish mine on anypony. Now please, go. Leave an old pony in peace.