//------------------------------//
// Chapter Thirty-Seven: Pinklo Pieloto 
// Story: The End of Ponies 
// by shortskirtsandexplosions 
//------------------------------//


The End of Ponies
by shortskirtsandexplosions


Chapter Thirty-Seven – Pinklo Pieloto


Special thanks to Vimbert, theworstwriter, and Warden for editing


Extra Special Thanks to Valhalla-Studios for Cover Art





        The afternoon of dessert deliveries was an educating thing for Harmony, insomuch that it repetitively revealed to her a truth that she had been observing ever since she and Pinkie Pie had marched into Dredgemane to begin with. The town was a gray, ancient, and relatively soulless hovel of unenthusiastic ponies caught in the iron grip of their daily routines, but when Pinkie so much as stepped one hoof into the room, that single solitary chamber of bodies lit up like a tiny lightbulb. Frowning faces bore brief-but-real grins as Pinkie Pie sauntered in and spread her chirping voice as she likewise spread cookies and doughnuts for Ms. Marble Cake. Factory workers, carpenters, cleaning fillies, clerks, and various merchants briefly paused whatever it was they were doing to hear what absurd things the candy-colored pony had to say, or tried to say.

        It was as if Pinkie's visitation to the place of her foaling was a cosmic thing of destiny, and everypony within a breath's toss had to stop everything altogether and pay reverence to a secret queen once more parading through the streets she grew up in. What was more, the Dredgemaners did not appear to be obligated in any fashion to put their lives on pause for the sake of greeting Pinkie. They talked to her with an enthusiasm that came from the bottom of their hearts, proving that they still had hearts to begin with.

        Harmony observed all of this from a numb cloud that followed Pinkie's bouncing motions like a copper caboose to a peppermint train. She understood all of the smiling faces and random bursts of laughter, but she couldn't bring herself to feel them. It wasn't so much that she was trying to be a stick in the mud; the last pony simply wasn't capable of sharing in the reverie that Pinkie Pie waved around herself like a billowing flag.

        Perhaps the reason was because the scavenger from the future saw deeper into the whole spectacle than even Miss Pie could ever bother observing. Indeed, the earth pony's passing visitations brought smiles to the faces of random Dredgemaners, but Harmony had the audacity to glance back at those same ponies when she and her anchor were leaving. As soon as the passing pink bubble of euphoria surged through the room, those blessed smiles and grins left. The citizens of that town were once more suspended in the same gray miasma within which they had been drowning before Pinkie Pie ever cantered through their colorless and regimental lives.

        Harmony knew very little about this “Brevis” character to whom she had been briefly introduced, and she understood even less about what impact he may have had on Pinkie Pie. Were they master and apprentice? Were they teacher and protege?

        Whatever the case, Harmony instantly saw a common connection between Pinkie and the town's bum mule. They were both enthusiastic souls who, however absurd, fancied themselves cures to a grand ailment that supposedly blanketed the depressed world within which they lived. Yet, as the grayer and grayer extremities of Dredgemane made themselves evident to Harmony during the length of hers and Pinkie's delivery route, the last pony realized that Brevis and Pinkie were nothing more than brief and pointless healing salves that addressed the symptoms of the beleaguered town but could do nothing to root out the cause of Dredgemane's gloom, assuming there was ever a “cause” to begin with.

        As for the “Royal Grand Biv” —be it a he or a she—Harmony figured the phantom character was no more successful a character than either Pinkie Pie or Brevis. Dredgemane was a dark town in a dark world in a dark universe that would swallow into oblivion any and all lights that ever dared to pierce the black clouds of eternity. It was that way in the past, and it would be that way in the future—only tomorrow's Wasteland possessed two different mad souls: one was Spike and the other was Scootaloo. There was essentially no difference between filling a stone statue with rainbow water and resurrecting a dead Sun to a world of scorched rock.

        Harmony knew that, and that was why she couldn't smile... or laugh.









        After all, you're the only one who's ever been eternal. Jumping twenty-five years back and forth across your obsidian legacy can only grant me a tiny piece of the picture that you have undoubtedly fitted the outlines to. I like to think that, ages ago, I realized fighting you was a futility that no soul could ever hope to succeed at, much less the last soul of all ponydom.

        What is it about you that inspires so many living things to strive so hard to be that which they can never be? Have you taunted us? Have you ridiculed us? Have you dangled before our hungry faces a glittering jewel of fake promises, of things that we want but can never have?

        You could very easily have been the end to all of us centuries ago, much less two and a half decades ago. It surprises me, with all of the ambitious calamities of Equestrian history, from the Chaos Wars to the Lunar Republican Uprising, that we hadn't brought about the end to our legacy much sooner than the Cataclysm.

        I keep wondering what I will find when I map the truth in the Onyx Eclipse, assuming there is even a truth in it at all. Will I find out that the Cataclysm was something designed by hooves? Was it the result of a horribly ambitious magical experiment, when somepony or some spirit made a dark pact with the stars? Was the Cataclysm something that could have been avoided if we simply stopped trying and learned to respect you as much as we feared you?

        Dredgemane was more than just an accidental escapade on my behalf; I realize that now. I needed to be in Dredgemane more than Pinkie Pie needed me to be there. I needed to understand the barriers that stood in the path of my and Spike's goal to rebirth the Sun and Moon. I needed to understand what it was that made this entire experiment just as absurd as it appeared to be before I ever daringly took that first leap through green flame.

        I needed to understand you, and how you were fitting into everything. The eternal legacy of Equestria was at stake, and you are essentially eternity itself. How would my and Spike's accomplishments measure up to you? Was it pathetically bold of us to have forgotten about you up until then?

        It is so very tragically easy to forget about you. Everything that has ever lived has made a habit out of doing it. How ironic, then, that all creatures with an ounce of sentience has only ever wanted to be remembered, the one thing that they have constantly been denied?

        I've never bothered forgetting you. Well, perhaps there was a time in my foalish years when I did, but that was because I was so incredibly mad at you. In ways, I still am, but that comes and goes like the ritualistic thunder of a passing stormfront. I have lived so many years in full awareness of what your very real presence means in this world, in a land devoid of all the souls that had brazenly tried to ignore you in the way that I no longer can.

        Perhaps that makes me the sacrificial lamb of all ponies that ever came before me. I'm suffering on a daily basis for the ignorance of my own blood, boiling down through the arteries of time to fill me with a perpetual and unworldly numbness that trumps any and all Entropan limbs. How fitting, then, that I'm tossed like a fishing lure into the blind epilogue of the past, presenting myself like a prisoner before an execution, exposing the softer parts of my soul-self to the stabbing truth that only I witness with apocalyptic clarity.

        That truth is that Equestria never saw it coming. Even if the Cataclysm was to happen a thousand years from my day of birth, we never would have suspected a thing. We were too busy disrespecting you, believing whole-heartedly that our tiny and paltry concerns were far more worthwhile in the weight of all things everlasting.

        Dredgemane, I suspect, was the closest thing that came to embracing the truth. But even then, it never took the plunge into the bright exorcism of shiny clarity beyond. Instead, the town was complacent enough to wallow in the misty fringes of your perpetual darkness. There is a calm security in that gray cloud. I know it, because I have lived so many years there myself, within you. The only reason I haven't embraced the “bright shinies” myself is because I know that there is no point to it. Life, for the most part, is an exercise in patience, in waiting for a magical purpose to announce itself to an equine soul eventually, though it fatefully takes an entire lifetime to illuminate that awareness, in that there may never be an awareness at all.

        I told Spike that I was going back to Pinkie Pie's past to be an observer. That was still true, even as I followed her through the streets of her dismal town, passing out desserts like so many trivial hopes in a world doomed to die. I had stars to map, an Onyx Eclipse to unravel, and a doomed Equestria to piece together in my mind. Still, there was another puzzle that had constantly been vexxing me—not just during the experiment but throughout my entire life, and I had to figure it out... I had to figure you out as I had to figure the Cataclysm out. Otherwise, I would never truly understand if my ventures into the past had any purpose to begin with.

        If you couldn't be overcome, then what was the point?









        “As a matter of fact, I am from Canterlot.” Harmony adjusted her beret as she sat on the bar stool. “My name's Harmony, and I work for Her Majesty's Court. I'm here with Miss Pie to conduct an astronomical study of—”

        “Really? That's very fascinating!” An orange unicorn with a black jacket nodded. He bore a bush of brown mane hair framing a shattered horn. “Say, Miss Harmony, could you excuse me for one moment?” That uttered, the stallion swiveled around on his stool, snarled through angry teeth, and smashed a wine bottle straight through a patron's cranium next to him.

        “Holy—!” The hapless earth pony bloodily gurgled.

        “Haaugh!” The unicorn pounced on him in an orange blur, shoving the flailing equine to the floor of a crowded and cacophonous saloon in the center of Dredgemane. “Hold out on me for the third week in a row, will you?!” He repeatedly slammed the pony's bleeding skull against the soot-stained tile, forming cracks in the surface. “Give me my friggin' bits back, you spineless piece of drunken meat, or I'll rip your kidneys out and feed them to parasprites!”

        Harmony's twitching eyes were wrenched from this bar-brawl by the sound of a high-pitched shriek. She looked up to see a satin-dressed dancer on the brightly-lit stage of the place kicking the hoof loose of a tipsy customer below. “No touching unless you plan to pay, you pig!” She removed her feathery headdress and slammed it down the throat of the stallion, gagging the pony as he fell back through a crashing table surrounded by laughing onlookers. “Choke on that, ya mangy freak!”

        Another crashing sound. Harmony glanced to her right side to see a bouncer slamming a splintering chair across the backside of a yelping, rosy-cheeked pony before tossing the offending soul out through a pair of swinging doors into the gray cobblestone of Dredgemane beyond. The muscular stallion dusted his hooves off and decidedly shuffled past the orange unicorn beating a patron to a bloody pulp. The bouncer merely rolled his eyes, grabbed a half-empty glass from a sleeping patron's table, and wandered off into the back with a flick of an indifferent tail.

        Another crashing sound. The nearby brawl had traveled its way through a stack of serving pitchers along the bar counter, dousing Harmony's Entropan and noticeably shivering limbs with errant sprays of shattered glass. She stirred uncomfortably in the stool where she was seated, utterly smothered by the smelly, cackling, drunken lengths of this den of drink and vice.

        “I mean it! Give me back the bits you owe me!” The unicorn hoisted his quivering victim up and snarled into his face. “Or do I have to get ugly?”

        Other patrons lingered in the background, murmuring to one another:

        “Pfft—Where's Bruno gone when you need him?”

        “Off to the back to drink, what else? What's going on?”

        “Oh, it's 'ol Professor Vimbert. He's at it again.”

        “Hah! Who can blame him?! Third week in a row that the Quagmire Brothers have held out on the sap. No-good cheapskates: they deserve what's coming to them!”

        “Still, can somepony stop this bedlam? Miss Plots' number is up next. I don't need to listen to all this crap.”

        “Very well. Hey guys, wanna lend a hoof?”

        “Sure.”

        “Fine.”

        “You grab Vimbert from the front; that broken horn of his scares me.”

        On cue, a cloud of equine souls hobbled up and pulled the raving orange unicorn off the twitching victim. “Vimbert” growled and thrashed, ultimately being hoisted away in the other drinkers' hooves. “This isn't over, Celestia-dang-it!” He snarled and spat down at the earth pony. “I'm getting my bits back from you and your brothers even if I have to do something that lands me on the chopping block! I mean it! None of you are safe!”

        “Calm down, Vimbert, eh?” one pony grabbing him hissed.

        “Yeah.” Another nodded. “It ain't worth this bloody hooplah! You should know better!”

        “Yeah, you're a civil pony—Or at least you once were! Pfft—Hahaha!”

        “Hah hah hah!”

        “Nnnngh!” Vimbert bucked two of the ponies off him with a remarkable show of strength.

        “Whoah—!” The two stallions slammed into the rattling bar counter on either side of a flinching Harmony.

        Vimbert wrestled the last clambering pony off him and stood in place, staring and dragging his hooves through the stained tile in a threatening manner. “Fat load of good you ignoramuses are doing! I came here to drown in my sorrows, not to be mocked by cheapskates or scoffed at by beer-guzzling morons who wouldn't know what a death wish was if it galloped up and bit them!”

        “Jeez! Calm down, will ya?!” The ponies stood back up, straightening their tousled manes. “Don't get your horn bent out of shape—Whoops! Too late, eh pal? Snkkt—Hahahaha!”

        Harmony sweated, glancing from figure to figure. The orange unicorn looked ready to tear a new trench through the bowels of Dredgemane. She pondered briefly if she and her Entropan limbs should intervene—

        Then Pinkie Pie suddenly bounced into the picture, having returned from delivering the second-to-last of Ms. Marble Cake's goods to the bartender. One final box of baked cookies rattled atop her flank as she stood with remarkable bravery directly between Vimbert and the laughing ponies he was staring down.

        “Oooh! What did I miss? Huh? Huh? Tug of war? Y'know, a game of tug of war is a lot more entertaining with a rope.” A bright gasp. “Hey! Want me to be the rope? I promise I won't burn your hoofsies!”

        “Shove off, kid.” Vimbert snarled and made to march past her towards the smirking patrons at the bar counter. “You don't owe me any bits or apologies, so there's no need for your skull getting in the way of my wrath.”

        “Awwww, come on, Bert!” Pinkie smiled unabashedly in his orange face. “Must you be so angry all of the time?”

        “Only because life has to suck all of the time!” He grumbled and motioned with his hollowed-out horn. “Now move—”

        “Doctor Pinkie thinks she knows exactly what your problem is!” She continued bouncing in front of his path. “You came here to drink and get your bits back when—all the while—you really only want to hit something! So, since I'm here, why don't you go on ahead and hit something! Get it out of your system!”

        “Uhhmm... M-Miss Pie... ?” Harmony hissed her way.

        Vimbert glared at Pinkie Pie. Pinkie Pie grinned back. “Nnnngh!” With one firm swing, Vimbert's hoof flew violently across Pinkie's cheek. The impact crackled like gunshot. Pinkie spun twice from the blow and landed in a candy-colored slump on the tile floor.

        All noise drowned out from the room. Every conscious drinker who was inside the saloon craned their frazzled manes to glance over. Harmony was beside herself with a deafening, Entropan heartbeat. “Pinkie Pie!” She gasped and slumped down to her knees beside the limp mare. “Are you okay—?”

        “Woo!” Pinkie rolled up to her haunches, grinning and rubbing a fresh bruise on her left cheek. “That was a good one, Bert! That could have knocked the helmet off of Nightmare Moon! Hey!” She bounced up to her hooves before a dazedly blinking Harmony and giggled. “Wanna try it again? I bet if you hit me hard enough, my head would become a helmet for Nightmare Moon! She'd be a lot less scary with a pink noggin', don'tcha think?”

        Vimbert blinked at her. Then a strange thing happened; he chuckled. After a deep-throated fit of laughter, the transformed equine wrapped a hoof around Pinkie's shoulder and smirked. “You're something else, Miss Pie. Somehow I wouldn't doubt it if a whimsical mind like yours was capable of deducing the great mysteries of ages long gone.”

        “You mean like who built the Great Pyramares?”

        “Yeah, sure, whatever.” Vimbert nodded towards a local bartender. “Two drinks: one for me and one for Quarrington's zany kid here. Double vodka.”

        “Cherry Sarsaparilla!” Pinkie smiled through her bruise. The saloon briefly cascaded down a series of chuckling voices and stomping hooves before returning to the usual hum of drunken reverie and random whistles directed towards the stage. Miss Pie sat down in time to receive a bubbly bottle of pink soda sliding against the crook of her hoof. “Hmmmm... Hee hee. What I wouldn't give for a beach sunset to sip this to. I suppose I could press my hooves to my eyelids until it felt like I was watching a sunset. You don't suppose that's dangerous to my vision, eh, Har-Har?” Pinkie Pie blinked, smiling. “Har-Har, how are you holding up?”

        “Oh!” Harmony jolted. “I'm fine.” She knelt, picked up the white box of cookies, and sat nervously between the pink pony and the suddenly pacified unicorn. “Just fine.” She gulped and glanced with a frazzled black mane towards the lengths of the bustling place. “I'm doing... doing okay. Yup, nothing new to report from my end.”

        “Awwwww... ” Pinkie Pie made a pouty face. “Poor Har-Har! All of this time I took talking with Mr. Stonewheat at the back of the bar, I hadn't even considered how you might be faring.”

        Harmony exhaled calmly. “Oh, it's quite fine, Miss Pie. I've seen much worse than this place.”

        “You must be dying for a drink!” Pinkie beamed and waved a hoof across the counter. “Hey, barkeep—”

        “What? No!” Harmony snorted. “That's not what I meant at all!”

        “Silly filly, I know you're a representative of the Royal Court! I was only gonna suggest a soda.”

        “I'm fine,” the last pony snarled. “I'm not thirsty. All I need is to keep my hooves on the floor.”

        “Try a bottle of late Third Century cognac,” Vimbert said, pouring the volume of his double-vodka into a silver flask branded with the letter “V.” “Then you'd become the floor.”

        “Who asked you?!” Harmony flashed him a frown, then instantly deflated from his return glance with a nervous smile. “... M-most esteemed unicorn, s-sir.”

        “Pfft. Whatever.” He took a ridiculously long swig from his flask.

        Harmony blinked. She swiveled on the stool to face Pinkie. “Tell me that we're done with this place.”

        “Why should we be?” Pinkie was busy spinning several giggling revolutions on her own stool. “Don't you find this place fun?”

        “Fun?!” Harmony nearly wretched. She glanced across the lengths of the saloon. In a blink, she saw ogres and goblins and dirigible dogs leering beneath a sick halo of Wasteland lanternlight. Another blink, and once the Dredgemane drinking hole had returned, she wasn't sure where she'd rather not be the most. “Miss Pie, this place is miserable. The ponies who come here have nothing else to turn to. Can't you see that?”

        “I see lots of rosy cheeks and laughing faces.” Pinkie took a mighty sip of her sarsaparilla, gulped, burped, then paused to tongue the inside of her bruised cheek in thought. “Well, I also see spilled blood and chipped hooves. But mostly the rosiness and the laughingness.”

        “Doesn't this place bother you in the slightest?”

        “If you like, we can go back out into the street! I bet that would cheer you up, Har-Har!” Pinkie drank again.

        Harmony opened her lips to respond to that, but stumbled briefly on a potential layer of meaning in Pinkie's words. “And you call me sarcastic?”

        Pinkie Pie was rather oblivious to that statement, for she was busily raising the drinking end of the sarsaparilla bottle to her squinting eye and tilting her gaze towards the ceiling. “Hey! Look at me! I'm a Canterlotlian Clerk and I'm looking for stars! Oooooh! Aaaaah!” She gasped and sputtered as a sloshing curtain of sudsy drink splashed all over her face. She spit, gargled, then gasped. “Dear Princess Celestia, I have seen the heavens and they are full of bubbles!”

        “Grrrr... ” Harmony's copper features boiled scarlet from underneath. “Miss Pie... ”

        “Oh come on, Har-Har! You have to give it up for that one!” Pinkie Pie grinned.

        The air suddenly filled with a pungent perfume of cherry blossoms and jasmine. A deep-voiced filly was clearing her throat, and Pinkie Pie swiveled to find herself under the gaze of a saucily dressed dance mare.

        “Do you have an ID, young lady?” The mare asked with a waggle of painted eyelashes.

        Pinkie Pie gasped wide, shook the soda dry from her mane, and leaped off the stool to hug the saucy pony with joyous forelimbs. “Pepper! It's so super terrifically awesome to see you! I thought you had moved to uptown Fillydelphia!”

        “Pffft—Me?” The mare smirked. “Would I depart for the lap of luxury while abandoning this dump?” She stood back and fluffed a feather-stabbed mane of flowing, scarlet hair. “What do you take me for, sugah? My heart belongs to Dredgemane now and forever, along with other body parts. Heheheheh.”

        “Heeheeheehee!”

        “Ehhhh... ” Harmony gulped and nervously leaned forward. “And you are?”

        “Pepper Plots, the hottest slice of oats that this side of Equestria ever did see.” The mare mocked a curtsy and winked the last pony's way. “Getting your R&R all good and fine, soldier girl?”

        “Huh?” Harmony blinked, then rolled her eyes as she nearly tossed the infernal beret to the floor. “Look, I'm just your average mare.”

        “That's what they all say... at first. Heheheh.”

        “Heeheehee—Oh Pepper, you so funny, girrrrrl!” Pinkie Pie waved a feminine hoof and smirked.

        “Laugh on your own time.” Harmony grumbled. She grabbed the beret and held it out before the noisy saloon. “Anypony want a free hat? It's on the house—Celestia knows it's the only dang thing in this place that is.”

        “Silly Har-Har.” Pinkie smiled pleasantly. “Don't gamble with Daddy's hat!”

        “I'm not gambling! I'm throwing it away—”

        “I said...” Pinkie's blue eyes suddenly swam with a dreadful glistening, like a sea of serrated knives breaking the surface of a hissing soul. “Do not gamble with the holy beret.”

        Something deep inside the time traveler trembled. Harmony slapped the thing back on her skull and huddled on the edge of her bar-stool, clutching her lower limbs with foalish trembling.

        Pinkie's grin returned just as brightly as it had vanished. She turned to Pepper and chirped pleasantly as if the proverbial shark fins of her glare had never surfaced. “Y'know, I never did thank you enough for lending me that dress of yours for when my friends and I went to Appleloosa!”

        “Heck, I've got plenty more where that came from,” Pepper chirped. “There isn't a seamstress in town who's not at my beck and call when the need comes. If there's one thing I never run out of in this place, it's bits—golden or naughty. Heheh. Still, I can't refuse a chance to say 'hello' to my favorite farmer's daughter.”

        “Ahem.” Harmony cleared her throat and faked a smile in the mare's direction. “So, you and Miss Pie here go way back?”

        “Sugah, I knew 'Miss Pie' here since she was in a training bridle. I'd have taught her everything I knew if Goodly Brevis hadn't gotten to her first.”

        “I... see... ” Harmony couldn't resist a noticeable wince.

        “In a day and age where ponies are too afraid to so much as talk to each other, Pinkamena knows just the right way to get in your face. Isn't that right, darling?”

        “Heeheehee! Yupparooni! A lonely world is a boring world!”

        “Which is the least I can say about these poor, love-starved saps who waltz through Dredgemane from far and wide.” Pepper Plots smirked the orange unicorn's way. “How about you, Vimbert? Are you a lonely pony?”

        “Choke on a garter belt, ya tart.”

        “Hmm, charming as always.”

        Suddenly, another painted mare hollered from the far side of the saloon. “There you are, Pepper! You've got a visitor!”

        “I've got nothing!” Pepper barked back over the heads of the many patrons. “I'm on stage in less than ten minutes!”

        “He said he only wanted to see you for a quick chat! He's some passer-by who you know well!”

        “Oh yeah?” Pepper squinted. “Where's he at?”

        “He said he'd be waiting in the green room!”

        “Green room... Green room... ” Pepper thought out loud. Then a bright spark lit up in her emerald eyes. “Ooooh... Nick. Hubba hubba.” She professionally stifled a giggle, adjusted her dress, and sashayed away, attracting the swiveling heads of many a gazing patron. “Talk to ya later, Pinkie. Be a good girl; Celestia knows I won't.”

        “Heehee... Whatever you say, Pepper!”

        “Uhm... ” Harmony gulped and leaned in close to Pinkie to whisper. “Miss Pie?”

        “Yes, Miss Har?”

        “Did you notice something just now?”

        “Uhhh, duh!” Pinkie Pie shook the empty sarsaparilla bottle, eyeing the insides of it for remaining drops of soda. “What stallion in his right mind names himself 'Nick'?”

        “Er, no... ”

        “Cuz that's no way to get popular if you ask me!”

        “Your friend! Pepper! She's... ” Harmony chewed on her lower lip. “If I didn't know any better, I'd say she was a working filly.”

        “Pfft! Of course she is! A pony's gotta earn bits in this economy somehow!”

        “No, I mean... ” Harmony winced at her own words. “I think she's a mare of the night.”

        “Well, if she was a mare of the day, she'd get a sunburn, don'tcha think?”

        “Ughh.” Harmony slumped her chin against the bar counter. “I give up.”

        “Always a salvageable option,” Vimbert muttered from aside.

        Harmony glared at the orange unicorn. “Why are you still here?”

        “Vodka.”

        “Yeah, okay.”

        Just then, the swinging doors to the front burst open and four ponies marched into the atrium of the saloon, followed by a booming voice: “Listen verily, you sinners and spreaders of iniquity!”

        “Oh great, just what my evening needed,” Vimbert moaned and took another grand swig of his silver flask.

        “Hey! The robes have arrived!” Pinkie grinned.

        “The what?” Harmony squinted.

        “At least that's what Brevis calls them! Look!” The earth pony pointed.

        Harmony swiveled on the stool to see. The entire saloon groaningly slowed to a silent lurch in response to these four newcomers. A pair of black-armored guardsponies stood, flanking two equine figures dressed in regal, flowing attire. One was an aged stallion, a tall and rigidly framed unicorn who briefly reminded Harmony of Pinkie's father, only that his mane was blacker than night and hung about his long neck like a funeral veil. He wore the purple velvety threads of an Equestrian cleric, of what church Harmony didn't immediately know, though she was educated enough to guess. Situated beside this tall and imposing figure was a younger, frailer unicorn slightly older than Inkessa's. He wore a modest brown robe that complemented the equally unassuming bowl of sharply cut mane hair that framed his forlorn expression as he stood wiltingly beside his frowning mentor.

        “Hear my words of warning, or else fear the wrath of Sacred Gultophine Herself!”

        “'Wrath of Gultophine'?” Harmony murmured, her face contorting sickly.

        “Not too terribly dramatic for the likes of Bishop Breathstar,” Vimbert muttered.

        “Yeah, sure. But seriously, those words—”

        “Pssst!” Pinkie Pie leaned in and whispered into Harmony's copper ear. “That's young Deacon Dawnhoof standing beside him. Isn't he handsome? I mean, for a priest-in-training?”

        “Uhh... . I guess?” Thud. Harmony's wings stuck up. She hoisted the turquoise vest down over them and snarled over her shoulder. “Dang it, Pinkie!”

        “Heeheeheee!”

        Bishop Breathstar cleared his throat. With an impervious frown, the aged, milk-colored unicorn boomed his voice throughout the lengths of the paralyzed saloon. “Our blessed town of earth pony tradition and faithfulness to the spirit of Gultophine has been assaulted once more with banal malevolence of an unpardonable nature! Undoubtedly, those of you sober enough to have taken notice of the Alicorn statue in Town Square has found the effigy dry of its usual, fountainous display! This is because, last night, our resident phantom miscreant made the atrocious decision to poison the water supply to the fountain with an unsightly chemical! Alas, despite the rigorous lengths to which our beloved Mayor Haymane has attempted to remedy the situation, the shadowy figure known as the Biv has struck again!”

        At the end of this mighty speech, it was a series of slurring cheers—instead of gasps—that the priest managed to elicit from the uncivil crowd. Several laughing faces scoffed at the Gultophine cleric, stomping their hooves at the merest hint of the criminal name uttered to the soot-stained walls of the place.

        Bishop Breathstar recoiled as if an invisible catapult had launched a cow into his chest. He frowned, shaking his white horn like a vicious spear towards the many rolling faces he furiously addressed: “It is no laughing matter! This incorrigible Royal Grand Biv is a blight upon our good town! He has no respect to order, to dignity, to the blessed wheels of commerce and industry! Everything that this town thrives on, everything that the mighty town of Dredgemane has accomplished, everything that provides your drunken souls with the luxuries that you so frivolously squander like the fools that you are—it is all because of the ethic of hard work and cooperation that the good Mayor Haymane has instilled in everypony here! Now, this Biv seeks to undermine everything that has been so mightily established over the past two decades! This town was founded long ago—out of the grave of Consus—to be a living monument to the spirit of Gultophine who has given all things a chance to live and thrive in a world turned black by the horror of the Sundering! The least you could all do is show an iota of concern over the inane forces that seek to suck Dredgemane dry of its essential divinity!”

        “Hey! Speaking of 'suck dry,' put a horseshoe in it!”

        “Yeah! This ain't no chapel! Either have a drink or go back to a monastery, ya quack!”

        The guardponies shifted nervously. The young deacon winced. Bishop Breathstar merely frowned. “Scoff if you like! But travail upon mocking me no longer, for Mayor Haymane himself has sent me to this pit of sin for one purpose and one purpose alone! He has come to suspect that the true identity of the Royal Grand Biv couldn't possibly belong to any of the good, respecting, and civil ponies of the upper streets! There is every reason to believe that the true villain sits here, right in this very room! The Biv is among you wretched lot of disrespectful waifs and whoremongerers, and it is my official job—as both a speaker for Gultophine and an ear for the City Council—to search each and every one of you for colorful possessions indicative of the Biv's trademark tools of desecration!”

        As the entire saloon groaned in agonized disapproval, Pinkie Pie sat up straight in her stool. “Oooh! Oooh! Just like customs!” She grinned at Harmony and gestured with her forelimbs. “They make you do this one silly thing where you plant your hooves up against a wall and do squat-thrusts—”

        “I don't want to know.”

        “Deacon Dawnhoof!” Breathstar glared down at his inferior.

        The younger unicorn cleared his throat. Nervously reaching into a pouch of his brown robe, the sandy-colored pony magically levitated a scroll before his nervous face, unrolled it, and read the proclamation before the agitated crowd:“'On behalf of the Dredgemane City Council, and Commissioned by Mayor Haymane himself, all citizens located amidst the buildings of Carver Street must—without hesitation—submit to a thorough search by the town militia for signs of being accessories to the criminal vandalism as perpetrated by the mysterious figure publically labeled as the Royal Grand Biv. '”

        A cacophonous array of hisses and boos lit the air. In spite of it all, Bishop Breathstar stood tall and proud, as if he had just speared a pond full of helplessly flapping fish.

        “Your protests are heard,” the elder unicorn said. “Save them for the prayers to Goddess Gultophine. If any of you are to be found guilty of being an accomplice of the Biv's, only true retribution between your souls and the Giver of Life can bring forgiveness for your childish actions. As I so happen to be the town's first and foremost bridge between ponydom and our patron Alicorn, I take it upon myself to see this search accomplished, as I shall also take it upon myself to be a loyal ear to your confessions, should the following events bring your festering sins to clarity.”

        “Yeah, enough of this crap.” Vimbert spun about in his stool and spoke over a silver flask. “You want sins? I've got a heap of 'em. I confess: I'm the Royal Grand Biv.”

        Bishop Breathstar's eyes narrowed. “You, Mr. Vimbert?”

        “Sure, why not.”

        The elder unicorn frowned. “But the Biv has not been known to possess a horn, much less a shattered one.”

        Vimbert shrugged a pair of bored shoulders. “So? I'm sitting here in this bar, aren't I? You seemed sure of yourself when you told us that anypony in this saloon could be the Biv. What happened since forty-five seconds ago? Did you lose your priesthood in a fart?”

        “Oooh! Oooh!” Pinkie bounced in place. “Can I be the Biv? Can I? She's so awesome!”

        More laughter filled the saloon. Deacon Dawnhoof shifted uncomfortably. Breathstar rolled his eyes and groaned: “Quarrington's daughter. Just what I needed... ”

        “Hey! Can I be the Biv too?”

        “Yeah! Does the Biv get free drinks!”

        “If it means a free ticket out of the mineshafts, I wanna be the Biv!”

        “This is not a joking matter!” Breathstar frowned, his eyes lighting up briefly with hellfire. “This search shall be conducted as planned! No more delays! Haymane has sent me forth on this task, and I will not stop until I ascertain which one of you amoral cretins is—”

        “The Royal Grand Biv!” A third guard suddenly burst in through the saloon doors behind the clerics. Breathless, he continued shouting: “It's him! Or her! Or it! On the rooftops!”

        “Wh-what?!” Breathstar gasped, spinning so hard his robe almost flew off.

        “Right now! We need every able-bodied member of the militia! On the double!”

        “Rghhh... ” A rosy-cheeked stallion disentangled himself from two dancing mares and hobbled up from his chair. “I... rmmm... am a member of the—HIC—militia.” After a slurring breath, he collapsed through a clattering table of empty bottles.

        The guard winced, glanced at the first two, and then nodded. All three galloped out into the gray streets of Dredgemane, and they weren't alone. A suddenly enthused crowd of patrons was swiftly stampeding out of the saloon, almost plowing over the two clerics as the pair gasped and stumbled from the surging flow of onlookers.

        “No! Wait! Stop! Desist!” Bishop Breathstar rambled in futility. “You are all still subject to a search! Nnngh—Not only do you disrespect the will of Haymane in this manner, but you are defying your spiritual intercessor to Goddess Gultophine!”

        “This is... getting really out of hoof... ” Harmony gulped. She glanced aside. “Miss Pie, everypony keeps talking about your dad. Maybe he can help sort things out—” She blinked, for all she saw at the bar counter was Pinkie's empty sarsaparilla bottle. The last pony flashed a look towards the front of the saloon.

        Pinkie Pie's bright body bounced up and down repeatedly through the surface of the surging sea of exiting patrons. “Wooo! Woohoo! Lemme see lemme see lemme see!”

        “Oh, for the love of oats!” Harmony hissed through clenched teeth, held onto her beret, and dashed out to catch up with her anchor.

        As the saloon emptied entirely, only a few unconscious or depressed souls remained. One of them was an orange unicorn in a black jacket, leaning over his flask alongside a bar counter.

        “Hmmph.” Vimbert took a swig, exhaled, and muttered. “'And so it is the world began, and so it is the world shall end. '”



~*~*~*~*~*~*~



        In the middle of a gray day submerged in an even grayer eternity, Dredgemane suddenly was alive. A roar of clopping hooves unleashed a hurricane of noise through the Town Square as several citizens galloped out from their various working establishments, donning black armor and helmets. A frenzied militia came into existence, weeding their way into the deepest nooks and crannies of the entrenched town. They came back into view, wheeling large cylindrical searchlights onto the cobblestone streets. Forcing onlookers to trot aside, they anchored the searchlights to the ground, lit the torches inside them, and proceeded to project wide swaths of platinum light towards the gnarled rooftops above.

        Several hatted manes tilted skyward. The village's ponies squinted through the slivers of overcast light afforded to the thin ravines within which the whole of Dredgemane had been squeezed. The faces of brightly blinking foals stuck out of rusted windowpanes. Merchants trotted out from behind their shop stands to look upwards. Traders and delivery ponies paused in dragging their wagons. The cobblestone inscriptions of dead equines were briefly forgotten as every eye in the downtown canyon peered for a phantom streak of color above.

        Harmony panted and stumbled through the thick sea of bodies. She sweated profusely through to her Entropan skin. Nothing had prepared the last pony for the sensation of being smothered in a surging crowd of her own flesh and blood. It wasn't nearly as joyous an experience as she could have dreamed of. She bumped into several brown-garbed bodies before she remembered the common decency of excusing herself. Eventually, she slumped against a lamppost, shivering with a renewed panic as she found no solitary sign of her anchor.

        “Great... ” She grumbled to herself, straightening her amber-streaked bangs beneath a green beret. Halfway across the Equestrian continent, a proverbial Cloudsdalian chariot had slammed into her once again. “Whatever. Not like I was accomplishing anything with her anyways. You were right, Spike.”

        “Spike was right about what?” A pink hoof handed Harmony some popcorn.

        “Just about everything.” Harmony took the white kernels and shrugged. “I keep forgetting he's got three centuries ahead of me—” She stopped, bug-eyed. The last pony flung the kernels over her shoulder as she spun a glare towards a pink pony standing on the other side of the lamppost, munching on a bag of puffy treats. “You... It... That... ” She hissed. “How?!”

        “Mmmmf!” Pinkie Pie nearly choked, but grinned through her popcorn with a hoof outstretched towards the high walls of the ravine. “Theff Royaff Grammff Bifff!”

        Harmony glanced up, amber eyes squinting. The local militia tilted the searchlights so that they all converged on a clock tower just above the Dredgemane post office. As the face of the large steeple lit up, everypony in the thick crowd gasped. The clock hands had been painted in bright rainbow colors, and the numbers had all been turned sideways, outlined in similarly rambunctious pastel hues.

        However, the ludicrous urban defacing wasn't what elicited the audible response so much as the figure responsible for it. In an overtly dramatic stance, a pony-shaped perpetrator stood balanced on the edge of the minute hand like a proud rooster perched on the jutting crossbeam of a barn. As the converging searchlights swathed over it, a shimmering kaleidoscope of bright colors lit the air of Dredgemane. The Royal Grand Biv was briefly no longer a phantom. He, she, or it was garbed in a fantastic cloak of rainbow stripes, covering the perpetrator's entire body, billowing down from mane to flank. No single inch of the figure's true coat was exposed; not a single hair lit the misty ceiling of Dredgemane. A pair of ruby goggles flickered while reflecting an entire scene of breathless, jaw-gaping gray souls staring up at it like it was a lost prophet dropped to the earth.

        Pinkie Pie gulped down a lump of popcorn and grinned wide. “Isn't she the most fantastic thing you've ever seen?”

        “It... She... ” Harmony's eyes twitched. Her heart was beating quickly, because every single shade of that being's colorful cloak stabbed her far more than any spectral signal she had ever built in her years of piercing the Wasteland. For a moment—a very warm and gasping moment—Scootaloo was a little foal again, and she was watching an immortal pegasus soul about to take wing and slice through the blue heavens with no care for rules, no notion of subtlety, and no fear of—

        “There he is!” A blue mule's voice cackled from where he hung off the length of a second story flagpole behind the shimmering scene. Brevis smiled upside down, his coattails dangling as he pointed a grimy hoof and howled, “Watch as he falls! The madpony summons a secret gravity with him! Who among you will be born tonight?! Who among you will fall with him! BraHaHa!”

        “Don't just stand there!” Bishop Breathstar stumbled out of the saloon entrance, nearly tripping on his robe as he motioned with an ivory horn. “Apprehend that fiend!”

        A pair of militia ponies rushed up and operated separate ends of a net gun. “Ready! Aim! Fire!” There was a crackle of gun powder; a flowing net flew towards the clockface.

        The Royal Grand Biv spun like a rainbow tornado. Something glinted—a furious lightning. When the net soared onto the figure, it was met with a metallic ring. The canvas web exploded on the other side of the canyon in shredded ribbons. As gasps fluttered hotly into the air, the Biv galloped with a pitter-pattering flurry of metallic clops across the rooftops and leapt toward an adjacent building.

        “He's getting away!” Bishop Breathstar shouted, following the swiveling sea of heads glued to the phantom's third story flight. “Net him already—”

        “He is not away! He is here! He always has been!” The bum mule sing-songed in the distance, his voice a meter-less percussion set to a throng of exploding net guns sending waves of flailing traps skyward. “It is we who are away, away from ourselves, away from our minds in this eternal exile from decency and deliverance!”

        The Biv leapt over one net, ducked another, and grasped onto the top of a lamppost. It swiveled—goggles glinting—and mutely flung a hoof at the militia ponies below. A dozen sparklers fell towards the cobblestone and exploded in prismatic confetti. Through the shower of spectral paper, the Biv dove over hundreds of Dredgemaners' gasping manes.

        Harmony flinched. Pinkie giggled. Both spun to see the Biv bouncing off the street and forcing two black-armored guards to collapse into each other, sprawling in a vain attempt to pounce on the fleeing daredevil.

        “It is not vandalism for which he is guilty!” Brevis danced gaily in circles, his eyes rolling back in his head under the roar of a dozen militia ponies galloping desperately after the runaway miscreant into the cold streets beyond. “It is knowledge! For he understands the brave truth of madness that keeps him alive and us only halfway there! And yet it is our fault for not listening, for even right now—he preaches to us! Yes he does! Yes he does! BraHaHa!”

        Bishop Breathstar panted, stumbling through the settling cloud of multi-colored streamers. A layer of confetti fluttered down and draped over his horn. He blinked cross-eyed at it, summoned a deep snarl from the essence of his ivory being, and flung the offensive piece of litter to the cobblestone below. “Confound this Biv! I am not accustomed to this anger!”

        With a shuffling of hooves, Deacon Dawnhoof walked up through the thinning crowd of murmuring onlookers. “Teacher, it is written in the Chronicles of Gultophine: 'Anger is a crucible through which we know our truer self.'”

        “Do I not know that, child?!” Breathstar hissed. He suddenly flung his entire body down a calm, soothing inhale. In a matter of seconds, his entire complexion morphed into one of practiced tranquility. “Never mind. Let us return to the chapel to meditate and plan accordingly for the next chance we have to apprehend the sinner before the sin.”

        “Y-Yes, Bishop.” Dawnhoof bowed on bending legs and followed after his robed superior. Along the way, the young cleric almost bumped into a copper pegasus. “Oh, uhm, a thousand pardons.”

        “It's... uh... quite alright,” Harmony murmured, making brief eye contact with the quiet soul, like two sad sets of headlights in the fog. He brushed past her as she watched on. The thick crowd of Dredgemaners shuffled off towards their usual routine. The heavy and surging sea of bodies had dissipated just as quickly as it had formed, and yet the last pony felt no elation as she was once more alone with her own quivering breaths.

        The town had ever so briefly come alive, and now it was back to the gray miasma it was when she, Inkessa, and Pinkie first strolled in there. She wasn't entirely sure what had nearly blossomed there in the shadow of the Biv's dramatic flight, but she knew all too well what continued to die in the absence of such a rainbow. It was something she was very much used to in her life.

        “Wooo!” Pinkie Pie nevertheless cheered jubilantly at the culmination of the haphazardly brief fiasco. “Everytime, without fail! Goosebumps!” She grinned wide and munched on the last of her popcorn before dumping the bag into a garbage can along the sidewalk behind her. “Still, nothing beats the first time that I saw her in action! Then it was positively Albatrossbumps! Those are like twenty Goosebumps apiece!”

        “Uh huh... ” Harmony squinted across the urbanscape, watching as several guards stumbled up to their hooves, helping each other recover from the Biv's exit that had shattered many of their nets and thrown armored ponies to the cobblestone. She narrowed her attention on one pair of guards in particular who were busying themselves with the mundane task of extinguishing a searchlight between them:

        “Dang it all! It's going to take forever to requisition a new net! At this rate, I'll have better luck throwing pebbles at the dang Biv!”

        “Did you hear how Bishop Breathstar was shouting at us like it was our fault?”

        “Well, if his buddy, Mayor Haymane, got his flank in gear, we wouldn't be having this problem!”

        “He has tried, y'know. The Council sent in a request to the Court of Canterlot for assistance.”

        “What kind of assistance?”

        “For all I know: the winged kind. These past few months, we've been stupidly chasing this punk from the streets for what little good it would do us!”

        “So when is Canterlot going to send us some better net guns?”

        “Net guns? Pffft! Screw that! What we're overdue on is a squadron of pegasus guards!”

        Harmony blinked. She chewed on her lip, glancing towards the offensively paint-splattered clockface stretching above the Town Square. The rainbow minute and hour hands spun backward in her mind, teleporting her to a lone cavern with a purple dragon where she struggled for a reason behind this lonely sojourn to an anchor of pink hilarity.

        The last pony was at the Applejack farm in time to confront an army of trolls. The “Canterlotlian Clerk” had shown up in time to help Fluttershy with a dying Capricorn. What if this Royal Grand Biv was about to meet its match?

        “But if you measure Albatrossbumps in Hummingbirdbumps... ” Pinkie continued in the background. “... then you have to break a Goosebump in half, because the exchange rate can't account for Hummingbirdbumps, especially in Mexicolt where they just scale every silly thing via Cockbumps—”

        “Yeah, that's cool. Hang on for a second if you would, Miss Pie.” Harmony trotted over towards the two guards. “Ahem. Excuse me, gentlecolts, but I couldn't help but overhear your situation.”

        “H-hey!” One of them brightened and adjusted his black helmet, smirking at the beret on her mane. “I've got a cousin in the service! I've always wanted to enlist. Small world, huh?”

        “Ya-Huh. Look, the Mayor of this town made a request for Canterlotlian assistance, if I'm not mistaken?”

        “You could say that again. This Royal Grand Biv nonsense is making everypony's head on the Council spin! I can hardly do my delivery routes while having to jump into militia gear all the time to chase this rainbow moron.”

        “Well, it looks like your prayers have been answered.”

        The two guards blinked. They stared past Harmony, at Pinkie, at the rows upon rows of lampposts beyond—

        Harmony briefly frowned. “Me, you friggin' bucket heads.”

        “Oh! Uhm... R-Really?”

        “Yup. You want proof?”

        “Erm... ” They shifted nervously.

        At first, Harmony didn't know why they looked so pensive, but then it dawned upon her. With a clearing of her throat, she raised her turquoise vest just enough to show her copper wings. From their deadpan expressions, she realized that wasn't enough. So, she swiveled about and reached a hoof towards her flank. A pause, and she muttered, “Try not to get a nosebleed, kiddos.”

        The Dredgemane guards politely said nothing.

        She slid her black trunks down just enough to show her emblazoned cutie mark. Once the royal crest had graced the torchlight sufficiently, she slid the hem of her pants back up and faced them directly. “Well? Is somepony going to point a Canterlot girl in the right direction?”

        The guards stared blankly. A deep rosy blush was shared between the two of them.

        Harmony rolled her amber eyes and cleared her throat for emphasis.

        The young militia ponies snapped out of it. With a deep breath, and they both nodded towards her. “Come with me,” one said and trotted firmly north towards the far end of the town's winding canyons.

        “Well then... ” Harmony smirked slightly to herself. “This certainly beats tossing cookies around.”

        “What does? Tossing cookies usually means I had a great party the night before!” Pinkie Pie grinned. “Eeep!” She yelped as she found herself being dragged away for once.







        The first moment I realized that trolls were infecting Applejack's farm, a part of me died inside. Her family lived in an era of warmth and peace; they did not deserve creatures of the Wasteland polluting everything that was beautiful about Sweet Apple Acres. When I ultimately battled those invasive miscreants above the family's cellar, my Entropan soul-self protected me from being seriously harmed. If I had to repeat my time traveling experiences with a far more vulnerable body, I would have fought the trolls with no less vigor. The Apple Family's tranquility was a sacred thing, and I was willing to do anything to maintain it, even if it risked the very fabric of my health or sanity.

        When the dying Capricorn projected the essence of its offspring into Dinky's horn, I must confess that I was far more concerned for Fluttershy than I was for Ditzy Doo's kid. I know that's a horribly selfish thing to admit, but it's true. I was overcome with shock and horror that something so tragic and disturbing could have disrupted the placid essence of Fluttershy's life. The yellow pegasus was so distraught and traumatized by the chaotic circumstance that I gladly did everything in my power to bring her back to a place of peace and structure.

        When I walked through the streets of Dredgemane, and I saw the Royal Grand Biv defacing public buildings, the citizens all around me gasped in awe. I could not share their brief and instinctual wonderment. As a matter of fact, I refused to.

        Dredgemane was a city of shadows. It was a dismal town of somber ponies making somber rounds for somber tasks. The place was anything but a bright and cheerful vacation spot, but it was alive.

        Dredgemane was alive and real and warm beneath the cold mists that wafted over the deep, winding trenches. That was because it was full of ponies—living and breathing ponies—and so long as the essence of Equestria existed, free of the consuming flames of the Cataclysm, then that was an Equestria that held meaning and purpose. That was an Equestria that breathed magic.

        There is no warmth in the Wasteland, none whatsoever. I know that. I am used to that. I have come to accept and deal with that. However, not a single bleeding piece of me could look at the whole of Dredgemane and see the Royal Grand Biv as anything but a blight. What was warm to Dredgemane was its structure, its regiment of labor and commerce, and its sacred respect for all that the Alicorn Sisters had given ponydom. To see a single solitary soul brazenly blemishing the simplicity of such a crutch that Dredgemane leaned on was worse than any troll army or Capricorn mishap, for the vandal's pranks held significance—it was willed into existence by an anarchist and malevolent sentience. I wouldn't stand for it.

        It was a while ago that I realized that the purpose of the experiment that Spike and I started was not just to bring light back to the Wasteland, but it was also to bring structure back to the world before the Cataclysm. Every time I landed in the past, there was something for me to deal with. If I hadn't time traveled at all, then so many horrible things would have run their course without my interjecting hooves bringing order to the chaos I encountered. Perhaps this was my role as the avatar of Princess Entropa; I was the fully functioning agent of time's immutability itself.

        Applejack was the element of honesty. Through dishonesty, I won her confidence and saved her farm. Fluttershy was the element of kindness. Through assertive and aggressive means, I led her and Ditzy through the heart of the Everfree Forest to save Dinky. Pinkie Pie was the element of laughter. In Dredgemane, I was the last pony to laugh at the Royal Grand Biv's antics, and that made me the right soul at the right time to put a stop to them and restore structure to that beleaguered city.

        It's rather funny, don't you think? By being a direct opposite to so many important elements, I nevertheless endeavored to bring harmony back to the lives of my hapless anchors. I didn't expect them to understand why I went about it the way I did. I couldn't even expect them to thank me. All I expected—all I wanted—was for them to be at peace... to experience harmony.

        I figured that I knew what was best for Pinkie Pie's hometown. Whether or not she was willing to assist me in the process of rooting out this “Biv” didn't matter. Being a pariah to my own quest for harmony was hardly a laughing matter.










        Bordering the northeast edge of the town's basin of meandering ravines was a steep cliff that rose significantly higher than the rest of the stony plateau that formed the gray landscape around Dredgemane. Beyond a double layer of thick cedar pikes, a series of long and winding wooden steps swam up the vertical cliff-face and led to a daring wooden structure fused to the granite surface of the rock wall. The building reminded Harmony of the M. O. D. D. in its architectural hilarity, and just like Pitt's future bar in the sky the structure was supported by several thick wooden lattices propped at forty-five degree angles between the gnarled floorboards of the building and the great chunk of mountain holding it up. There was hardly anything aesthetically pleasing about this audacious shelf of a building, but the manner in which it daringly defied gravity while so many other Dredgemane buildings were forced to cower in the deep, dark ravines below gave it a gravitas that assured nopony else but the mayor himself dwelled within.

        This gray-lit sight was briefly pierced by the image of a paper airplane slicing past Harmony's vision. She blinked and wrenched her amber eyes away from the gray overcast, away from the cliffside building, and towards a pink prancing pony at her and the escorting guard's side.

        “You know, that might land you in trouble for littering.”

        “It's only littering once it lands on the ground!” Pinkie Pie grinned wide.

        “Everything has to fall eventually.”

        “Heeheehee! That's what Brevis says!”

        Harmony went cross-eyed, then shook her snout viciously. “Not what I meant.” She frowned. “Seriously, how can a town as stiff and regimental as Dredgemane tolerate that bum mule?”

        “How can they not?” Pinkie smiled and bounced, bounced, bounced along. “Every town needs a Brevis.”

        Harmony managed the subtlest of smirks. “Is that why you moved to Ponyville? To 'spread the love,' as it were?”

        “Nah. I was sent away after the Noodle Incident.”

        “After the what-now?”

        “Did you see how the Royal Grand Biv outran all of those guards?!” Pinkie Pie's voice galloped down a different subject's avenue. She and Harmony sashayed past a phalanx of Dredgemane militia and followed the one guard up the long, winding steps towards the Mayor's office above. “Isn't she just amazing? If she showed up in Ponyville for so much as a day, she'd become the Iron Pony overnight!”

        “How come you call the Biv a 'she' and Brevis calls it a 'he'?”

        “That's the thing about the Biv, Har Har. She's more of an idea than an actual pony.”

        “Oh horse hockey!” Harmony spat. “I just saw it with my own eyes! The Biv is nothing more than a law-breaking vagabond with a lot of tricks up its bridle!”

        “But the Biv still means more to you than you're already willing to admit!” Pinkie proudly smirked. “For instance, while she's a 'she' to me, and a 'he' to Brevis, she's still an 'it' to you! You can judge a pony's character by how they talk about the Biv.”

        “Since when were you a judge of character, Miss Pie?”

        “Since becoming a judge of pie gave me a tummy ache. I had to broaden my horizons. And speaking of which!” Pinkie pointed beyond the wooden railings of the steps they were ascending. “Check out the view! Don'tcha love it?”

        “It's just your village,” Harmony slurred and glanced south. “What's to see—?” She stopped in mid-utterance, blinking. Her amber eyes squinted and her hooves slowed, so that it actually took Pinkie's momentum for once to urge her along the ascending stairs.

        The winding canyons of Dredgemane were about as unassumingly dull from a towering perspective as the copper pegasus could ever have imagined. However, it was the manner in which the ravines were arranged that caught her by surprise. While the thin slivers of sundered rock criss-crossed at a few random intervals, the closer they dragged towards the east edge of town, the more and more the ravines converged into one thick and all-encompassing trench, like spokes adjoining to form a limb. If Harmony didn't know any better, she'd say that the thick web of coalescing canyons carved into the body of the stone plateau almost resembled—

        “Wingprints,” the last pony murmured, staring out towards the gray horizon and seeing more and more canyons carved out in the hollow impression of an enormous and positively equine shape. “Is this... Could this be the Grave of Consus?”

        “No, silly filly!” Pinkie smiled as the guard and two ponies finally made it to the entrance of the highly-placed building. “It's Mayor Haymane's place!”

        “No, Miss Pie, I meant—” Harmony suddenly stopped in her tracks as she saw Pinkie undergoing an inexplicable spasm. Her ears flopped, her eyelids twitched, and her knees wobbled. “Are... Uhm... Are you okay?”

        At the end of this inquisition, a door suddenly flew open—slamming into Harmony's Entropan muzzle. The time traveler grunted, seeing a spurt of green flame briefly, then a series of sparks lighting up her dizzied vision.

        “Unngh... ”

        “Dude!” The young guard frowned at the militia pony who had just opened the door. “Watch it! Do you have any idea where this filly's from?”

        “M-my bad.” The guard winced in the doorframe. “Overseer Sladeburn's visiting the Mayor inside. With the Biv out and about, you can't be too safe. I heard your clopping hoofsteps and panicked a little.”

        “A little? Just step aside, amateur.”

        “Why's your armor rattling so much? Did you see the Biv?”

        “I don't want to talk about it. I came here to escort the Canterlotlian to Haymane.”

        “A pony from Canterlot? Oh, praise Gultophine!” The guard stepped out of the doorway and smiled Harmony's way. “You! Have you actually come to... ” He paused and blinked at the sight of Pinkie Pie behind the time traveler. “... help us?”

        “Do we get our own net guns?” Pinkie beamed.

        “Miss Pie,” Harmony hissed and motioned with her beret as the guard from downtown led them inside. “Your indoor voice, please.”

        “Oooh, goodie! I haven't sang since I was last at Sugarcube Corner!”

        “Then invent a new indoor voice! One that involves a lot less singing and a whole lot more silence!”

        The two mares were suddenly rocked to the core as a loud booming noise greeted them upon entering the front foyer of the building's dust-laden interior. Beyond the curtained double-doors that separated a rustic, miniature library from the Mayor's office, a grown stallion's voice could be heard rattling the nails of the wooden beams that held the high-altitude structure in place.

        “I'm telling you, Haymane, I've had it up to here with this Biv character! The militia you've set up is consuming far too many of my laborers! I have ponies who should be working the mines, and instead they're chasing after the tail of that rainbow lunatic you've let run the show in this town!”

        “Hmmph... ” Pinkie Pie briefly frowned and squatted beside a frazzled receptionist's desk. “A singing voice like that wouldn't last a week at Sugarcube Corner.”

        “Shhh!” Harmony hissed. She craned her neck and listened intently on the conversation transpiring beyond...

        “I assure you, Sladeburn, we're doing what it takes to bury the legacy of the Biv for good. Whoever this miscreant is, it's only one pony. One pony means one problem. Once that one problem is solved, things in Dredgemane will get back on track.”

        “Dredgemane will have nothing to go on if we starve the quarry of able-hoofed workers any longer!”

        “Starve? Overseer, you have four times the number of laborers in those mines than you did last year! If the estimates from the Equestrian Census are correct, then Dredgemane is making a substantial profit ahead of schedule this season!”

        “The Census is a weighted tool used by Her Majesty's loyal hoof-kissers! What do they know of the schedule I run here?! There's still an impossible quota for our facilities to meet. The Canterlot Industry Commission needs five more shipments of Arcanium by next Winter-Wrap Up in order to supply the new pegasus colony overseas. They're counting on the ingenuity of Dredgemane miners to provide them with this much-needed resource! Imagine the laughing-stock we would become if we fell short of delivery! Canterlot might switch gears and pay Stalliongrad for their exports instead!”

        “Your frustrations are greatly understood, dear friend, and they most certainly do not go unnoticed. I'll speak with Quarrington and the Council about coordinating a new routine with the militia. We may very well be able to spare you more workers if we acquire more volunteers from the tradesponies and local farmers. It's just that your laborers are so strong and capable at chasing down and tackling a figure as elusive as the Biv.”

        “Harumph! If that was the case, the Biv would have been taken down by now!” The double doors burst open and a dark-brown, frowning stallion in thick black workgear marched out, flanked by two muscular associates stained with similar soot. “Do all of Dredgemane a favor, Haymane,” Overseer Sladeburn growled, “And have that rainbow-colored waste of flesh torched alive!” He stomped out towards the entrance of the building, his every clopping step shaking the floorboards upon their suspended foundation.

        Harmony watched with silent attention. She glanced back towards the doors to see the one guard that had led them there murmuring something to the receptionist. The receptionist nodded, shuffled out from behind her desk, and trotted lightly into the gray-lit Mayor's office beyond.

        “Y'know, Overseer Sladeburn's not really a bad pony,” Pinkie chirped from aside. “He's just sniffed one too many tunnels full of coal.”

        “Who said he was a bad pony?”

        “Mmmm... Just about every miner I've ever met.” Pinkie hummed. “The ones who are still alive, at least.”

        Harmony glanced aside with a raised eyebrow.

        A voice cleared. Both mares looked ahead. The receptionist stood before them, bowing her mane. “The Mayor will see you now.”

        “What?” Pinkie grinned. “He had blinders on all this time? —Whoah!”

        Harmony was shoving Pinkie forward by her flank. Soon, the two shuffled to a stop before a broad wooden desk. The office was an ornate assortment of bookcases, Equestrian antiques, and other archaic curiosities of Earth Pony design. Just like the streets of Dredgemane, there was nothing remotely colorful about the place. A deep dimness filled the room, mimicking the torch-lit ravines of the town that this stallion was officially responsible for. Beams of light, serenaded by dancing dust before a row of milky-curtained windows, illuminated the frail shoulders of an elder pony who stood across from the two visitors with a gigantic desk separating them like a barge in a sea of sighs.

        “I heard that you are from Canterlot,” the figure said from beyond the dust. His voice was about as thin as his silhouette, and twice as starved of something warm. “Could it be that this is an answer to my summons... from several months ago?”

        “Do forgive Her Majesty's Court,” Harmony spoke, carrying forth a vocal confidence that she hadn't utilized since another time-jump centuries ago when she landed in the presence of Fluttershy and Captain Redgale. “Ahem. There have been many instances of great importance all across Equestria. The Royal Court respects Dredgemane and wishes to address its problems—”

        “With one pegasus?” Mayor Haymane leaned forward. His face came into the light, and it was a fragile looking thing, like a sad face carved out of golden ice. A thin yellow coat bled under bony cheekbones and a sharp blonde splotch of straw-like mane hair. “You are a pegasus, I gather.”

        “A bonafide cloud kicker!” Pinkie Pie suddenly chirped for the copper interviewee. “The wingest bonafide! Check it!” She kicked her hoof into Harmony's magical spot.

        The last pony jolted, and then her eyes shut exasperatedly. A groaning sigh, and she slowly lowered her feathers and turquoise vest. “I do hope that answers the question for everypony in attendance.” She reopened her eyes with a polite smile. “My name is Harmony, and I came as soon as I heard the word from Canterlot.”

        “Hey, Haymane!” Pinkie Pie waved with an electric grin. “How's it rolling?”

        At the word “rolling,” the Mayor groaned inwardly. His blue eyes darted between Harmony and the candy-colored soul. “Quarrington's daughter. What, pray tell, is she doing in your presence?” The Mayor squinted suspiciously at the last pony. “Not only does Canterlot tease our funny bones by sending only one pegasus per our request, but they hire Miss Pie as a chaperone?”

        “Like I said... ” Harmony finished straightening her vest. “Equestria has had its share of problems lately. The Court's Guards are thinned out enough as it is. Either they sent me now, or they would have sent nopony for a good few weeks until they could summon the legion your heart desires. Alas, I am here, and I'm willing to help in any way I can. As for... Miss Pie... ” Harmony shifted nervously. Every time she came to this moment of lucid lie-crafting, it became increasingly difficult to paint a convincing picture. Nevertheless, her amber orbs thoughtfully navigated the asteroid field of dust bits in the gray light ahead of her as she murmured, “She was already in Ponyville at the time that I was summoned to come to Dredgemane, and since she was planning on returning to her home town to visit her family—”

        Mayor Haymane saw straight through it. “You mean to tell me that the Court couldn't afford to send a pegasus already familiar with the landscape of our age-old town? They had to rely on this town's most notoriously uncouth filly to act as a guide?”

        Harmony winced. “It's n-not that. What I m-meant to say was—”

        “I'm on probation!” Pinkie Pie bounced and sang.

        The last pony blinked rapidly at that.

        Haymane glanced over. “Miss Pie... ?”

        “The Court has hired Har-Har here to be my probation officer!” The earth pony's blue eyes narrowed coolly. “I'm not allowed to leave her sight for even a second, or it's too the mooooooooooon with me!”

        “What, pray tell, were you finally punished for?”

        “Remember the Noodle Incident?”

        The Mayor visibly winced. “What Dredgemaner doesn't, child?”

        “Well, multiply that doozy by—like—over nine thousand doozies, and all of them scaring children.” Pinkie Pie giggled and blushed. “Not my proudest moment, but a filly's gotta learn, right?” She bounced in place with no less gaiety. “No big dealio! I've just gotta stick around this pegasus, do community service, and Bob's your uncle—like they say in Trottingham.” Pinkie Pie's face scrunched briefly. “Bob must get around a lot to be the uncle to so many ponies... ”

        Haymane stared silently at the bright soul. He slowly gazed Harmony's way. “You have my pity.”

        “Uh huh. Yeah. Excuse us one second.” Harmony yanked Pinkie over by her straw hat and brought her muzzle-to-muzzle. “Pssst... Miss Pie? What are you trying to do?”

        “Pffft—Duh! I'm saving your skin, silly filly! You gotta admit, it's a way better explanation than 'I'm here to do a stargazing experiment in astronomy!'”

        “But I am here to do stargazing!”

        “Yeah!” Pinkie Pie snorted a giggle. “And I'm Kim Coltdashian!”

        “Ladies... ?”

        Harmony took a deep breath and stuck her head out of the momentary huddle with a bright smirk. “Yes! I'm Miss Pie's... probation officer. Ahem.” She marched towards the desk. “But that doesn't mean I can't lend my skills to this needy town.”

        “And helping out is the best kind of volunteering I can possibly do!” Pinkie added. “It beats being homestuck!”

        The last pony sighed, her eyes closed. “She means 'under house arrest,' not like it matters.”

        “Like I said,” the Mayor said with the slightest hint of a smirk. “You have my sympathy. But I imagine you also deserve my thanks.” He shuffled out from behind the desk in a sudden gliding movement. A strange series of squeaking noises filled the air. When he came into the full penumbra of the gray light, Harmony realized why. Mayor Haymane's rear legs were missing. Strapped to the elder pony's neatly suited body was a wooden rig with three wheels, so that he was balanced evenly between the rolling apparatus and his two natural forelimbs, one of which he stretched towards the pegasus in a polite gesture. “Welcome to Gultophine's Refuge. Do forgive my suspicious inquisition; I have been under a great deal of stress as of late. I assure you that I am most exceedingly pleased to have you come in this time of crisis.”

        Harmony did her best not to stare at the paraplegic pony's mechanism. She extended her own hoof and shook the Mayor's ritualistically. “I've seen the Biv in action. Now there's a pony that could put any town's militia in a bind, no matter how well-trained.”

        “It's more than just the mischievous antics of the Biv,” Mayor Haymane said, wheeling a few centimeters back as he re-steadied his two front limbs and stared up at her. “That miscreant has spun a web of confusion and chaos that has mired the straight-and-narrow vision of all faithful, hard-working ponies who give breath to this town's industry. In the last few months alone, fewer Dredgemaners have been attending Bishop Breathstar's sermons. Dozens—if not hundreds—of misguided youths are ignoring curfew. The mines are emptying of workhooves and the saloons are filling with drunkards. I fear dearly for the moral fiber of this town, Miss Harmony. The Biv is merely a physical manifestation of a trouble that haunts the holy Grave of Consus, and—like all symbols—the longer this phantom is tolerated, the more it will siphon all that is good and decent from the one place in Equestria that thrives on Gultophine's blessing alone.”

        “Then the key is to find and arrest this Biv?” Harmony asked. “Gultophine's law holds sway over not just life, but society as well, if I recall my readings of the Chronicles.”

        “Pffft—Fat chance of catching the Biv!” Pinkie Pie smirked. “She's—like—faster than the rainbow! And even if we did manage to chase her down, it wouldn't be a pot of gold at the end of everything! Instead, it'd be a swift hoof up our—”

        “Ahem.” Haymane motioned towards a set of gray-lit doors. “Miss Harmony, if you wouldn't mind the two of us speaking in private?”

        “Uhm... ” Harmony nervously shifted, glancing at her anchor, worrying over the scant forty or fifty meters that was afforded her Entropan attachment. “I'm not so sure if I'm legally allowed to let Miss Pie that far from my sight... ”

        Haymane wheeled over and opened the doors to a small balcony hanging off the side of the lofty building.

        “Oh. Well, okay then.” Harmony smirked slightly and trotted over. “Miss Pie, try not to... uhh... do any more 'Noodle Incidents' while I'm talking to the Mayor.”

        “Okie dokie lokie!” Pinkie sat on her haunches and busied herself with another paper airplane scooped out of a pocket from her tropical shirt. She sat there in the office, humming to herself.

        Once outside on the balcony, Haymane shut the doors behind them. In the suddenly blinding overcast, the disabled stallion wheeled towards a stretch of railing and stared out across a sight that calmed him just as much as it suddenly awed the last pony.

        The winding canyons of Dredgemane lingered under a constant cloud of rising coal smoke and soot. Beyond the gray labyrinth, towards the west, a jagged quarry cycloned its way deep into the stony earth. The tiny specks of work ponies and digging equipment could be seen from this vantage point. Beyond the quarry, several rock farms dotted the monochromatic stretch of granite earth as far as the eye could see. Between the plots of land, a few marshy splotches of vegetation cropped up, dotting the otherwise immaculate geography with festering bogs of timeless antiquity.

        “Are you familiar with this landscape, Miss Harmony?” Haymane asked.

        The last pony took a deep breath. Years of reading priceless books from the cabin of the Harmony had prepared her mind for this suddenly irreplaceable vista. Several historical tomes, geological reports, and tear-stained entries in the very journal of Princess Celestia had described the continent within which Dredgemane had been settled with remarkable detail.

        “This is where Consus fell,” Harmony murmured, thinking aloud, feeling every word coming out of her like a holy breath. “After the Sundering fractured him, this is where he gave his last breath.”

        “Countless millenia ago... ” Haymane nodded, leaning up from his wheeled support to grip the railing and stare out onto the wing-shaped canyons in the bosom of the world. “Our Alicorn Father suffered the same fate of mortality that abridges all of our meager lives today. The first death in all of Equestria felled him here, in a land that was once beautiful and flourishing with vegetation. His flesh blanketed the landscape. His wing feathers bled into the rock. When Goddess Epona made her Exodus for the stars, her wings carried his hollow body into the heavens, but the grave of his collapse was permanently carved into the landscape.”

        “I'm quite familiar with the tale,” the last pony said, gazing up at the overcast sky and envisioning briefly a deader world of eternal twilight. “The ashes of his flesh fused with Epona's tears, and his bones coalesced together, forming the moon.”

        “The mournful task of monitoring Consus' bones eventually fell upon Princess Luna.” Haymane turned his face to gaze emphatically upon Harmony. “But it was Goddess Gultophine's job to bring life to the world that had been blighted by the Sundering. Without hesitance, she came upon the wound formed by Consus' falling and breathed a new life upon the landscape. Not once in her many centuries of stewarding did she abandon this task. Even through the demanding trials of the Chaos Wars, Gultophine held true to her commitment. What was once a world of desolation became a new garden within which ponies could thrive, embracing a new and courageous industry, a spirit of prosperity that Gultophine's holy wings inspired us to follow.”

        “You are right to be proud of this town, Mayor,” Harmony said. “I can see now what it stands for.”

        “Can you?” The blond elder squinted his blue eyes up at her. “No offense, Miss Harmony, but being an agent of Her Majesty's Court necessitates that you remain aloof in some fashion or another. Do not think that I belittle you for such a quality. As a matter of fact, I applaud it. To maintain a respectful distance from the target of your assistance is the key to being a proper mediator. Nevertheless, I hope I'm able to convey to you the importance of this land, and what it means to so many earth ponies who still hold a divine respect in its significance, both historical and spiritual.”

        “Spiritual?” Harmony raised a curious eyebrow.

        “It goes without saying that—when Gultophine joined her sisters in exile—she left Equestria to its own devices. Regardless, her spirit has remained, and this is no more relevant than in Dredgemane, the shadow of her deceased father. The moment Gultophine's spirit dissipates from this landscape, all hope for life and prosperity in the Grave of Consus will vanish as well, and this will once more be a world of death and utter desolation.”

        The last pony gulped. “That... That does not sound like a pleasant future... ”

        “Gultophine's Harvest is coming up,” Haymane said, wheeling over towards the far stretch of the balcony as he gazed out upon his urbanscape. “You are familiar with the ritual, yes?”

        “I imagine so.” Harmony smiled gently. “It's a time when Equestrian ponydom remembers all the things we have to be thankful for with the life granted to us by the Alicorn of Rainbows.”

        “The townsfolk burn that which is most precious to them.”

        Harmony did a double-take. “I beg your pardon?”

        Haymane's hoof grazed the railing. His blue eyes were distant, cold specks. “Every three months, the town gathers for a bonfire, and we toss into it our most valued possessions. We watch as the material things that bind us to this existence go up in smoke.”

        “Uhm... ” Harmony shifted uncomfortably. “Is that a fact?”

        “It's easy to lose sight of what makes us so blessed in this world,” he murmured. “Life, labor, grit: it's what Dredgemane prospers with, it's what we've always prospered with. The Biv, the rainbow pranks, the colorful nonsense of this frivolous modern world that distract us... ” He gave a long sigh. “They are nothing but impediments in a life made righteous by hard work and dutiful respect of Gultophine's legacy. The Harvest bonfire is a necessary crucible that reminds us on a regular basis of the true goal every Dredgemaner should hold tight to. It is a goal that supersedes the trivial selfishness of the self, all the while maintaining the glorious harmony of the many... if you do forgive the irony of that one word.”

        “I... f-forgive you... ” Harmony blinked numbly. Her brow furrowed. “This... uh... this 'bonfire' thing must be a fairly new ritual, relatively speaking.”

        “More or less. You appear not much older than two decades, child. To you, it would be a life-long affair.” He swiveled about and gazed up at her. “If you must know, Bishop Breathstar and I implemented the ritual soon after I rose to office.”

        “You don't say?”

        “Since then, it has bolstered the lives of Dredgemaners all across the plateau,” he said, gesturing a hoof towards the gray horizon beyond the balcony. “Our town's industry has since ridden to the top of Equestrian mineral exports. Dredgemaners are respected far and wide for not only being faithful children of Gultophine, but for being the top suppliers of Arcanium and other important minerals to all of Equestria. It is our town alone that has made possible the last dozen spires of your glorious city of Canterlot, child. Many a Manehattan skyscraper also owes its construction to the resources that we have harvested from the earth.”

        “Well, if Goddess Gultophine was to return from the heavens, she'd undoubtedly be very proud of your... rock hammering,” Harmony nervously ventured.

        Haymane was hardly affected. “It was not an easy road to traverse, getting to where we are now.” He took a deep breath and pointed his eyes towards the balcony doors behind him. “There is a reason why I didn't have Miss Pie thrown out of my office the very moment she showed up.”

        “No?”

        “Are you familiar with her father?”

        “Quarrington is obviously very popular around town. I hear he's a member of the City Council.”

        “He and I go far back,” Haymane said with the slightest hint of a smile. “We grew up together as young colts. We galloped and played games in the streets, back when... when I had the youthful limbs to spare.” A deep, shuddering breath. The Mayor glanced off into the gray overcast. “One day, years ago, there was a horrible mudslide that consumed several rock farms. I had a rich plot of land at the time, but it succumbed to the inexplicable avalanche. Quarrington was the first earth pony to arrive at the scene of horror. He personally dragged my broken body from the scene of collapse. He was... not able to save my wife... and three foals.” His nostrils flared slowly. “Nopony could have been fast enough to save my family.”

        There was a pit of abysmal silence. Harmony chewed on an Entropan lip and waited for the next breath to come from the Mayor.

        When it did, it was suspiciously warm and hopeful. “But I emerged from that sorrowful disaster with an invigorated, firmer strength. I had a new lease on life, and I was refoaled in the spirit of Gultophine. Bishop Breathstar—with his infinite wisdom and grace—nurtured my soul, and together the two of us transformed this town into something of prosperity and purpose. With my faithful companion Quarrington on the Council and Overseer Sladeburn in charge of the mining operations, we have more than recovered from the inexplicable losses of the past. We have assured this city a glorious future. Every day lived in the breath of Gultophine is a blessed day indeed.”

        He swiveled again and wheeled squeakily towards Harmony.

        “Perhaps now you can understand what is at stake, what the Biv unwittingly threatens to malign with each childish prank that it blemishes this beautiful city with. The moment you—with your Canterlotlian talents of flight and finesse—apprehend that perpetrator, this City will once more find its hooves planted on the path towards purpose. There is more than material trivialities to be exorcised in the crucible of Gultophine's glory; we must burn away all distractions that keep us from making our lives better, firmer, and more righteous. Quarrington's daughter, Pinkamena: I weep for her, Miss Harmony. It is only fitting that you keep her within your sight at all time. Let her be a sign to you of how horribly lost and purposeless a soul can become when her hooves become detached from the straight-and-narrow path that this town long ago forged for her, and for all of us.”

        “I... ” Harmony gulped and managed a brave smirk. “I shall do my best, Mayor. Rest assured...” Her teeth briefly clicked together. “... I will not forget a word of what you've told me here today.”

        “Very good, child.” Haymane nodded with a smile. “Gultophine's Harvest is in just a few days. If it takes you a day or two to apprehend the Biv, I can very well understand. But it would be exceedingly marvelous if Canterlot's gift was to silence that cretin before the bonfire. I hope that isn't asking too terribly much from you.”

        “Hardly, Mayor.” Harmony said as the two of them shuffled back towards the double-doors of the balcony. “If there's anything I've learned from you, it's that you're not one to ask for much.” The gray-lit office once again opened to view, and a paper airplane immediately flew out and conked the copper pegasus in the skull. “Dah! Sonuva—”