Fallout: Equestria - Murky Number Seven

by FuzzyVeeVee

Somepony Old, Somepony New

    “What's it like to be given a second chance at life?”

    Honestly?  I didn't see it like that.  A second chance implies I was just starting from square one again, like a...resoo...resurip...

    “Resurrection?”

    Yeah, one of those! This was different. It felt more like something had unlocked inside me and a new wave of thinking had come over me.  Everything that had happened while I'd been fighting for my own soul and life amongst the dark hallucinations of my mind just seemed to blur.  It became hard to remember the specifics, like a dream.

    I didn't need it though. On my back I bore a symbol of what had changed.  This wasn't starting again. This was reclaiming the pony I was supposed to be. The wings and cutie mark I'd now sat on my body like patient reminders.  I'd hated them, but they hadn't abandoned me all this time even if I hadn't seen them for what they were.

    Now I knew.

    This was the point of change.  The part of my life when I lay in a hospital bed and began to dream freely again.  I'd taken on the slave in my mind. Beating it back and bringing that part of me to the surface that truly wanted freedom.  Now nothing was going to force it back down ever again. We'd stalled, we'd struggled, and we'd suffered greatly, but with my revival a clarity of purpose came over all my companions as well in their relief.  As though their hope had been rekindled at the sight of my own breaking of the chains. Glimmer talked more of the things we'd gathered, how we could convert empty bullet casings I brought into small, explosive lockpicks.  That sort of thing. We knew that the escape was back on.

    “What about, y'know...him?”

    Chainlink Shackles?

    “Yes. You could actually say his name now? No more ‘My Master’?”

    Yes. That was the breakthrough. The moment I looked at him and saw a pony, not simply a master.  Don't get me wrong, Shackles terrified me to my core and I knew given half a chance he would seek to break me all over again.  But I could look him in the eye and defy now. I could be honest and truthful when I said that I was going to escape. That I had found the purpose that drove me, to forever hope for a better life out of this slavery hell we were all trapped in.

    Of course, that hardly meant that the trials were over for any of us.

    “Hmm?”

    Even as I woke filled with hope and found my friends spurring their relief into an energy for an escape plan.  Even as we began to gather tools in secret or work out routes in our heads, there was something else coming to the fore in Fillydelphia.  I had once seen slavers as a great singular force, but events of not too long ago had shown me different. Times were changing.

    Their great game of intrigue and politics was emerging.  That which was old was to be given new purpose as I found my life mirroring that of a certain somepony once again.  A revelation that brought their internal struggle closer to me than I might have ever realised.

    Even as my friends and I took refuge in Red Eye's day of rest, the past was about to make its intentions very clear.

    A blank page sat before me.

    The charcoal tasted foul in my mouth, as ever, but it was the fear underneath my skin that really affected me.  What if I couldn't do this still? What if I made a horrible block pony? I'd spent a lot of time in recovery trying to work up the courage to try this and yet I still couldn't bring myself to put charcoal to paper.

    Curling my thin blanket around me, feeling my body ache and sting under bandages, I rolled out my neck and felt a couple of stiff movements on my back.  It still hurt to move them for my muscles hadn't been used there in many years. The sensation was somewhere between relief and a long strain every time they shifted, the sort of thing you'd feel after a long exercise.

    Yet still, the knowledge they were there gave me a little hope.  Taking a deep breath, I leaned forward. The charcoal shook, unsteady and nervous.  Could I do this? Really, could I?

    A hoof wiped the worried sweat from my brow.  I had to try sometime. He wasn't going to beat me forever!  Not after all I'd been through. I was going to take back what was mine!

    Leaning down and bringing the charcoal tip to the centre of the page, I hesitated to draw one more breath, and drew a line.

    Shaking, yet straight, it lightly scrawled upon the paper, gaining ease with every inch until I let it flick up at the end, becoming a curve.

    I almost dropped the charcoal from the squeak of delight!

    Leaning back down, I caught the end of the curve and wrapped it around.  Winding and lightly whipping off here and there, it became a more knowing shape.  Yes, yes this could work!

    I fell away into the moment.  Free from their confines, my wings habitually spread out a little unsteadily to balance me.  Wincing on one side of my face, I leaned down to keep drawing. Black shapes formed and gelled together.  A strong 'almost circle' there, with concurrent lines drawing back for a perspective, yes! At the end I started adding the detail with little flicks for the mane and then filled it in with shading!  Big long lines around the edges for the light glowing from behind them, and then come back in to add that glint to their eyes with tiny circles to show light!

    Eventually, I realised it had all formed into something that became life.

    Feeling oddly exhausted, I sat back.  Before me lay the proof of my release and if anything the one image I remembered from that dream above any.  The one sight that had saved me at the very last moment.

    Before me I had drawn Unity reaching out toward me off the page, her hoof outstretched to try and grab mine.  Biting my lip, I lightly touched my own hoof to the drawing.

    “Thank you...”

    “Hmm?”

    The deep and rumbling voice made me jolt upright and turn.  Across the ward, near the door, Brimstone Blitz looked up toward me.  I still wasn't quite used to his scarring. I kept wanting to somehow wish he could regain that lost eye or make his body less warped and burned on that one side.  Almost out of sick humour, the blast had taken off his ear that wasn't scarred.

    “You say something, Murk?”

    “Oh, um, no.  Just muttering to myself.”

    I rubbed my hooves together awkwardly and felt my ears droop back.  Feeling my wings mimic the movement, I realised they were going to be an expressive side of me that was going to take a whole new world of getting used to.  Getting them to fold completely down wasn't so hard, but getting them back out from being folded back was occasionally a nightmare of little strains and pains.  I hadn't been able to fully outstretch them yet either. Weathervane had promised that would come in time, instructing both Glimmerlight and Coral on how to help them exercise by gently aiding their movement with hooves.

    Brimstone glanced across for a few more seconds before returning his gaze to the corridor outside.  He hadn't left my ward since I'd woken, remaining permanently on guard against anypony coming this way.  I didn't want to imagine what he'd do if anypony he didn't like came to try and visit.

    Not that it mattered.  Fears and horrors could wait. I could draw again!  The more I stared at Unity's caring eyes upon the page, the more I began to be delighted that I could do it!  My mind was doing backflips with ideas and concepts. What to do first? What best represented how I felt? Something big?  Doodle madly on a page? There were so many I had to get out of my system! I even thought about asking Brimstone, but I didn't imagine the stoic earth pony would have much to say.

    Oh wait...

    I began flipping back through page after page.  Masses of drawings flew by until I came to the one I wanted.

    Before me, I saw myself standing happily with my wings outstretched.  Just to my right, Glimmerlight stood mischievously and playful with Caduceus politely smiling from beside her.  A drawing I had started long ago and had somepony well overdue to add in.

    Behind myself and Glimmerlight and toward the left of the picture, I began to sketch.  Little faint lines to get my bearings first. They became more frantic, more emotionally driven.  Their size seemed to tower over myself, almost like a colossal shield around us. Ripples across the shape of a pony to draw it out and give the form definition took shape.  Having to be quick, I only glanced up a few times to check before putting my head down to work all the more.

    I had to erase a few lines, rub them out with the edge of my looser bandages and redo them, but that didn't matter!  My mind fell away into the drawing, my greatest release and calming activity as I started to solidify the lines. The outer shape I made really thick, trying to get the right impact of presence.  Even just seeing them made me feel as safe as I was with...

    ...with him here watching over me.

    Upon my drawing that I was quickly thinking of as a family photo, our great guardian now resided just behind us.  Brimstone Blitz stood with us. Tall, heavy, and stern, his eyes nonetheless held a spark of intelligence and knowing.  Even without a smile, I could tell he was at better peace with us than anywhere else.

    My eyes looked up from my page, seeing him sitting at the ward's door perpetually terrifying every nurse that happened to wander in without noticing him.

    I could see the same look.

    The guardian had found his calling at last, just as I had found mine.

    I screamed in pain.

    “Oh, hold still!”

    “I-yargh!  Ow! OW!”

    “Come on!  I've got to learn to help you with this as well.”

    My wing twitched and stung, my back and side muscles twitching and making spasms.  Glimmerlight's hooves gradually let the wing sink back down again without allowing it to snap back onto my side.  Eyes watering from the effort, I sank down on my front and relaxed to allow it to droop off to the side. Then yelped and squeaked as Glimmer began to knead around the base and stretch out the length of my wing.

    “Just think of the end result, when you can swish these babies out and woo everypony you want.  Now, try to lift them. Come on, you've got to start doing this more naturally yourself.”

    Lying on the hospital bed, I sighed and closed my eyes.  The muscles felt distant and dull. Sometimes my wings followed emotive response, like when I was shocked or happy, but manual movement just wasn't as easy.  Glimmer had been helping me try to get them to flare right out and up, but the process was slow.

    Seeing my little wings making tiny flaps and not quite coming to their full expansion, Brimstone grinned and chuckled to himself.

    “Anypony got a photo of that little Stable Dweller?  Pretty sure that'll get those wee things right up.”

    My eyes bolted open as I felt a blush form.  I hadn't even thought about that, uh...'problem.' Oh dear. Glimmer was going to have a field day sometime in the near future.

    Now however, she just laughed and patted my back before helping my wings to ease back to my sides.  I may have been embarrassed, but I was enjoying these hours of rest and recuperation with my friends.  They had been permitted to stay due to Red Eye's rest day and so far as the rest of Fillydelphia knew, I was dead.  No slavers would come hunting for me and Weathervane had provided me a secluded room. I knew we could trust his staff. All of them were fiercely loyal to Weathervane above anypony else.

    Really, I'd spent the majority of my time trying to work up the courage to do those drawings. Now that I no longer felt like I depended on her efforts to define me and my own goals, I had instead felt a healthier and simpler respect for what she did out there. Sitting listening to the DJ talking of Littlepip going 'off the map' on some legendary quest had set my imagination alight. I'd even drawn her a few times battling dragons or finding some huge artefact that could cure all the taint, including my lungs. I'd have liked that.

    As though on cue, I coughed.

    “Looks like it’s time for your medicine, then.” Glimmerlight ceased her chuckling to lift a measured portion of RadAway to me from across the room.  I knocked back the small amount, a specific level of it the nurses had set out for me to avoid wasting some if it wasn't needed. At least in here they could keep an eye on me and give me just as much as I needed to preserve stocks.  I hoped I could get some to take away.

    Taking the cup from me, Glimmerlight glanced again to my wings.  She'd been the most fascinated and delighted by them (bar myself, of course) of all my friends.  While I thought it was simple happiness for me, many times she'd mentioned that she wished she had them.  Briefly, I had wondered what that really said about Glimmerlight.

    I felt her hooves sorting my feathers and trying to help it all move better, muttering away as she did so.

    “Leastways I know to get you a feather comb for your birthday now.” She paused, blinking a few times.  “That's a point, when is your birthday anyway?”

    “I-I don't know...” Biting my lip, I felt my wings drawn in, nervous.  “Nopony ever told me really.”

    “You don't...I mean-huh?” Glimmerlight looked up at me, then to Brim, then to me again.  “Are you seriously telling me you have never had a birthday in your life?”

    Shifting, I sat up and rolled my neck.

    “What do you mean?  Of course I have. I just don't know when it is but it happens each year.  Isn't that what you mean?”

    “Murky...” Glimmerlight moved around, looking me in the eye.  “You do know that ponies have, y'know, parties for birthdays, right?”

    They did?  Aren't birthdays just like a day that denotes the precise time of birth each year?  Glimmerlight clearly saw the confusion on my face for she only shook her head and took a deep breath through her nose.

    “Well!” Her hooves grabbed my shoulders.  “If you don't know, then why not make it today?  Your first day of being awake to who you really are!  What better to choose if there's no other choice?”

    “You can do that?”

    “Sure!  Who says not to?  I had my birthday a week early last year because I couldn't be assed waiting!  So welcome to your first known birthday, Murky!”

    I just sat and blinked.  Was this allowed? Glimmerlight only laughed and hugged me gently.

    “Just you wait, lil'bro.  I'll show you what a birthday's meant to be, to welcome you to the day we head back up.  I did a little inventory in the Mall earlier. We've got a little food, some stored rainwater, a few large shells, makeshift mining tools, and after a little persuasion, we even got your battle saddle back off Blunderbuck...minus the pistol I'm afraid.  The moment you're better we are back in the game!”

    She ruffled my mane, seeing the hopeful smile.  I couldn't wait! I loved that feeling of checking things off my lists and seeing our little escape armoury grow!

    “Him being better shouldn't be a real problem by the end of today.”

    The rough voice from the doorway caught our attention.  Doctor Weathervane trotted in, bearing a small medical saddlebag no doubt intended for me.  Lifting it onto my bed, the ghoul began to wave his glowing horn across me.

    “The megaspell did its work pretty damn well. Better than I could have hoped.  Back when I spent days on those pissing annoying intricacies, I always figured it'd fuck up somehow.”

    “I...I never said thank you, for using it to save me.” I could feel Glimmer's hoof around my shoulders. My near death had hit her hardest of all.  “S-sorry it had to be it, your life's work and all.”

    “My life's work is to be a healer, kid.” His horn travelled to my back.  “I'd be a pretty fucking awful doctor if I let a pony die just because a spell was a one use thing.  Who am I going to wait to use it on? Just didn't think it would work at first, was all.”

    His horn changed its glow a little, picking a few potions and tablets from his saddlebag.  I recognised the foul purple potion he'd given me a lot of already. Seeing my look of disgust, he chuckled.

    “The worse it tastes, the better it is for you. Get it down that throat.  Now, most of the superficial damage is healed. The cut on your flank and the piercing on your leg have pretty much faded.  I'd keep the bandages over your midriff and neck for the time being though. Those were the worst wounds. They've closed and so far as I can see, the internal bleeding around your abdomen has ceased, but I don't want to take any chances with removing the healing bandages yet.”

    I snuggled a little closer to Glimmerlight.  I didn't want to think about those injuries.

    “Your wings have come along nicely.  The real problem is in your scapulars, marginal coverts, and alulas.  Very fragile things, pegasus wings. Capable of the most furious of movements and immense wind stresses yet so very light and easy to harm.  I had to lecture the Wonderbolts back in the day to stop those hotrod sods trying to showboat the day before their events. One scapular strain or pinched alula and the whole thing shuts down.  So keep on gently stretching them out.”

    Biting my lip, I nodded.  I had no idea what all these fancy words meant but I decided it probably meant 'the bits that hurt'.

    “So don't strain them and you should see a gradual healing take place.  I think I already told you not to expect any flight ever to come of it?”

    “Y-yes...” I turned away slightly.

    “Mm. That is unfortunate, I know.  Your growth development is likely already finished, Murk.  So the muscles around your scapulars near your body don't have any significant expansion left ahead of them.  But, just keep working at them and we'll see what happens. Now, I should think it best you get out of bed for a while.”

    “H-huh?  You mean...leave?”

    “Yes.  Leave the hospital.” He began setting out a small series of potions.  “Pegasi have a certain trot to them, their wings are not simply tacked onto any other pony body.  Remember how I knew what you were the second I saw you wander that skinny arse into my lab? You've got to get a trot going as part of your recovery, it'll help the muscles.  If I still had the physio pool I'd have thrown you in it, but it's pretty much my own personal pool with how fuckin' irradiated it is these days.”

    He looked as though he was unsure about adding something else.

    “Well, that and the slaver inspection's soon.  Always complaining about me using too much to save a life as though they fucking know how.  Moronic, cock-guzzling dildochickens! That they are! You don't want to be here when they arrive and I don't want to risk Murky in the radiation below to hide in the basement.  You're best to leave while the route outside is clear.”

    “Then I'm going with him.” Brimstone immediately spoke up, having been on his silent vigil.

    “Me too.” Glimmerlight nudged my side lightly.  I couldn't help but smile. Much as I liked being in here away from Fillydelphia in my mind, a trot with my friends would be good.  The industry was quiet today anyway. Coral Eve had returned to the Mall to rest, her injuries from trying to save me at the Pit still hurting.  She had brought the news that Shackles seemed oddly absent and the doors were wide open to come and go as you pleased.

    “Good, just make sure he trots right.  None of this head down bullshit I've seen him doing. A pegasus should stand with their head tall to have the optimum muscular layout.  Why do you think the Wonderbolts had that big, proud stance?  It's a pegasus thing. So you two keep him doing it or I'll make every medicine taste worse than brahmin shit every time you come here, got it?”

    I had to laugh, for I'd spotted the grin on Weathervane's face.  For all his bedside manner, I could see he was happy to have gotten back to his speciality with pegasi.  I could only hope it helped him against the growing anger and flickering light of sanity inside. He left me with a small amount of healing potions that Glimmerlight made sure I took.  The tingling in my belly, back, and neck from their effects healed up a little more of the horrific wounds as they took effect. They had already closed over but there was much damage to repair before I felt fine.

    Then I had a realisation, something I had forgotten.  I shouted out to Weathervane. He turned at the door.

    “Hmm?”

    “I-I met some ponies.  Friends of yours!”

    “Friends?”

    “From before. Um, ghouls!  N-Nurses Splint and Bedlay Bloom with um..um, Windtail Breeze and Baton...Baton...”

    “Baton Round?” Weathervane's voice lifted a little, a genuine unknowing in his eyes lighting up.  “They're all still alive?”

    “Yes!  I found them as slaves.  I just thought you'd w-want to know. They're still alive.  In the metro, I mean. Splint's keeping them going. They're on the route we're taking to get out.”

    Weathervane looked genuinely stunned.  As did Glimmer and Brim. They'd never heard me talk of these ghouls.  The ghoul turned in the door, leaning on the frame for a second.

    “I thought they died decades ago. If they're still alive, then...” He looked up. “The metro is Shackles' personal nightmare, Murk.  If they're down there they can't last long.”

    “No...they didn't look in a good way.”
   
    “Slaving motherfucker...” Weathervane muttered to himself, following it up with a curse so foul I saw even Brim wince.  “I will have to get to them, they were good friends. Thank you, Murk. I will see what I can do. If it's the last thing I do I will save them. Such good ponies do not deserve that.  By what remains of my life as a healer I will save them.”

    “We'll help them if we can, Doctor.” Glimmerlight nodded to him.  “We owe you more than life itself for what you've done for us.”

    “Sounds like you're heading that way anyway, not that I could talk you out of that stupid fuckin' plan...but thanks.”

    He trotted off.  I guessed he wasn't one much for optimistic moments.  I wished he'd just believe someday that he could take another life for himself out there.  Right now, however, we had to get moving.

    But I had one more thing to do before we left.

    Glimmerlight had brought me my fleece from the Mall, expecting me to wear it.  Picking it up from my little pile of belongings on the side table and offering a little smile to my statuette as I did so, I brought out my thread and needle along with a small pair of scissors nearby we'd used for my bandages.

    “Murky?  What are you doing?”

    Glimmerlight watched intently.  Even Brimstone cast a glance now and again.  Lifting my fleece, I held it to my side before going to work with the scissors and needle.  Strengthening areas, repairing the collar and legs of it, and patching any holes with black thread, I made it anew.  But then I took to the sides, digging in and scything chunks of wool out from it. A new sense of self-confidence came over me, a declaration of who I was as I slipped it on carefully and let my wings spread through the holes.

    Glimmerlight smiled brightly as I turned to her with a little grin, strapping on my PipBuck by the whipcord and slotting my goggles onto my head.  My saddlebag went over, neatly fitting over my wings with the straps.

    “I'm not going to hide who I am anymore, sis.” I spoke with more pride in myself than I ever had, swishing my wings a little stiffly until they settled in.  “Sha...Shackles tried to m-make me resent the kind of pony I am. I w-want to show myself that he was wrong.”

    Glimmer helped me off the bed, taking my weight as I unsteadily trotted a few steps forward before finding my balance properly.

    “I'm glad you finally see that, Murky.  They're a part of you and I can't imagine you without them.”

    Joining Brimstone, we set out.  Glimmer giggled, bumped my shoulder and continued.

    “Besides, just imagine what it'll be like to show a certain red-maned unicorn when he sees them.”

    “Glimmer!”

    We hadn't gone too far from the hospital.  With me trotting slowly and Brimstone still noticeably favouring his injured side, our walkabout wasn't exactly what you might call fast.  But the chance to simply wander and talk with my friends on a rest day was something I'd dearly needed. It gave me time to voice my feelings and concerns to them or get a reassuring hug when I needed it over what happened in the Pit and afterwards.  Not to mention telling Glimmer of my dreams, and thanking her over and over again.

    Fillydelphia itself had come out of the storm.  The ground was damp, but above us the dark clouds had parted to bring sickly yellow tinged with Filly's red haze.  In comparison, it felt almost as close as this city could get to a sunny day. With the forges silent and the slavers mostly indifferent to those who wandered free, there was a strange peace I'd never truly known from this place.

    Of course, we weren't going to pass up this chance.

    Open to explore, we headed toward the emergency exit from the metro I had climbed out of once before.  Climbing through the rubble to find the ruined staircase, I pointed into the darkness with a hoof.

    “This is it.  The ghouls, Weathervane's friends, they showed this to me.  It'll let us get into the metro quietly with a few ponies along with us.”

    Brimstone cast a dubious glance to the dark hole and its crumbling spiral staircase riddled with holes.

    “Doesn't look steady.  If we've got us three, Coral, two foals, and those two other mares you know the last thing we need is it to collapse.”

    “Um, y-yeah...”

    “Doesn't matter.” Glimmerlight lit her horn to look down herself and dropped a stone in.  Numerous seconds passed before I heard it hit the bottom and nodded to let them know. Glimmerlight pointed to a big stone pillar beside us from the old building that housed this part of the metro.  “We'll send Murky down first. He'll fire that hook of his back up and we'll tie it up here to lower everypony down one-by-one in a harness. They sent me to work in the place they make their battle saddles once.  I think I could maybe get their stronger ones to sustain even Brim's size. If they can support ranger armour I'm pretty sure they'll support you.”

    “Good.  You get that then.” Brimstone nodded in approval, before waving us away.  Last thing we needed was to be spotted here. “Just keep in mind we'll need to bring all our kit with us as well, that's one more lift.  Now let's get out of here. We don't need to attract any attention.”

    I went back out first.  The building the emergency staircase was sat in was an absolute wreck, not unidentifiable at all other than perhaps as some sort of construction for the metro system, one intended for staff only.  Just down the road I could see the much larger public metro station on the surface. Shackles' guards hung around the top of it. Even the memory of what laid down there frightened me.

    We'd have to go in there at least once.  Sunny was trapped in that mining hell down there and I was not leaving without her.  Not her or Unity. There had to be a way to find her. I wasn't abandoning her after what she'd done for me.  The moment I was better, I'd see about sneaking into the metro to evacuate Sunny through this hole. Shackles wasn't going to bash me into submission now. I had wings!

    We decided that we should head back to the Mall.  Shackles wasn't there for sure and I knew a way to sneak out now anyway. We'd head back, count out all the cool stuff, get to hear Glimmer talk about the cool things she would make, and then I'd get to-oooh yes. I'd get to check things off the checklist!  Eee!

    Glimmer chuckled, seeing the light bounce to my trot.  Ruffling my mane, she leaned down to me.

    “I'm glad to see you smile, Murky.  Keep that hope alive, you smiling makes all of us want to.”

    “I will.  I mean, I'll t-try.” I offered a grin to seal the deal.  Glimmerlight nodded curtly and resumed looking ahead. We weren't being bothered and Brim's presence made anypony who looked at my (proudly) displayed wings with distaste think twice before causing a problem.  All the same, we tried to avoid attention. We had enough enemies in this city.

    To avoid just that, we took the other way home, passing around near the old pegasus skyport and sticking to the smaller streets.  I trotted behind them, with Brim leading the way. All the while, I simply tried not to look at the control tower. I didn't need to remember that now.

    Beep!

    My eyes jolted open further, stopping on the spot.  Raising my PipBuck to my eyes, I glanced at it. Didn't it only go off at heights?

    Beep!  Beep!

    The sound was quiet.  Likely only I heard it.  Ahead of me, Glimmer and Brimstone moved out of the building.  Glimmer was chatting about something to him, but I didn't pay any attention. Just something about what we needed.

    Beep!  Beep! Beep!

    The sound picked up, before my PipBuck's screen seemed to flare, spark, and struggle to display something.  Wincing away as a part of exposed circuitry popped, I worried if it was breaking.

    Instead, it only flickered more.  Squinting and looking close, I saw something appear upon it.  A set of words at the top scrolled by quickly. Then below it a symbol began flashing.  The smashed screen flickered a lot, but it looked like a set of three party balloons.

    A little chill passed through my body.  I knew what they were. No. Nooooo no no no!  That creepy ever-watching pink demon could stay out of my PipBuck!  Just because they got Sundial doesn't mean they'll get me!     

    The balloons warped and disappeared, being replaced by what looked like an arrow.

    I looked up, but it only pointed to a blank wall.

    Glimmerlight really needed to have a look at this thing.  Some circuit probably blew out. I'd never been to this area of Fillydelphia before. Maybe its map systems were freaking out from some old Pinkie-related broadcast in the air.  Best just to ignore it.

    Not so easy.  As I trotted to catch up, I saw the arrow changing and constantly pointing backward in one direction.  It occurred to me that perhaps it had been pointing to something on the other side of these houses we trotted amongst.

    Carefully, bending low and sneaking forward, I poked my head out into the road.  A few slavers half-drunkenly staggered down it and the occasional converted home into a small slave den cast light onto the tarmac, but otherwise nothing.  Looking down, the arrow pointed across the street and down the road a little. Then I saw it.

    Standing taller than the rest, there was some form of government building.  It held the same strength I'd seen on many of the Ministry related constructions, with thick corners and sometimes even unbroken windows.  Yet it was not a Ministry Hub, for I could see a large sign on the outside bearing a book. It was a library.

    The arrow on my PipBuck pointed relentlessly toward it, no matter which way I held it.  I just didn't get it. I wondered if I should get Glimmer and Brim, investigate what this was to-

    A sudden shout disturbed my thinking.

    “You!  Get away from us!”

    Glimmer!

    I didn't even think. I simply turned back into the alley and galloped toward my friends.  I heard a group of voices all shout out. Weapon safeties clicked and hooves stomped. I heard Brim snort and grind his hooves upon the ground in warning.

    Then I burst out of the alley into an almost completely destroyed warehouse.  The roof had flown off long ago in some balefire-driven shock wave, leaving it a featureless skeleton of gantries and girders where the flimsy walls had once been.

    Within it, I saw Glimmer and Brimstone surrounded in a half circle by slavers.  At their centre stood an altogether annoyingly familiar figure. Wormtail.

    “It's not exactly hard to track two slaves when one is about four times the size of anypony else.” He stopped, looking over toward me.  “Oh hello, what have we here?”

    Skidding to a halt, I found Glimmerlight quickly blocking the way between me and him.

    “You're not having him!”

    “I don't think you all have much a choice.  See, my own master tasked me to find you two.  He wasn't particularly pleased with the result in the Pit.  Seems he wants you eliminated, but now I see a much better prize we all thought gone to bring home to master.”

    He leered at me.  I shook, the thought disgusting and terrifying me.  I wouldn't. I wouldn't!

    “As if you can just take him while I'm here.” Brimstone snarled at the scrawny figure of Wormtail, who only seemed to fake a pout and make a snorting laugh.

    “You can try.”

    A dozen large rifles and even a double shotgun battle saddle spun his way.  Brimstone's eyebrows narrowed.

    “You think you can wander?  Oh sure, the normal slavers might not go for you, but I come from a much higher authority.  One who can get a griffon to spot you from the air. One that wants his pet back. Now come on, little runt.  Daddy's waiting.”

    “N-no!” I stomped one hoof, before squeaking in surprise as my saddle's mouthpiece whipped out accidentally from the movement.  The slavers laughed, but Glimmerlight had my back.

    “He's not going back to him.  Not after what's happened! Murky's no slave any more.  Don't bring this to violence because I promise even if you kill us all I'll make sure I get you somehow before it goes down.”

    “Of course you will, my dear.  But you see, I have twelve heavily armed allies at least twenty feet away with their tongues on the triggers and you have a half dead raider with no weapons.  Hand him over. I'll maybe see that you at least find a home, my dear.”

    “Not a chance.”

    “You don't have much a choice, you know!  Hah!”

    “Want him, you gotta take him.” Brim lowered himself down.  “If Glim doesn't get you, I will.”

    “Yes, yes, of course, but hooves don't do well against guns.  Do learn how fighting works, big boy, before you try and act like you understand it.”

    For a second, I thought Brimstone was going to simply charge for that one remark.  However much it his condescending attitude infuriated me, he was right. We didn't even have space to retreat.

    Stalemate. Only they could end the stalemate with a victory whenever they wanted!

    So...not a stalemate at all then.

    “Come on, little slave.  Maybe I'll even let your friends live if you come here.  I'm sure the Master wouldn't mind that once he saw he was getting you back.  Come on. Just trot over.”

    I looked around.  Anything to grapple?  Just old bars, nothing above them.  Nothing they couldn't shoot me long before I managed to tug anyway!

    “I said come on!  Just obey and trot forward.  Do I have to shoot one of them to get it through to you?  Do I?”

    I paced on the spot.  I tried to think, my wings shaking a little by my side.  The same look was on Glimmer's face.

    “He is not going back to him!” She grit her teeth.  “He's realised who he is and he is not that monster's pet slave!”

    “Oh for crying out loud, must you make this so tiring?  Blockhead, shoot the mare.”

    “Yis, boss.”

    The rifle came up.  I saw Brimstone look to dive, his instinct to protect Glimmerlight kicking in.  I think I screamed. I knew he was too far away.

    The gunshot snapped out.

    The rifle seemed to flare, but not from the barrel.  A bright spark from the stock nearer the slaver's face sent the weapon spinning away.  My ears stung from the sound, but even while recovering I began to hear where it had come from.  Behind and above us.

    “Stand down! All of you!”

    Glimmerlight had winced back, expecting the pain.  We met eyes in disbelief, before both turning to the real source of the gunshot.

    Behind us, atop a set of gantry stairs from a far entrance, we saw him.  His revolver floated just near a blinking red eyepiece to aim down its scope, his red mane blew loose in the light breeze around his head.

    Protégé trotted forward down the stairs. Keeping his revolver trained on the group of slavers.  He wasn't wearing his armour, just the scholarly vest and day clothes. As he passed, I saw his eye briefly turn to me and acknowledge my presence before returning to Wormtail.  The weasel-like aid to Shackles had clenched away from the disarmed slaver on the gunshot and now strove to keep his presence up.

    “Wormtail, you don't have authority to go around shooting workers.  Especially not valued ones.”

    Wormtail merely snickered, wringing out his neck.

    “I'd heard you were back on your hooves.  Looking to make up for how you failed at the Mall, eh?  Trying to make up for all your bad planning by acting hard, pointing a gun at another slaver?”

    “You know as well as I what transpired there.  Just as you know why I keep this drawn.”

    I saw some of the slavers actually grin.  Suddenly, I got a sense that something bigger had suddenly transpired in the background.  Protégé wasn't paying us much attention despite saving Glimmer's life. Ahead of us, Wormtail calmed a little, shaking out his neck again.

    “Well I'm afraid this is a stupid little move for you again.  See, Chainlink Shackles doesn't like you, and you've just revealed yourself, on your own, with only five shots in your revolver.  I'm sure no-pony would be able to find you after you mysteriously disappeared.”

    “Not going to happen.  Murk and his friends are coming with me.  You know I've been put back in charge of the Mall. They will be protected.”

    What?  YES!

    “Only until Chainlink is healthy again, since that brute over there got near him! Don’t you smirk, raider! You've got a day at most before you'll be kicked out all over again!  The slaver council isn't too happy with you. Not that it matters. Didn't you hear me? You aren't leaving here alive! Shackles told me you were back on the trot, aiming to save your little favourite runt.”

    His eyes narrowed.

    “He also told me if I got the chance to simply kill you and dump your body in the taint.  See? That's why it's good to have allies. Something you don't know.”

    The weapons aimed again.  They were all Shackles' lackeys, I knew it!  What was Protégé doing? He had to know he couldn't win!

    “Hm, funny.” Protégé smiled.  “I happen to have a friend in a very high place too.”

    There was an odd silence.  Nopony really got what he meant.  I saw it first, a small red dot creeping over Wormtail's face.  Reaching his eye, it made him squint and yelp from the glare.

    “There's a helpfulness to having a sworn griffon bodyguard who's a handy sharpshooter too, you know?  You give one order, she'll pull the trigger. Murk here can attest to her accuracy on the move, never mind your head standing still.”

    The atmosphere seemed to change.  Wormtail looked a lot less confident all of a sudden.  Glancing from side to side, now he was the one having to really try and think.

    “You...you...”

    “Goodbye, Wormtail.  I'll no doubt enjoy your presence again later.”

    “Insufferable...everypony, let's go.  Shackles will want to know the runt's alive!  You didn't save him, upstart! You can't save him!  You're alone in Fillydelphia now, Protégé!  Just a slave playing at slaver! Just you wait!”

    He turned, trotting away.  Almost disappointed, the slavers obediently left.  Only then did I notice how much I was shaking. Thank the Goddesses for his return!  Trotting over, I saw Protégé let out a relieved breath of his own.

    “Thank you, ma...” I coughed a little over my word. No using that any more.  Even if he is the only one I ever perhaps respected back. “Thanks.”

    He turned back to me.  Out of the moment, I began to see how rough he really was.  His normally ponytailed mane was loose and his clothes loosely fitted from a significant loss in weight.  I presumed it was from the treatments to cure Barb's poison.

    “Wormtail is a coward.  If he thinks his own skin's in danger he'll always back off.  He relies on hiding behind Shackles' power. I'm just glad you had that PipBuck on you to track once I got out.”

    I could see a heavy swathe of bandage over his neck just like mine.  Seeing my own, Protégé's face turned from relief to concern.

    “Murk, I heard about the Pit.  They said that 'the pegasus' had been in there and it's all they talked about.  Even Master Red Eye was rather perplexed by it. I am most grateful to see you're alive, for the longest time I-I thought...”

    “As did we.” Glimmerlight cast a hoof around my neck.  “A few miracles and a lot of self-discovery involved perhaps, but he's still here trotting with us.  Thank you, Protégé. You mentioned you were back in charge of the Mall?”

    He nodded curtly, then winced from the motion shifting his bandage.  Of course, he hadn't had a megaspell to help it.

    “A temporary judgement.  I know the Mall so I've been assigned to merely care for it until Shackles is healed himself.  Not very long at all. Grindstone has convinced the council that the riot and its outcome was my doing.  He and Shackles played their cards well. Make no mistake, there is a great game of intrigue and politics coming to light now. Something I know of but cannot prove beyond my own words.”

    He cast a glance to Brimstone.

    “It seems you did more than you may have thought.  Allegedly, once he got back to his office after your attack he collapsed.  He must have just been trying not to let it happen in front of the slaves.”

    I couldn't help but see a satisfied little smirk across Brim's face.

    “He will return as walking wounded in a day. Shackles is no weak pony.  Until then, I have overseer duty similar to Shackles' own limbo period before he was handed power over the Mall.  Somewhere I advise we return to now rather than be exposed.”

    “No argument from me.” Glimmerlight nodded.  I could sense how relieved she really was.

    “Good, then let us make swift pace.  I have no wish to meet another group of those loyal to Shackles and Grindstone.”

    Behind us, Ragini bounded across the remains of the warehouse.  A gut-wrenching feeling hit me as I saw her broken wings clasped to her side.  She was ground-ridden. There was a brief moment as she saw my wings half spread where I saw confusion and shock in her eyes.  Before I could think of any words, she hid it under a veil of professional blankness.

    With her there, we began to move off.  Falling back in pace with me, Protégé glanced over and saw my wings.  I noticed he kept his voice low, respectful of Ragini's presence.

    “I'm glad to see that the ghoul doctor's treatments are helping, Murk.  Please, would you do me a favour and attend my office upon your return?”

    “Um, y-yes?”

    He looked surprised, as though expecting a 'Master' on the response.

    “Good.” He picked up his pace, trotting ahead to lead the way naturally.  “I have missed our talks.”

    The mall was bustling.  Ponies were coming and going in a constant stream with hazy eyes.  Shackles' influence finally being lifted was like a brief haven for them, even if just for one day.  Most took the chance to grasp what little freedom to wander as they could, enjoying a day free of toil to get some food or simply a change of scenery.

    Protégé cast a disapproving eye upon the quality of the slaves.  Most regarded him with something of a curious glance, some asking if he was back forever.  I saw one slave plead that he be with them again. Red Eye's apprentice could only offer that he would do what he could within one day.

    When he saw the plaza, I almost felt like he was going to break the stoicism he bore to look upon what had changed in horror.

    “This isn't what I wanted.”

    Likely only I heard it, the pain in his voice.  With a deep sigh, he turned to me as he moved to the stairs back to his office.

    “Please, do come visit.  I want to hear in your words what has happened.  I'll give you a few seconds to settle.”

    He spoke quickly and curtly, before swinging to leave.  I was left with Glimmerlight and Brimstone, both rather quiet at first.  Naturally, it would fall to Glimmer to break the silence a little.

    “Well?  Let's get in there and get to work.  Got a lot of planning to do.”

    We trotted into the plaza more fully.  Cells were laid open with a skeleton crew of slavers waiting around, however the main draw was a series of tables set up around the area manned by slaves themselves.  The slave market had come to visit the beleaguered residents of the Mall, seeking to gain from their wish to escape harsh control. Trinkets, foods, purified water, and clothing were all laid out and being furiously haggled over.  Sooty wasn't to be seen. I presumed he was above this now, or that several of the traders reported back to him.

    We returned to our cell, finding Coral waiting for us.  But even as they trotted in, I looked to the balcony above, seeing a brief glance of Protégé passing by it to his office.  Something felt different about him. He was quieter, less poetic and optimistic of purpose.

    I felt a hoof on my shoulder.  Glimmer.

    “You go see him, Murky.”

    I turned to her with an aim to cut the joke short but saw only a calm seriousness.

    “We can handle checking all we have ourselves.  Go see how he is. That pony saved our lives as much as you saved his.  I know you'll want to catch up, but could you just leave your PipBuck here a moment?  I want to try and see if I can't load a stored map from Aurora's files onto it.”

    Biting my lip, I looked back up for a second before nodding.

    “Thanks, sis.”

    Feeling her pat my cheek comfortingly, I hoofed over my PipBuck and left them to it, trotting toward the stairs.  I knew the way just fine, but even so I felt an odd nervousness of confronting him once again. As though I didn't know quite what to say or where to start.  Things had changed and it had been so long. I wasn't the same pony he once knew.

Would he be the one I knew?

    Carefully cresting the stairs and poking my head out to watch the corridor (too near his office for my liking) I began to trot toward the office door, and found that Ragini stood on watch outside it.  I didn't imagine Protégé was taking any chances with another attempt on his life. She regarded me as finely as ever.  (By which I mean as though I were something she'd accidentally stepped on.)

    “Want in?” Her voice cut into the air, as though trying to use as little syllables possible.

    “Y-yes please.” I nodded, stepping forward as she nodded to the presumably unlocked door.  As I passed her, I saw the ruin of her wings by her sides and knew from horrible experience the true meaning of it.

    “I'm-I'm sorry for what happened to you, Ragini.” I looked up at the huge griffon.  “I know what it feels li-yargh!”

    She grabbed me by the collar, pulling me right up to her beak with fury in her eyes.

    “No you don't, flightless!  Don't you dare tell me you know how it feels to lose your wings!  You've never tasted the air above the clouds, never felt the rush through your body in a straight dive or the satisfying ache the day after a challenging flight!  Those feathers of yours do not know what it is to be a flyer!  So don't you come here with your magically healed little shaking wings by your side and have the nerve to say you know how I feel!”

    She dropped me.  Landing on my rump with a yelp, I cowered away from the furious griffon, her face screwed into anger alone.

    “So answer me two questions, flightless.  Could what you got for your wings work for me?”

    Shivering, I shook my head.

    “Then fuck off with your concern.  I'm one of the Talons. We don't want sympathy.  Second question...”

    She bent right over me, turning her head to the side so that her eye could better stare at me.

    “Did any of those that did this get away?”

    “Y-yes.”

    There was a pause, then she seemed to smile.  It was not a nice smile.

    “They had their little revenge pacts.  The Talons don't let this sort of thing go unanswered either.  Eye for an eye. Thank you for telling me this, flightless.”

    Her back leg knocked the door open rather too sharply before harshly inclining with her head.

    “Now get your scrawny ass in there.”

    Afraid to even voice any further words, I darted inside and closed the door readily, taking a second to breath on the other side.

    “I see Ragini still adores you, Murk.”

    The moment the door closed, he spoke from across the room.  I turned a little too sharply to see him amidst a state of devastation.  Protégé held many books in his telekinesis, trying to sort out the mess that Shackles' slavers had made of his office.  Bookshelves were tumbled over, papers spread out of cabinets, and all his furniture shifted around. I even saw one row of books simply thrown across the floor.

    Oh wait. That bit had been me...

    ...oops?

    “It's, um, all right.  I guess I'm sort of used to it now.” I trotted forward, allowing my eyes to fall instead to him.

    “She has a lot of anger to get out, don't take it to heart.  Anyone not in her contract has been getting it from her lately.”

    Protégé turned back to me, setting a dozen books on his desk.  I couldn't help but be struck by how little energy he really gave off.  Every time before I had seen him, Protégé had a certain presence, a spark within him that had controlled any given encounter.  Yet now, he moved slower, favouring his neck with any movements around the tightly wrapped clean bandages. His eyes looked tired and his mouth seemed to fight to not allow for a frown to come over him.  I almost wanted to just start telling him it would all be all right somehow.

    “I must thank you personally, Murk.” He sat atop a stool nearby, indicating another across the room if I wanted it.  “There's no other way to put it. You saved my life by taking on Barb. I heard what you did to him and all I can say is...I’m glad that I was right about you.  There is certainly more to you as a pony than many saw.”

    Taking a careful seat, I toyed with a small book that had been in the way.   

    “I just got lucky.”

    “Nonsense, Murk.  That took bravery.  Even now I look upon you and I see a different pony than the one that I last saw calling me 'master.' Something has changed you, I don't need to see your wings recovering to know that.  There's one crucial difference I spotted the moment I saw you again, and again the moment you walked in this door.”

    “H-huh?”

    Protégé allowed a small smile to cross his face.  “You turned to me and you looked me in the eyes. You've never done that before, not like that. Please, tell me. What changed?”

    I nodded, placing the book down.  “Yes, yes I have changed. There's a...l-lot...”

    I felt a pressure behind my eyes.  What I'd been through. Of being broken, forced into work, held down and made to call Shackles 'Master' again and again. It all flooded back in one tidal wave.  Clenching my eyes shut, I wiped away the little dampness that had come forth. I heard Protégé shift, leaning forward in concern.

    “I told you once before that I was willing to hear you out, Murk.  That offer still stands.”

    Looking up, I tried to hide the wetness in my eyes with a hoof.  I was stronger now. I could see I was not meant to be a slave. I could see I was meant to be free.  But that didn't mean it all didn't still hurt terribly. Sniffing, I began to tell him everything from the start.  Since the moment he had been crippled; and I held none of it back. He was a very good listener. I might have sniffled a few times, or stumbled and repeated myself, but he was patient and only interrupted me to clarify some things or to ask intelligent questions.

    Eventually I spoke of the mostly faded nightmares and dreams I had travelled in my near death.  Protégé leaned forward, closely interested as he heard me talk of my past with my mother and of how I gained my cutie mark.

    “That's what changed, it all stemmed from this one thing.” I wiped my eyes and looked across the room, turning slightly that he could see my cutie mark.  “It means to be free. My life isn't to be in slavery, it's to escape from it! Coming to Fillydelphia was nothing more than me reaching the end of the line, the place I would escape from and begin my life for real!  The friends I've met here were what I was to truly find. A family I chose for myself. I want to be free. I've said it so many times but only now do I really...well, understand it. I have to be free.”

    There was an odd silence, before Protégé nodded slowly.

    “I see.  Believe that by my power I would want it for you, Murk.  I gained my freedom to choose my path, so I can but say I wish the same for you in return.  However, Shackles will not want it of you. What you have been through under him-”

    He looked away.

    “I know what it's like.  Perhaps not to the same malicious extent to focus on you above all, but I know the weight of his authority upon my shoulders and now he seeks to do it again.” He slowly drew himself up, opening his eyes.  “You can gain your freedom in Fillydelphia, Murk. So long as we can keep you from him then I believe you can last the two years to-”

    “I will not wait two years more to lose my life, Protégé!”

    I snapped up, standing and facing him.

    “Don't come back and tell me that I am just to go back to slavery!”

    “I cannot simply release you, Murk.  You know this.”

    “I've seen what I need to do in my life now!  How can you stand there and tell me that I've to endure Stables and risk my life for years to 'earn' my freedom that I need to seek for myself!  After all this, after all you've been through, how can you tell me that it's right?”

    “Master Red Eye offers only these options, Murk!  I can help you-”

    I stomped a hoof hard.  “Not for two years of this! I won't last two years!  I thought you were better than this when we last talked!  That you wanted something better that wasn't going to be pain and misery simply to get what I have always been denied!  You can-”

    “Enough!”

    Protégé snapped at me, standing up. Yet even as he did, he sighed, looking away.

    “I’m sorry, I didn't mean to shout. I said I could help you, but you didn't let me speak.  I spent a long time recovering, Murk. A long time to think, to read, and to speak with those I could.  Old Grizzly predominantly visited in lieu of my master from his attentions to the final preparations for the cathedral and Unity.  I would have spoke with him, told him all of what happened, but there are greater plans at stake now.”

    He trotted closer to me.

    “I have a way I can help you, Murk.  To make this journey easier to bear. If you will but listen?”

    I was breathing hard.  The emotions of slavery in the past few days had wrung me hard and I felt ready to burst out at anything.  But I nodded and sat again. Protégé sat upon the floor near his desk, lifting the eyepiece from his face.

    “There is something happening in Fillydelphia, Murk.  Something you saw an example of when Shackles betrayed us both and from what Wormtail was saying.  It is being called the great game by some, a power struggle as they sense Master Red Eye's final victory drawing near.  Every member of his staff seeks to be in the most advantageous position to reap the rewards or bask in the power that it shall bring.”

    “I-I know.  I've seen Shackles' meetings, he made me serve for them.”

    “Then you know what kind of seriousness they give to this, Murk.  Intrigue and hidden politics are crossing over into a mess of loyalties and back room activities.  I shan't drown you in the specifics, but due to my position of favour beside Master Red Eye they see me as a threat.  I have precious few allies left, yet many seek to discredit me. My time is rushed and I am fighting a losing battle to keep my own interests solid while maintaining my responsibilities.”

    He spoke even as he wandered the room.  His magic began to lift more books, replacing them on shelves before leaning down with a painful grunt to try and lift a bookcase.  Without thinking, I went over to help him.

    “What-ergh...what are your responsibilities now?”

    “Logistics.” The bookcase snapped upright.  “I am to help direct Master Red Eye's material supply and personnel reserves as his supervisor.  It is...without recognition. A demotion for sure.”

    We both leaned back on the bookcase.  Glancing over, I could hear the disappointment in his voice.  Here was the pony I knew who once dreamed of making something better out of all this, now denied that link to the very ponies he sought to help.

    “I don't understand.  You said you could help me. What does this have to do with their arguments?”

    Having trotted back to the desk to begin picking up his notes, Protégé turned back to me.

    “As I said, I had a great amount of time to think, read, and talk.  Hearing of what Chainlink Shackles did to you, forcing you to admit his ownership of you made me realise and see the way out for you.”

    He turned, trotting right up to me, placing a hoof on my shoulder.

    “I can offer you a new task in Fillydelphia...by my side.”

    My eyes shot open wider.  “Wh-what?”

    “Murk, the ponies who control things in here are often not nice people at all.  Yet if one requests a pony join them as a personnel liaison and assistant it is up to the slave to decide.  It never gets brought up much because no slave would want to go with it.  Shackles trapped you in it, but you hold the power to choose to accept me as your new immediate...” He paused, clearly not sure about the word.  “...master.”

    My mind reeled somewhat.  Was it really that simple?  I knew I could say yes and avoid Shackles forever now!  He held no chains over me to stop me simply agreeing!

    Yet something stopped me.  I could tell how much Protégé saw this as something only for good but there was one thing that mattered before I simply agreed.

    “My friends can come too, right?”

    There was an uneasy silence.  The look on his face said it all, the look that wished I hadn't asked that.  Protégé didn't need to say a word.

    “You want me to come with you and you alone?  To abandon my friends to Chainlink Shackles?”

    “I know, Murk.”

    “You want me to just-to just go from one master to another!  To ask me to be your slave-”

    Protégé looked up quickly.  “An assistant.”

    “A slave is a slave!”

    My outburst seemed to have surprised him.  I knew I could say it now, my mind felt more free!  All the things I wished I could stick up for and say suddenly felt able to be said!

    “How can you expect me to leave behind my friends?  Can't they come? Please, tell me they can come somehow!  Be your team! We can all help you!”

    “I'm afraid that's not possible, Murk.  I can't simply take such a chunk of his workforce away. The rules of Master Red Eye's organisation do not allow it.  I am sorry, Murk. I know this is harsh. But I'm sure they would want this for you. When he returns, Chainlink Shackles will destroy you.  Think of what you told me, what he wanted Sooty Morass' despicable outlet to have you for.”

    That struck deep.  I trotted back from him, any exultation and bravery replaced with fear.  This was toying with my mind, giving me choices I wished I didn't have to make.  H-he was right. I didn't want to go there. I'd come to realise so much but it all felt so fragile.  If he got a hold of me again...

    I sank down onto my haunches.

    “Murk, you don't have to decide now.”

    Protégé moved forward again and sat before me.  His eyes showed genuine care as he set a hoof on each of my shoulders.

    “This is all I can offer with what I have now.  You have so much to offer and I could help you find it.  You would be more independent and active with me than you would ruining your body in some mill or factory.  You will still be able to participate in the salvage programs to earn your freedom, but you will be away from his ownership.  Safe with me. Please, I only ask that you think it over before he returns and I am forced away from the Mall.”

    “I-I will...”

    “Thank you, Murk.” He closed his eyes briefly.  “If it's worth anything, I am so sorry for what happened.  I wish I could have been there to help you.”

    He got up to trot back to his desk.  Behind him, I let my head droop. Every bit of logic said I should agree, but leaving my friends behind to serve a new master...even if that master was Protégé?  To help Red Eye's efforts still? Wasn't this just what I'd been seeking to get away from?

    Unless...

    “You could come with us.”

    My voice was barely a whisper, just enough that I saw him stop.

    “Murk?”

    I got up, moving one step closer.

    “Come with us.  Join us.  Protégé, you're too smart a pony to not have noticed what we're trying to do.  You have to have known that we're trying to escape someday. Look at what's happening.  The ponies after your life? Being put into organising what spare parts go where? All instead of what you wanted.”

    I moved a little closer, this time resting my hoof on his shoulder instead of his on mine.  He didn't move, simply staring ahead.

    “You're a better pony than anypony else working for Red Eye. You can come with us.  They would allow it, I'm sure they-”

    “Stop, Murk.”

    His voice cut in sharply before mine, tapering to a gentle tone.

    “Please, Protégé.  If you're free with us you could do something better out there!  With your help we could-”

    “I said stop.” He trotted forward, the eyepiece floating up to his face as he made for his desk.  “I have a path I chose for myself. The day I ceased to be a slave I chose to stay and share in his dream.  My place is here in Fillydelphia. By his side.”

    “Even while he promotes slavers like Shackles above you to do what they do to us?”

    I stood before his desk as I saw that quill and parchment roll out, no doubt a message.  He hesitated and looked up only briefly.

    “Master...Master Red Eye sees fit to choose.  I...trust him. It's his decision.”

    Biting my lip, I watched him begin to write.  I saw the weakness in his eyes, the tiredness and the harm across his body.  I remembered the scars.

    My voice was quiet, fragile in its hushed tone to ask.

    “Are you really sure you stopped being a slave?”

    The quill stopped, but he did not look up.

    “...good day, Murk.  Enjoy your time of rest.”

    That was that.  He went back to his message, leaving me nothing but to turn and leave his office.

    I trotted a little morosely down the stairs.  Heading back to the plaza, I was a little surprised to see Glimmerlight, Brim, and Coral Eve coming the opposite way.  Behind them I saw Blunderbuck in tow.

    “H-huh?  What's g-going on?”

    “Turn around, lil'bro!  We're going out!”

    I didn't have much choice.  Her magic picked me up mid trot and spun me 180 to follow their direction.  In my confusion, I didn't even stop trotting the entire time.

    “G-going out?  Where? Glimmer what's going on?”

    She just ruffled my mane, glancing to the smiling faces of the others.  Even Coral Eve held a little rare grin.

    “Red Eye's day of rest, remember?  You really think I'm going to miss a chance to attend the Roamer Bar when it gets opened to slaves?  I've got a date with some serious ethanol!”

    “Ethawhat?”

    Her eyes glinted as we passed out the front of the Mall.  Only now did I notice that she carried a new saddlebag filled with unknown items.

    “Liquid fun, Murky.  Liquid fun.  Besides, we've got something to celebrate.”

    Glimmerlight seemed rather lighter of heart than I'd ever seen her lately.  Even with her bruised body and great deal of exhaustion, she somehow found the energy to make a flighty trot toward the Roamer ahead of our group.  Sometimes she would skip in circles until we caught up.

    “Been so long since I've had a proper booze up!  Wonder if I can still down it with the best of them?”

    She chirped and hummed all the way there across the gravel fields of what was once Fillydelphia's main park.  Up ahead I could hear a crowd of voices, scratching music, and the clank of ceramic objects fairly repeatedly.  The Roamer sounded busy, but only after we rounded a large dead bush and saw its light across an empty pond did it truly sink in.

    “Behold, Murk!” Blunderbuck wrapped a hoof around my neck and swept the other one out toward the bar.  “Fillydelphia's prime establishment of alcohol, drunken hijinks, and absolute fun!”

    It was much bigger than I had expected!  The only bar I'd ever seen was just a small tavern a slave caravan carrying me had once stopped at.  But this was a full converted building! I saw two floors lit up over the old cobbled road with crude letters made of all materials bolted onto the abandoned third floor.  They flickered with Hearths Warming lights wrapped around them and dropped a rather garish mixture of colours mixed in with the warm light exuding from the building. Outside, everything had spilled out to accommodate the slaves taking the time to visit.  Benches and makeshift tables spread almost across the road, filled with riotous ponies gulping drinks and laughing amongst themselves.

    I just gulped.  It looked pretty crowded in there with numerous ponies already showing the effects of the drink as they staggered around.

    “Aw yeeeah!” Glimmer shouted and hopped up onto a bench to gaze down at the Roamer.  “Now that's what I'm talking about! That, my friends, is where you can really feel alive and free.”

    Coral Eve just shook her head and muttered something about certain ponies never growing past their teens.  The others trotted forward toward Glimmer. Brimstone actually seemed to be grinning a little himself.

    “Aye, can't deny it'll be welcome.  Even if it is that water they call ale.”

    “Seemed to get me plastered just fine last time.” Glimmerlight pouted up at the big pony, who simply shrugged.

    “Then what does that say about you, Glim?” Brimstone didn't even turn his head as he trotted off, still limping on the one horribly scarred side of his body.

    I had to stifle my laugh into my hoof at the sudden look of having trotted right into that one on Glimmerlight's face, before she stomped a hoof and stuck out her tongue at Brimstone's back.  Then she turned back to me as Blunderbuck moved forward, carrying another of those saddlebags.

    “Hey, Murky?  Wait out here with Coral, she'll bring you in soon.”

    “H-huh?  Why?”

    “Can't tell!” She grinned brightly, patted the saddlebag, and galloped off while shouting over her shoulder.  “It's a surprise!”

    I exchanged a look with Coral, who simply nodded to me.  I opened my mouth, but she cut in before me.

    “Not.  Saying.  A word.” She pronounced it all cheerily and patted my head.  “Just wait a few minutes, Murky. Then we'll go in and meet them.”

    Confused, I looked to my other friends disappearing into the Roamer.  The crowds parted before Brimstone while Glimmer and Blunderbuck waded in behind him.  Away from the noisy crowds and clank of tankards, Coral and I stood waiting patiently. In the dark of the evening, I saw her eyes stare across the city.

    “What is it?”

    Coral kept looking.  Only after a few seconds did I realise it was toward the direction of the Alpha-Omega Hotel.  Coral sighed briefly and patted a hoof on the ground.

    “Just...just hard to ever stop thinking.  You see them lying in a cot, so vulnerable, and you promise to yourself that you'll take care of them forever.  Not a minute goes by I don't wonder what he's doing. If he ever looks out a window and wonders the same.”

    “We'll, um, do it?  Right? The, uh, escape thing.” Why did sounding inspired have to be so wordy and hard?  How did Unity do it so easily? “And, uh-uh, we'll get them all out. You and your son, Lilac, and Unity, and-and Sunny!  We'll all go out of here, yeah?”

    Coral Eve chuckled at my awkward little speech.

    “You've been nattering on about escape ever since you woke up.  It's adorable.”

    I didn't have any say in the matter as she rubbed my cheek and stood up.

    “But it's just the sort of thing we love you for, Murky.  You're the dreamer. The one who wants it harder than any of us.  Now come on, I'm sure they're done. There's a time and a place for emotional little moments, but now isn't it.”

    Coral trotted away and I rushed to keep up.  I felt my wings ache slightly as they half fluttered in excitement.

    “Done?  Done what?”

    Coral just smiled as we entered the throng of ponies.  She led the way, pushing a path through them and checking back to ensure I was following her.  Truth be told, aside from being nervous around such cramped and smelly slaves (not that I was exactly anything but the same), it wasn't so hard to navigate, I could just move through all the little spaces. Soon enough, we entered the doorway and I felt a wave of heat slap me in the face.  A mixture of sweet alcohol, body odour, and old oak drove through the room to the doorway by the fumes of a roaring fire against the far wall. Unable to see much over the ponies shouting, singing, drinking, and flirting all around me, I strained to figure out where I was. The biggest crowd was around the makeshift bar while others clustered in small seating booths at the edges.  Where were we-

    “Murky!  Coral! Over here!”

    My ears perked up, pulling Coral toward where Glimmer had seen us. This was crazy!  What were they up to before I came...in...oh my...

    The crowd had parted just enough as Coral and I moved toward Glimmer's voice on the edge of the room and I witnessed what awaited.  The sound seemed to fall away as I just stood and gaped. Many other slaves around were watching with bemusement as well. Before me stood a sight I didn't quite understand but felt such a connection to.

    They had gotten one of the side tables to themselves.  Hung between the wooden poles on either side, I saw a little half-ripped string of multi-coloured flags, and below that, a bright red cover draped across the table itself.  A few small boxes sat there wrapped in rough, coarse rope over different colours of plastic bags that shielded my eyes from whatever they were. But in the centre there sat something I'd never seen before me like this.  A cake!  Small and likely looking as though it were made from condensed oatmeal with only a single bent candle, but still!  A cake!

    Blunderbuck lounged back with a great big grin as he pulled a string on a little device.

    With a sharp crack that sent a few squeals around the room (not in the least mine) he shot a few strings of multi-colored paper into the air.  After a few awkward moments of detaching myself from Coral, she chuckled and nudged me toward the table. Glimmerlight stood before it, lavishly indicating it all with her hooves like a salespony and wearing a ridiculous sparkly pointed hat tied with a string under her chin.  Come to think of it, so was Blunderbuck.

    “Wh-what is this?  Glimmer? Coral? What's going on?”

    “Welcome, Murky!” Glimmerlight trotted up quickly and pulled me toward it.  “I told you that you could choose today as your official birthday from now on. Every birthday needs a party!”

    I just kept blinking.  A birthday party? Such a thing existed?  For me? I couldn't stop staring around all the individual paper hangings and balloons tied to the table.  Nopony had ever given me a party for me before.

    “While it may be informal, it's all you deserve after everything lately.  Come on, my dear, sit down.” Coral Eve nudged me forward again, her and Glimmer having to direct me through my wide-eyed shock.

    “Yeah!  We got presents, a hat for you to wear, then the drinks. Ooooh yes!  Brim had a few words with the bartender to get the reserved seat.  He can be very persuasive.” Glimmerlight flung herself into the recessed seats and tapped beside her for me to move to.

    I couldn't believe it.  I just couldn't!  A birthday party for me!  My first one ever! I loved my friends so much!

    Only thing was I had stopped and stared again, before being unable to stop myself seeing what sat there and attempting to stifle a laugh.  My eyes had turned across the table once again, where they had found Brimstone Blitz sitting at the back dwarfing it all. He sat hunched over in the room, face as twisted and scarred around his one eye as ever...and bore another of those tiny ridiculous hats on his head.

    Seeing the sight, no doubt Glimmer's doing, I couldn't help but chuckle.  She joined me, winking up to the big pony. Brimstone just let out a long and deep breath.

    “Kids...”

    Somewhere in the bar, somepony had gotten an old jukebox working.  Accompanied by a cheer from the bar, the happy bopping music spread into the room.  It was an upbeat and relaxed tone, one that set everypony to more smiles and laughing than I had known slaves capable of.  

    I had been pushed in beside Glimmerlight at the back of the recess, furthest from anypony else and surrounded by my friends, while Coral had shifted opposite me closer to Blunderbuck.  It wasn't difficult to notice she had chosen the chair furthest from Brimstone, but the mere fact that she was willing to put that aside to be here for this spoke volumes of where her real loyalties lay with us.  If I hadn't already done so, I'd have let my respect for her become boundless.

    Despite the seediness of the Roamer and the gradual decline in sober ponies in the room, I couldn’t help but feel a cosy warmth in this place.  The oak décor and hanging lanterns before the big fireplace set a quaint tone.

    “Hey, so...gonna open these babies any time soon, Murky?” Glimmer nudged my side and nodded toward the boxes on the table.  We'd just been chatting about the bar and stuff lightly while I had pondered what they were.

    “Oh?  Sorry!” I bit my lip.  “I didn't know I was meant to!”

    A hoof ruffled my mane fiercely.  “Aww! Don't you know these are for you?  You get presents on your birthday, Murky! Now come on!  Those pressies won't open themselves! Dig in!”

    “Aye. You get started on them and I'll fetch the drinks.” Brimstone pulled himself up and stomped off with a thin smile to the bar.  I couldn't help but notice him removing the hat the moment he left.

    “Typical Brim.” Glimmerlight muttered with a shake of her head.  “Just as little idea about parties as you. Now let's get started!”

    Feeling oddly unsure if I was doing everything right, I pulled the nearest one toward me.  I was quite surprised at the size of it, so much so that it rather hid me behind it when I pulled its weight across the table toward me!

    “Going for the biggest first?  I like your style, Murk!” Blunderbuck grinned madly at me with a rub of his hooves.

    Blushing, seeing the others smiling (Blunderbuck most so. Why was that?) I pulled it onto the wide seat beside me and started to tear at the coverings.  My hooves ripped a couple pieces off, before a new feeling I'd never known started surging through me. Sheer satisfaction at tearing open the covers of the present!  Ooh, I liked this feeling! The paper and plastic bag coverings ripped and pulled off to reveal a thick cardboard box beneath it.  Excitedly I threw it open...to find a smaller box inside.

    Huh?

    Tearing this one out, I opened the lid and found another box below that.  Then another. Then another! Again and again until a thin wooden case rested in my hooves after at least eight boxes that now littered the floor under our table.  The others were laughing. In the past, I might have seen this as a joke at my expense but I just giggled on each box and relished the opportunity to rip into each new one!  Only now I sat with this small wooden case that I slid the top from.

    Oh. Oh wow.

    “I can install it for you when we get back to the Mall, Murk!” Blunderbuck beamed brightly across the table at me.  “Too short notice to put it on before we had to leave for here, but I figured I'd use the big box anyway!”

    In my hooves rested a little spur of metal with a few tiny pistons and a ring on the end.  I knew what this was! It was an Ironshod battle saddle aiming reticule mark four! I'd adored these things ever since I saw my first one on a slaver's saddle!

    “Thank you, Blunderbuck!” I laughed madly, hugging the little piece for my treasured saddle.  It'd look so cool flipping out with the mouthpiece to flick in front of my eye for aiming properly!  Sure it was only a couple of little metal pointers in a thin circle but it'd let me aim that grapple hook so much easier now rather than just hoping!  Eee!

    I wasted no time on grabbing the next present.  It was thinner and surprisingly weighty, but shockingly well wrapped.  This one seemed to have been done by an expert. My hooves struggled to find purchase!  Across the table, I saw Coral throw me a sly smirk. Oh, she knew her business with presents.

    Even so, I finally found an edge and dug in with my teeth to get the string off.  Bit by bit it came apart to reveal...

    ...a book?

    It bore upon the cover a huge map of Equestria under some massive letters and a gigantic word that made my mind spin.  I didn't understand.

    “But I...I can't read.”

    “Try opening it.” Coral gestured patiently with her hoof and I did as asked.

Pictures!  So many pictures!  Photographs of animals before they'd become mutated!  Huge vistas of Canterlot Castle and that idealistic little country town I'd seen in the Stable!  There were images of earth ponies, unicorns, and pegasi in depth along with flowers, insects, and even types of buildings!  I kept flicking from page to page, staring in wonder at the pre-war...well, wonders!

    “This is an encyclopedia, Murk.” Coral leaned around the table and pulled me closer to plant a kiss on my cheek.  “It will let you see the happier times and give you plenty of ideas on what to draw.”

    “Thanks, Coral.”

    “You're welcome, my dear.” She sat back again, clearly finding the sight of me flicking through every page rather satisfying.  There was a bird, and then a few pages after a huge picture of Celestia and Luna themselves! I couldn't wait to look at more of this!

    Brimstone returned, carrying a tray of drinks and mugs filled with very strong smelling liquid.  Setting it down at the edge of the table, he took a seat again but did not pass any out. I presumed the drinks were for after the presents.  However seeing what ones had been opened, the big raider grinned and tossed a package toward me.

    “Catch, kid!”

    Yelping and swinging my hooves up, I barely managed to grab it.  Clearly Brimstone had never been an expert at wrapping for it felt loose around whatever was inside.  The package wasn't huge but I could feel something sloshing around like liquid. With a brief glance at Brim's encouraging face, I began to pull the packaging from it with little trouble.

    Below it, I felt hard leather and saw a stitched brown design with a waxed screw cap.  A real proper wasteland wanderer's canteen! Eagerly, I unscrewed the top to see what he'd put inside it.  With one sniff I knew precisely what. That one substance I needed almost as much as water these days.

    “That RadAway you need should stay safe, Murk.” Brimstone voice's rumbled over the table with a slight slur from his partially disfigured muzzle.  “Keep that topped up when you can and it'll let you take some when you need to without anypony knowing you even have it on you.”

    I...I...

    I couldn't help it. I felt a few bits of damp tears in my eyes.  My illness was still with me, but he was helping me to make it easier.  Letting me feel more normal to just swig from a canteen every so often.

    “Th-thank you, Brim.” I wiped my eyes even as I smiled and saw him turning his head a little more to let that one eye see me.

    “Heeeey, c'mon!” Glimmerlight patted my back.  “No need to get all tear-filled yet! There's still one present to go!”

    Indeed, there was one left.  I sat the canteen down beside me on the seat to pull it across.  It wasn't large or heavy, but the look in Glimmer's eyes led me to really see her eager for me to open it.  Taking one breath, I pulled the paper free and yanked open the old faded box she had no doubt scavenged to put the gift in.

    Within it lay my PipBuck.

    “I...h-huh?” I blinked a few times, before Glimmer's magic lifted the PipBuck free of the box for me.

    Only then did I see the changes.  The whipcord had been replaced with actual buckles taken from clothing, and fed through the metal holes to let it hold to my hoof without needing to retie it all the time, while the top looked a lot more clean. She had even been filing off the sharper edges and procured a button from somewhere to replace a missing one!

    “The trademark once-over by your good friend, Glimmerlight.” She winked at me, knowing where I'd once heard of the concept before.  “Go on, turn it on!”

    I was already delighted and ready to thank her immensely, but the instruction led me to stare down and hoof the big button I knew would normally activate the device.  A little hum and a flicker of dark green gave way to the main screen springing to life. Immediately, I saw what was different. Less of the screen was damaged, and it was almost evenly lit now!  Before the picture had faded in and out, not that I'd ever even really looked!

    “I gave it a good fix up with some of our spark battery and talisman stuff we stole for the escape.  I've fixed the geographic locator spell talisman too, so now that the map function actually works, so we can use it underground in the metro.  Tried to make the light stop going on and off but couldn't quite manage it. The screen diodes were just too worn.”

    “W-wow.”

    “That's not all!  I've fixed the rad-counter inside it, so now it will let you know when you're in a bad spot.  Oh and one other thing.”

    Her telekinesis flipped over the PipBuck to see the worn back that would normally hold against my hoof; the sole smooth part of the entire half-destroyed mess.

    “I felt this only right.”

    On the bottom, I saw that she had somehow engraved a little set of drawings upon it.  A set of open shackles with...wow.

    Upon the PipBuck's back there lay a rough image of a sundial inside the curve of the shackles.  One mark for both of us. I knew the others may not have understood Sundial like Glimmer did, but it hardly mattered.

    This was a true gift.  I actually managed to make Glimmerlight gasp for air with the tightness of the hug I gave her.

    “Thank you, thank you, thank you!  You're the best sister ever!”

    “Woah!  Y-you're welcome!  Hehehe! You deserve it.  Old and new. Matters to both.  Happy Birthday, lil'bro.”

    There was a moment, out of the corner of my eye, that I saw a strange look on Coral's face at the sight of us before her.  It looked almost...relieved.

    “Thank you. Thank you all. I...I-this is-I just...”

    My chest heaved a little, looking at the assembled items and finding the feeling indescribable.  They had gotten them for me, all because they cared, wanted me to see better things, or help keep me going.  I kept smiling even while crying right in front of them, holding onto Glimmerlight and just rocking back and forth.

    Across the table, I saw Blunderbuck sigh and dump a few caps into Brimstone's waiting hoof.

    “Told you he would.” Brimstone winked at me (or was that a blink now?) with a little chuckle even as he spoke to Blunderbuck.  They had been betting on whether I'd cry with joy? Oh come on.

    All the same, it let me keep smiling, wipe my eyes, and sit upright again.  Glimmerlight's eyes were fixed on that tray of drinks with a predatory glee.

    “Now, methinks it's time for-”

    “Hold on!” Coral's hoof shot out and almost playfully slapped Glimmer's away.  “Aren't you going to get him to blow out his candle and make a wish first?”

    You did that?  I got to make a wish?  Glimmerlight seemed to think so, grinning across the table as Coral slid the cake to me gently.  This close, I could see it for what it really was: condensed oatmeal coated in a thin layer of hastily melted chocolate.  I could tell baking wasn't any of my companions' talents, but that didn't matter. I had a birthday cake!

    The single candle on top wafted to and fro.  Okay, let's do this! I knew just what to wish for.

    “Hey, Murky?” Glimmerlight edged closer, whispering to me.  “I think anybody knows you want out of here.”

    “Um, yeah?”

    “Well then, make that wish something special and close to you.  Make it shameless or selfish if you want. Doesn't matter. This is your little moment to wish for something, and you don't need to tell anypony what it was.  Just have fun.”

    Ruffling my mane, she leaned back again and left me to the candle.  I could see faces watching us now and again with confusion or rolling their eyes in the crowds, but who cared?  Right now it was just me and this candle and one little wish in my mind. My hoof rested upon that little statuette as I took a short breath and blew the candle out.

    Glimmerlight and Blunderbuck cheered, all of them clapping hooves as I looked up and grinned.  Blunderbuck produced a knife to cut it while Glimmerlight eagerly began to spread out the drinks.  Brimstone's mug frothed over at the top, containing something he grinned and almost completely downed right away.  The others seemed more than content for the fiery liquid that no doubt was contained in their glasses and mugs of no uniform design.

    Much to my surprise, Glimmer's magic passed one in front of me.

    “Um...”

    “Hmm?” Glimmerlight looked down from eagerly taking a first long swig out of her glass and sighing with satisfaction.  “What's wrong?”

    “Th-this is, um, alcohol?”

    “Fillydelphia's finest fire water, Murky!”

    “But, uh...” I looked from person to person.  Even Coral sipped hers with a thin smile. Gradually they all stared back.  Oh dear. “You see, I-I've never had any before.”

    There was an odd and somewhat shocked silence.

    Then Glimmer grinned with that unmistakably mischievous look.

    “A small-bodied and hollow-boned pegasus just coming off a medical flushing out who's never touched a drop of alcohol in his life before?”

    Her gaze turned to the others as the mug before me lifted itself in her magic's glow to my hooves.

    “Oh, this is going to be good.”

    Mugs clanked across the table.

    “Cheers!”

    We all drank.  The fiery liquid stung my throat and made my eyes go wide.  The first time I'd tried it I'd nearly spluttered it everywhere from the coughing.  But as I kept trying more it became easier. With each sip, the drink went down with less worry.

    The cake was cut by Blunderbuck and passed out.  Even a small coating of thin chocolate was enough to make it feel special and sugary in my mouth.  I'd never had chocolate before either! Turned out all this had been bought with Brim's arena winnings. Technically it was my bet, but given I'd stolen the caps anyway so I could hardly complain; especially not when it bought all this!

    “You know-heh, you know what I'm going to do when we get out?” Glimmerlight leaned back in the chair, slouched as she began on her second drink of the night.  “I am absolutely going to finally go to that spa in Tenpony. And you...”

    Her hoof nudged my shoulder.

    “You are coming with me.  Get you a proper day of relaxation the likes of which you'll have never known!”

    Coral chuckled across the table.  Even her bitterness seemed to have filtered away but for one night.  “I may have to do the same. I heard once they did wonderful hot spas taken from the powered boilers in Tenpony.  Definitely have to get one of them.”

    I nodded furiously.  That sounded lovely!

    “Hah!  Can even see if we can't get Murky a wing preening if they're up for it!”

    “Oooh!” I grinned widely.  “I'd like that!”

    I felt Glimmerlight's front leg tap my side.  “Might have a nice happy ending, that one!”

    “Yeah, I think so. That sounds great!” I smiled widely, then wondered why everyone at the table burst out laughing.  What? Had I made a joke? Hehe! I must have!

    Blunderbuck seemed to have a strangely specific taste in drinks, only downing some of the grape-coloured stuff from glasses.  Rolling the glass around between his hooves, he cast a glance over the table at me.

    “You know, I was just thinking.  Murky Number Seven's the full name isn't it?  You still gonna wander around out there calling yourself that?  Number Seven?”

    There was a brief silence as they looked at me.  Well, as silent as a bustling loud bar could get as the slaves around us steadily got more drunk.  Eventually, I shrugged and sipped the oh-so-wonderful drink again! Hey, since when was there so little left?

    “I, uh, dunno?”

    “You could choose anything you want, Murky!” Glimmerlight dropped down her empty mug, lifting another across to her.  “Got any ideas? What about something the wasteland sees as heroic? How about Littlemurk?”

    The joke was awful, but I laughed anyway.  My cheeks felt rather flushed. Why did I find that so funny?  I felt like I was blinking a lot too, getting ready to think of a name idea when Brimstone leaned across the table over the large number of empty tankards before him already.

    “Aye, I dunno about that.  If Murk gets the wish I'm betting he made on that cake, there'll be a few 'little Murks' galloping around before long!”

    “Hey, I didn’t mean with he-” I shut up quick.  Why had I said that?  Oh dear, my mouth was betraying me.  It had just slipped out!

    Even Coral allowed herself a giggle from it. Glimmer laughed loud enough that I saw numerous other ponies glance at our table.  I just sat and blushed deeply, hiding it as I lifted the big tankard suddenly before me with both hooves.

    Across from us in another recess, I heard a raucous song start up.  Much of the bar began to listen in as the group of miners kicked up.

    Drinking, drinking, drinking!
    Drinking till we're drunk!
    Standing up, falling down!
    Getting in a fight!

    Bucking someone's lights out!
    Falling on the floor!
    Waking up next morning...

    They stood, waving their hooves, and rose their mugs.

    Then getting drunk some more!

    The mugs clashed together, spilling ale everywhere as they cheered.  Ponies clapped and took up the song themselves, repeating it louder and with greatly less consistency in the lyrics.  I waved my hooves and shouted along with Glimmer and Blunderbuck as the song picked up amongst the bar.

    Falling back into my seat, I stumbled a little on the way down.  Wow, this...this, what did they call it? Alcohol!  Yes, alcohol!  Wow.

    I fell against Glimmerlight to get a sense of balance and comfortingly rubbed my head against her shoulder.

    “You're all the beeest friends I ever had.  Do you know you're all my very best friends?”

    Glimmerlight looked as though she was fighting to not laugh madly.  Come to think of it, so was the rest of the table. I'd told another joke!  Ha!

    “We know, my dear.” Coral chuckled into her hoof, sipping further on her drink.

    More songs broke out, mostly tales of screwing over the slavers accompanied by much stomping of hooves and banging of cups on the heavy tables.  The noise was giving me a headache, but with every sip and gulp the pain faded away. I clambered over the chair toward Coral, and with great effort convinced her to do the little hoof clapping game I'd seen her do with Lilac.  We shared tales of times past and spoke of how awesome life would be outside the walls.

    Eventually, the drinks Brim had brought ran a little dry and Glimmerlight and I took our turn to fetch some.  This was awesome! Ponies seemed to love my wings and more than a few mares even gave them a stroke as I wandered past.  Why weren't ponies like this more? I flared them out and waggled them a little, hopping from hoof to hoof as I went past, leaving them laughing behind me.  Glimmerlight brought down a small tray for me to carry, fighting through the crush at the bar herself via her own rather unmistakable means. Leaving her to get the rest, I made my way back to the table.

    “Oi!  Watch it, short stuff!”

    A hoof clipped my ear.  It took all my serving skill to not drop the tray as I stumbled away from the buck and plopped it upon the table before...oh, hello floor, how are you?

    “Fuckin' lightweight ass, I'm trotting here!” The buck shook his hoof at me and stormed off to the bar.  “Stupid winged rat.”

    I lay against the table a little stunned, clutching my ear.  Glimmerlight watched him go.

    Then Brimstone got up.  Glimmer briefly moved before him.

    “Oooh, oh no!  Brim! Down boy!  Leave it!”

    He wandered right past.  “Just getting' a drink.”

    I lifted a hoof from the ground. “But I got the...drinks.”

    The huge earth pony wandered past us, still rock solid as ever without any hint of losing sobriety.  Momentarily broken from my haze, I watched Brim move without any trouble to the bar itself and sit alongside the same buck who'd struck me.  I was the only one who might be able to pick out their conversation as the others set about organising the new drinks Glimmer had brought.

    Apparently, the buck hadn't noticed Brim was with us when he'd passed.  He instead leered at the mare next to him, putting his hoof on her shoulder a lot and giggling at everything she said before he slid a drink toward her.  They chatted for a few moments before she left to rejoin her own friends.

    “Good catch.” Brim grunted to him, apparently an off-hoofed comment.

    “Oh, fuck yeah!  Thinkin' I might get lucky tonight!  Hey, mate? Mate, you drinkin'? Or are you drinkin'?”

    “Aye, do I look like a softy?” Brimstone grinned at him, before tapping the bar (upturning a few drinks in the process) to attract the rushed ponies serving us all.  “Bottle of the hard stuff, few shot glasses. My new friend and I have some more serious drinking to do.”

    Both Brim and the buck laid down their caps and a large bottle of orange liquid was placed before them along with a bunch of tiny glasses.  Why so small?

    “Your accent, mate. Northern? Fuck, wish I had that, get the mares that much easier!”

    “Aye, it used to.” Brimstone began to pour a couple of glasses and the pair downed them in one quick gulp.

    “Ah well!  Least I know I got that piece of hot flanking waiting for me. She's still looking over.”

    To my surprise, Brimstone laughed.  Something was wrong with it. I knew he was faking, Brimstone never laughed out loud like that.  His hoof went to his new 'friend's' opposite shoulder and patted him.

    “Aye, aye...”

    Then he pulled. The buck hadn't a chance to struggle as Brim got him around the neck.  Still sitting up, Brimstone didn't even look away from his drink. The buck choked out loud as his throat clamped shut.

    “...and if you've any interest in being conscious to let that happen, you'll listen to me. That little pegasus you knocked over? Sure, he can be a little ear-sore at times but this is his first, and knowing this damn city, possibly only little party.  If you come near him again, I’ll eject you from this place without using the door.  If you make him cry, and trust me that isn't hard, then I will remove your ability to perform for a mare ever again.  Do we understand one another?”

    The buck made a noise.

    “Good.”

    Brimstone dropped him, allowing the buck to clatter to the floor and choke, grasping his neck.  Leaving him to lie, Brimstone took all the drinks (including those that the buck paid for, I noticed) and returned to us, giving me a little wink with that one eye as he sat down again.  Glimmerlight, having been chatting to Blunderbuck, turned and marvelled at the bottle now present at the table.

    “Oooh!  Brim! How did you get all that?”

    Brimstone just grinned.  “A new friend's gift to Murk.  Pity he won't be joining us. Couldn't hold his drink.”

    Glimmer's magic excitedly began pouring the warm coloured drink into the shot glasses, pushing a couple in front of each of us.  Coral, however, gently refused hers.

    “I think, if that's the direction this night is going, I shall take my leave.”

    “Aww, c'mon!” I patted my hoof on her shoulder.  Hey, I only missed once!

    Her hoof patted my cheek.  “Darling, given what you're like after only a portion of one pint, I believe the night will be a little wild for a pony such as me.  Somepony has to be together enough in the morning to get you all up.  You just have your fun.”

    Glimmerlight nodded a few times.  I saw her cheeks were bright red and not from a blush either.  Before her lay at least twice as many drinks as I'd had. What she said about her drinking wasn't kidding.

    “Not a problem, Evey!  We'll look after 'em!”

    Something in Coral's eyes twitched at the name before relaxing.

    “Good night, all.  Enjoy your birthday, Murky.”

    Coral took my presents with her, just to keep them safe and gave me one more hug before she left.

    “Never was a heavy drinker, our Coral.” Glimmerlight rested her head on a hoof.  “Now, let's get down to the more proper birthday style drinking!”

    Blinking rapidly, I gazed at the little shot glass before me.  The ale wasn't the real stuff? Then why did I already feel all happy inside?

    “Let us see if it makes you as wild as this whiskey claims you pegasi can be.  To Murky!”

    “To Murky!” Brimstone and Blunderbuck repeated it, as did I before I took it in a single gulp just as they did.

    Oh my.

    When I had finished squirming, blinking, and opening and shutting my mouth like I'd just swallowed a hot coal, I found the glass already refilled.  My head went all fuzzy. Another!

    “To freedom!”

    “To freedom!”

    …

    “To better days!”

    “To better days!”

    …

    “To, um, something else!”

    I wasn't quite sure how it all happened after that.  Who were these other ponies that joined us? Glimmerlight had brought some 'new friends' she'd met who now crowded around the table with us.

    “...and then I threw my tongue down 'is throat until he filled that damn bowl with every bit of gruel he could! That is how you swindle free food in here!”

    The table cheered and I threw my hooves up at the old tale.  Her speech was slurring a little, giggling madly as she fell against the buck beside her for a little support.  I couldn't help but see that her hoof was lightly stroking his chest as she did so.

    Things all got blurry again for a while.  Glimmerlight, Blunderbuck, and I were-wait what was I doing?

    “Glimmerlight, what am I doing?”

    “This is called dancing, Murky!  Shake dat flank!”

    Oh. Oh yes!  Music!  That was it!  The ponies all leaping from side to side and stomping upon the floor knocked me from side to side without really meaning to.  Quite easily the centre of attention on the Roamer's main floor, Glimmerlight stopped dancing just long enough to lift me up with her magic and put me on a flat surface.

    “You dance here, Murky!”

    The lights span around me as I hopped from hoof to hoof, my wings flared out as much as they could in their stiffness.  Hey, hey, drink makes you tall!  Everypony was shorter than me!  Oh wait, that's a table.

    She'd put me on a table!  Everypony was dancing around me and some even cheering up at the little pegasus bouncing about on top of it.  Why didn't they care I was a pegasus? This was great! Glimmerlight joined me on the table and we linked hooves to dance back and forth as the slaves stomped their hooves in time with the flighty music of two slaves who’d somehow found some pots and a flute.

    Spinning, I felt the entire world all melt together.  How many hooves did I have on the ground again? Oh wait a minute, where was my back left hoof?  Oops!

    Staggering, dizzy, and falling, I dropped from the table into the crowd, finding myself caught by everyone below.

    “Hey, everypony!” Blunderbuck shot a hoof up.  “It's his birthday!”

    The crowd cheered, before with a lurch I found myself launched into the air!  Wheee! I was flying!  Dropping, they caught me and threw me up again on every count!

    “One!”

    “Two!”

    “Three!”

    “Uh, how old is 'ee?”

    “Just keep throwing!”

    Laughing each time, I eventually fell into Glimmerlight's hooves where she pulled me close and hugged me tightly, her cheek resting against mine as she looked sideways toward me.

    “Doesn't your good ol' sis' throw the best parties, huh?”

    “Your parties are dizzy.”

    The moment her hug was released, I moved forward.  Wait, no. Sideways. Sideways was good! I could do sideways still!

    Glimmer chuckled and hiccuped as she caught me and took us back to the table.  I crammed in among the ponies that had sat there, with Glimmerlight beside me. On the other side, that same buck she's stroked before made a bit of an effort to be alongside her.  I could see the wonderful stuff I now knew as whiskey was about half-empty in the middle of the table.  More shot glasses were handed out and the talking only kept going. Sometimes I didn't even know what I was nodding to with my half-closed eyes.  My cheeks felt like they were burning and I occasionally hugged whoever was to my side. She even hugged back! I liked this mare.

    My journal got produced from my saddlebag under the table.  I had to chuckle as I fetched it, seeing Glimmer's hoof wandering a little with the buck's thigh.  That's my sister! But I had something much more important! I could draw ponies! I was gonna draw everypony at the table!  The mare beside me and all other ponies present crowded and leaned to see my drawings.  They loved them! I flicked past them.

    “Ooooh!  Look at that one!” The mare beside me pointed with her light purple hoof.  “You are one cheeky little buck!”

    The table laughed, Glimmer winked, and I grinned widely.  They liked my drawings! I showed the rest, getting lots of 'Ooooh' on each of the really good ones.  Then I started to draw them all around the table.  The charcoal slid a little madly but each of them finally came together. Masterpiece!  The table cheered at the finished result, while the mare beside me whispered in my ear if I might do one of just her in a nice silky dress.

    Well, who was I to say no?

    The table loved that one, as did she.  I even got a kiss on the cheek for it!

    But then the table's topic seemed to change. My drawings had drawn the topic of conversation to the subject of mares and bucks.  I leaned against my new best friend as I listened to them chatter. Talk of fine flanks and, well, rather more specific things drifted to and fro.  Glimmerlight was more than willing to share her own stories. Even I could spot that buck beside her watching places other than her eyes as she leaned forward to talk. I was pretty sure she did too, if that ‘tail under the chin’ trick I knew she loved was any indication.

    “First times!” Blunderbuck shouted.  “Come on, everypony's got a story, right? Share em and laugh! I got a good joke for that one too, but you go first! Someone go first!”

    A resounding cheer met this idea, the table apparently in the mood for a cheeky chatter.  A stallion beside Brimstone started and told a tale of him and a caravanner’s son during him hitching a lift.  Glimmer elbowed my side a few times. I didn't know why. I was too busy drawing little swirly shapes in my journal while listening.  The mare beside me jumped in next, wrapping a hoof around an already sleeping buck beside her and saying hers would count for both of them.

    Blunderbuck lay his hooves upon the table.

    “Oh, you should have seen her!  Lovingly figure!”

    “Yeah!?” The table egged him on.

    “Yeah!  Long and slender!  Coloured cream with streaks of black!  I'll tell you all, she bucked hard!”

    Wide mouths and laughing responded to his mad grin.

    “Hit all the right spots too!  Went off soon as you touched her!”

    He smirked wider, before slapping the table.

    “And the mare who carried that pistol wasn't bad either!”

    Everypony burst into laughter.  I didn't get it but I laughed anyway!  A few more shared shockingly detailed stories of their young forays, before Brimstone (behind a near forest of mugs and tankards) just grunted.

    “Killed her father, broke two stallions' heads.  She always fucking hated them.”

    There was a confused silence.  Brimstone just shrugged.

    “Raider logic. Strong is good to grab.”

    Glimmerlight shook her head with a grin.  “Moving right along, I guess I could say there was the tale of a fellow initiate in the Ranger base.”

She grinned widely, before telling us of him.  He was a pretty high flying student of the Rangers, and the only one in their young group who was as good with magic technology as she was.  So much so, they shared a lot of projects.

“Now, we were out on a training exercise!  Got shacked in the tent together. Oh we'd had a few moments hidden in the lower levels before, we kept it all hidden and stuff. But then while on patrol duty we stumbled across this old cellar filled with all the wine!  Literally, all of it! Ever!”

    Everypony could see where this was going, but they still waited eagerly.

    “So we may have been a little inebriated, but I don't consider that bad!  I remember what I was doing and fuck knows I wanted it anyway! He did too!  So eventually, I just turned and did this and then said to him...”

    She grabbed the buck beside her by the cheeks.

    “You gonna just stare at my flanks from behind all night or are you gonna do something with them?”

    Then she leaned forward and gave him one smacker of a kiss, pulling him into her.  Oh, she was clever.  The table cheered them on, the stunned buck recovering admirably fast to take advantage of the situation and let his own hooves wander around her back.  The story took a little pause as Glimmer proceeded to apparently try and suffocate the poor buck.  Eventually, with a circling hoof on his chest, she moved back.  I saw her quickly wink at the flustered-looking buck.  

“Exact recreation there, honest!  Gotta be authentic, y'know? As for the gory details, well, I dunno if you'd all want to hear them.”

    Never had I heard a group of ponies demand something in greater enthusiasm.  My own will for freedom paled in comparison.  She didn't disappoint them either and lay with her head resting on the buck's chest as she told them all.  I simply sat and laughed when they did, hearing these tales of other ponies and their first experiences felt really cheeky and fun!  Why hadn't I ever felt like this? I honestly blurred out a little, missing most of it, but seeing everypony so happy...

    “What about Murky?”

    My eyes shot open fully.

    “Yeah, what about the little guy?  What's his story?”

    “Come on, lil'bro!  I'm sure yours is cute as anything!” Glimmer's knocked my shoulder.  “Surely you've had a little moment with some slave you cuddled too close when staying warm?”

    My front hooves rubbed together as I sat up, surrounded by some eager faces.

    “I, um, I haven't.”

    Glimmer blinked.  “Never?”

    “Nope.”

    “Not even a little cheeky thing close to it?”

I just shook my head.  Glimmerlight seemed a little stunned, as did many of the others.  Then she clapped her hooves. “Idea!”

    Wrapping a hoof around me, she patted my pocket with the statuette in it.

    “Then why don't you tell us all...what you would do? Lets see, you thought that little Stable Dweller was cute, huh? What about if it were her?”

Oh. Oh my.  My cheeks went bright red.  The room seemed to be more than a little spinny right now and I was finding it hard to find the words to tell them why I wouldn't say!  I just bit my lip.

    “Um, oh. I don't know if I-oh dear...”

I spied the still full shot glass before me and in a bid to escape sitting awkwardly, I downed it to pass a few extra seconds of thinking and...

    The taste rolled down through my body and up into my head.  Liquid fun? More like liquid courage!

    I stamped a hoof on the table to balance my shaky body and rose onto my hind legs upon the seat.

    “Well...first...!”

    The table threw up their hooves and cheered.

    Best.  Birthday.  Ever.

    “I don't want to set Filly on, um...fire?”

    “Yeah, that's the word!”

    “Yay!  Okay, okay.”

    I cleared my throat.

    “I...just want to start a flame in someone’s heart!”

What a night.  We stumbled and rambled through the ruins of the park to return to the Mall.  Glimmerlight trotted back and forth dizzily while leaning on benches and walls to see her through.  Me? I lay on my back atop Brimstone (who seemed still utterly unaffected despite drinking four times what we all had), waving my hooves in the air and singing my heart out, with Glimmer doing accompanying vocals!

    “In my heart I have...how many?”

    “One!  One big fucking one!”

    “...one big fudging one desire!”

The Mall wasn't far ahead.  Even as I giggled between lines, I could see it looming up before us as we came toward it.  We had left only after that bottle had been drained. Glimmer had disappeared with the buck not long after my grand tale of passion!  Brimstone had been the one to decide when to leave and sent me to find Glimmer.

I'd found her all right.  I'd trotted, crawled, staggered, and scooted back to Brimstone to pass on the most important message she'd ever asked me to deliver.  'Gimme ten minutes.'

    “And...that one big fluffing one...is you...”

    “Last bit!  Last bit! I think...”

“I know!  I'm-I'm building my voice!  I just had a lot of whiskey remember!  Add up the shot glasses into full glasses!  I had...had almost a half! Whiskey champion!

I hiccuped, sliding off Brimstone as I unsteadily found my own hooves to limp alongside Glimmer the rest of the way back to the Mall.  We leaned on each other for mutual support, both belting out the last line that we could remember.

    “...no other s-s-somepony...will doooo!”

    The main doors fell open before us and we both collapsed to the ground in a giggling heap.

    “I see you all were taking advantage of Master Red Eye's generosity to its fullest, then?”

I looked up, I saw Protégé standing there in the main corridor.  He bore a saddlebag as though ready to leave for somewhere. We struggled and slowly got ourselves back up, Glimmerlight eagerly smiling at him.

“Hey, hot flanks!” She laughed out loud, offering me a hoof to lean on.  I giggled and took her up on the offer. Oh, she was funny! She called him hot flanks right to his face!  Hah!

Protégé seemed to blink with surprise, his usually stoic look dropping into one of mild confusion, before rolling his eyes and shaking his head.

“I suppose every worker needs their time to let off steam.  Brimstone Blitz? You will make sure they get to their proper accommodations?  I see you at least can hold your drink.”

Brim nodded.  Glimmerlight blew a raspberry at Protégé.  It looked fun, so I did it too. Then she began to trot on.  I noticed Protégé looking at me. Oh, he cared that I couldn't trot!  He always cared about all of us!

    “You...you...”

    “Yes, Murk?”

    I slumped forward a little.  I had wanted to pat his shoulder but slid to the ground and suddenly could only reach a kneecap.

    “You're my favourite master ever.”

    “I'm...glad you appreciate my methods, Murk.  Now, I think perhaps you should be in bed.”

He trotted on, nodding a thank you to Brimstone as he picked me up again.  I spent the time back to the shop cell humming aloud. Soon enough, I felt myself placed onto the sofa.  By that point, my mind was simply reeling and the walls were all going spinny, spinny, spinny!

    “C'mere, lil'bro. That was a great birthday.”

    I felt her pull me into a little mutual snuggle.  I'd have agreed with her.

    But I had already fallen asleep.

    Forget Wildcard.  Forget Barb. Forget Shackles.

    Now I was properly suffering.

In the haze between sleep and the waking world, I felt myself spinning and my whole head contracting into a tight, little thumping ball.  I'd been briefly woken up earlier when Glimmer had risen. Somehow during the night I'd ended up flopped over her stomach sideways, and her movements to shift me off when waking up had led to a brief murmuring asking her to let me die in peace.

Only now the living world wasn't going to let me do that any longer.  With a long groan, I let my crusted eyes creak open, and attempted to stir each limb into motion for movement.  Hooves flopped and padded at the sofa and ground. Just...just move off it and-

I fell off the sofa, taking the blanket with me as I went.  Rubbing my aching eyes, I gradually sat up and began to trot unsteadily toward the door, gasping for breath from a dry throat and a churning stomach.  Oooh just kill me now. I could feel my barely healed wounds surging in pain as I moved. Perhaps a night like that wasn't the best idea even with a contained megaspell being my saviour.

All three of them were sat in the front of the store.  Coral and Brimstone looked no worse for wear, while Glimmerlight rested against the wall nursing a little bowl of likely lukewarm soup.  Her mane was a bit of a mess, but she still managed to look over and laugh as I staggered with dead eyes into the room.

    “Uh oh. Looks like somepony is having his first post-birthday hangover!”

    “Aaawuuughbya...” I responded.

She shook her head and laughed.  “Come on. Protégé got them to fix and refill the fountain with better water. Go get yourself some of that and splash your face.  I kept some food back from their morning handout for you.”

Coral nodded in agreement, giving me something of a 'Why do you think I left early?' look and nodding her head to the fountain.  Carefully putting one hoof before the other, I made my way out. Passing the shop's mirror on the way, I had to actually grimace as I saw myself.  My eyes were sunken and glazed over, my mane and tail messed beyond quick repair, and even my wings looked a little ruffled.

“If you're wondering how I stay fairly normal, Murky?” Glimmerlight spoke up.  “Just put it down to experience. Oooh that was a good one though. Seeing you smile, having a riot, letting loose, and ending it with a new ‘friend’ and some ‘relief’...just what I needed after all that stuff recently!”

    Coral rolled her eyes.  “Because I clearly needed to hear that.”

    “Aw, c'mon!  It's just a bit of fun.”

I left them to the minor disagreement.  Clearly they still had a little ways to go yet before they truly saw eye-to-eye, but part of me couldn't help but feel that they'd gotten better around one another.

    Ow. Don't think too hard, Murky.  Drama later. Cold water now.

As I trotted, I couldn't help but think on last night though.  I couldn't remember too much. Everything came back in little spurts of memory.  I remembered smiling a lot, getting lots of hugs, nopony cared about my wings, I'd danced...

    Hehe!  Maybe it wasn't that bad.

    I stopped for a second, a certain little vision flickering into my head.

    They liked my drawings!  I showed the rest, getting lots of 'Ooooh' on each of the really good ones.

    Blinking, I groaned and put a hoof to my forehead.  Oh, please tell me I hadn't really done that! I trotted onward to the water, squinting at the disorganised order they came back in.  How had I gotten back here again? Oh yeah, Brimstone had carried me. We'd met-

    “You're my favourite master ever.”

    Oh no. Had I really...I had, hadn't I?  My face sank as the nerves really began to kick in.  How could I...oh dear! Leaning on the edge of the fountain, I just wanted the earth to open up and swallow me who-

    “Well...first...!”

    My mouth gaped open, before I simply gave up and dunked my entire head into the fountain with a groan of unending embarrassment, leaving my hooves hanging off the concrete lip.  I was doomed. Cool cool water. At least you didn’t judge me!  

I felt my mane drift on the surface as my face cooled off and startled my senses into proper awakening.  I could have sat here for hours, separate from the world until everypony hopefully forgot last night before I did.

Only, a sound caught my ears underwater.  A single word that came through muffled. I ignored it.  Water was good. Water understood me.

    Then it came again.

    “...urk!”

    Wait. Was that..?

    “Murk, would you please sit up out of the fountain?”

    It was him!  Gasping, I shot out of the water, coughing a little as I flopped back onto my rump and rubbed my eyes.

    “S-s-sorry.”

    Protégé glanced to the side with a light sigh before offering a small grin and a shake of his head.

    “I see you're awake at last.  All rested up?”

    I nodded vaguely, then immediately regretted moving my head.
   
    “Excellent.  You see, the shifts all start in ten minutes...”

    “What.” Every part of my face drooped.  Oh, he had to be kidding!

“...but,” he quickly continued, “I was coming to make you a brief offer.  I have a task that needs accomplished in my own service. It would keep you away from the factories or whatever they have slotted for you all in here.  If you would perhaps prefer that?”

    Holding my head in a hoof, I tried to scowl but perhaps only gave a meek turn of my nose.

“Last time you said that I almost got killed in a Ministry. I d-don't like being somepony's personal slave.  It never ends well.”

“This is why you're hesitant to my offer then?  Well allow me to tell you exactly what I am asking first.  It is not dangerous, rather, I just wish you to fetch me something from an old building across town.  We were near it yesterday, in fact, when I found you. An old library near the pegasus skyport? I have need of a new reading lamp and I am not particularly supposed to leave this Mall until Shackles returns.”

    My eyes blinked and opened wider.  That library I'd seen? The one my PipBuck had...

    “Yes!” I piped up, hopping to my hooves.  “I, uh, I'll do it!”

    Surprised by my turn of opinion, Protégé gave me an odd look before nodding.
   
“I am glad to hear it.  It really is as simple as that, Murk.  Besides, I doubt the clanging of a factory's power hammers would be particularly good for you right now.  A nice, quiet library could be just what you wanted?”

    All right, that I couldn't deny.  Sucking it up, I nodded to him. “Okay.”

    “Thank you, Murk.  Have you given my offer any further thought?”

    Ah...

    “Well, um...I-not really.  We, um, we were sort of busy since I left you...”

    “Believe me.  I saw.”

    Wincing with embarrassment, I tried to cover for it.

    “We, um, we were just celebrating my birthday, is all.”

His eyes opened a little wider.  “Your birthday? I hadn't known. Many happy returns, Murk.  I hope this easy task will give you the best of a break you can perhaps get in Fillydelphia.  Be back before dark, however. Good day.”

    He turned to leave.  Breathing a sigh of relief, I sat down against the fountain to contemplate it all.

    “Oh, and Murk?”

    Protégé had turned back.  I looked up. He smiled thinly before trotting on.

    “Favourite master?  I suppose it's good to know I've made an impression.”

    There was a brief pause as he left...and then there was another splash.

In the back of our shop, I took the time to dry out my mane with a somewhat dirty and half-ruined towel.  It did the job at least. Beside me, Glimmerlight was starting to work on our inventory that they had been carefully hiding in the walls and floor.  We had a bunch of spare brass casings Glimmer would turn into explosive lockpicks, numerous cans of solidified oatmeal or packaged gruel. The water skins had been slyly filled from the fountain.  Brim had brought back a few picks and shovels under the pretence that he didn't want anypony else using 'his' ones. Nopony had argued.

Aurora's files were stored beneath the sofa while I'd sewn the maps we'd stolen from Protégé's office into the cushions.  When the slave market had come yesterday, not only had the others bought things for my party, but they had gotten a few little essentials.  An old lantern now hung from the roof. Innocent enough perhaps, but necessary for use in the metro system. Spare clothes and longer cloaks for the wasteland outside were now hidden under Glimmer's pile of scrap while she had stocked up on spark batteries and various other parts I couldn't hope to guess at.

“Library visit, huh?  So long as it keeps you from trouble it sounds good to me, Murky.  Pity we can't all go for it though.”

She sat sorting through some wires and little glowing gems welded to small boards as she spoke.  Throwing on my fleece again and strapping on my battle saddle (plus little crosshair thanks to Blunderbuck), I sat down to buckle on my PipBuck.  It may have just been a library, but I wanted to get used to moving with it all on anyway. Even as I tugged the last buckle shut, I felt Glimmer's magic lay my goggles on my head.

    “Now before I forget, c'mere.”

“H-huh?” I felt Glimmer lightly turn me to face her.  Just like me, her eyes were a little hazy from last night, and we both likely still stank of alcohol and body sweat from the bar.  Yet she smiled and leaned in with her horn glowing. What was she-

Something moved in my mind.  All the little memories I'd been feeling coming back to me gradually over the course of the morning flooded to the surface and flowed somewhere.  I didn't forget them, but I knew they'd gone somewhere else, like a copy. I closed my eyes and felt oddly relaxed, her magic weaving through my mind gently and soothingly.  Eventually, Glimmer gasped aloud and sat back with a little sweat on her brow.

    “Whew. That was a long one.  But here we are.”

    “We're...what?”

    With a grin, she held up a small glowing orb.  It sparkled with a distinctive light green.

“It's last night, Murky.  Alcohol, it doesn't so much change you as just lower inhibitions.  How you were acting? I have a feeling that's the kind of pony you wish you could be.  Happy, smiling, and laughing without a care in the world. Now you can feel it as many times as you want.  Just ask me and I'll take you into it. Let you relive the happiest night of your life.”

    The memory orb dropped lightly into my hooves, where I just stared at it.  What a gift...

    “Th-thank you.”

Sometimes, those two words were truest when simply left to themselves.  I put my hooves around her neck and tightly squeezed.

    “You're welcome.  Now you better get going.  You want to be out of here before the shift leaders arrive.”

I hesitated.  “There is, um, one thing?  Protégé, he, um, he gave me an offer.  I-I don't know how to really describe it but, uh-”

    “We all want you to do it.”

    “Because he, uh...wait, what?”

    I looked up, but Glimmer just leaned onto the sofa from where she sat on the ground.

“You're a real chatterbox when you're drunk, you know that?” She grinned.  “We'd all discussed it long before you got up and we all want you to take up his offer.  Look, we know it means you'll be away from us, but we can't let Shackles get you again!  He'll be back here after today is done and we need a way out for you now.  Don't worry about us, we'll get by.  Without you he might even leave us alone too.”

    “I...I...” I really didn't know what to say as I stared at her.  She really was being genuine.

“This gives you a chance to see what you can do, Murky.  We'll all get away from him eventually, and if you can convince Protégé to somehow make it happen it'll be great.  We won't be separate for long. Do your best and see what you can do from the outside. If you stay here we'll all just get locked down again.”

“Okay...” I nodded.  “But I'm not leaving you here at all.  He-he wants you all away from him too. He says all the slavers are fighting this really weird game to try and get things.  I'll-I'll try to find a way to get you all out too.”

“I know you'll manage it.” Glimmerlight squeezed me back and set me down.  “Now run along and don't think too hard about this. We'll be able to see each other before you leave to plan out how we're going to do this.”

Allowing a smile to come to my face, I clambered away and moved for the door.  Yes, Glimmer was right. I might be away from my friends for a little, but I would have so many more opportunities if I helped Protégé.  I could try and acquire my friends back from under him! Yes, that was better than being with Shackles again! I wasn’t any help to my friends stuck with them.

    Also, last night was the pony I wanted to be?  Able to joke? I got an amusing thought.

    “Hey, um, Glimmer?” I smirked back at her from the door.

    Seeing my smile, she leaned on the sofa with one hoof.

    “Yeees?”

    “Last night, when I came to fetch you before we left the bar?”

    “Yeeeeees?” Her face clearly showed she was wondering where I was going with this.

    “Were...” I giggled to myself.  “Were you really going 'woohoo'?”

Thankfully, even with a hard hangover, I managed to dodge out of the room and away from the shop cell, laughing, before she could catch up with me.

Unfortunately, the thick air of Fillydelphia, with all its chemical stink and ambient heat, was not particularly good for a pony with either a life threatening taint infection or a strong hangover.

    Me?  I had both.

It wasn't particularly far to the library, but the journey had made my head pound and the dryness in my throat feel all the worse.  By the time I was coming to the same street, I was more than contemplating finding a secluded little spot to curl up and sleep for a few more hours.

Something in me decidedly did not enjoy doing more slave work.  I was free of my own mind now and openly able to dislike it without feeling guilty.  No wonder I'd made such an awful slave. My cutie mark meant the very opposite thing! I knew this was building to something worthwhile now.  I wouldn't be doing this forever, and at the very least I was getting a step away from Chainlink Shackles.

Truthfully, knowing that Protégé's offer was there had been all that allowed me to forget about that monster if for but a while.  The thought of someday having to confront him ever again made me shiver to my core. Free or not, that slaver...

    Beep!

I stopped, looking down to the PipBuck.  It continued its beeping while I saw the same symbol flicker onto the screen with much more clarity now.  Three balloons that then faded to an arrow. Glancing up, I could see the library just ahead of me.

    Well, here goes nothing.

A small layer of stone steps led up to the scarred, wooden doors.  The closer I got, the more my PipBuck beeped until finally cutting the sound once I passed some unseen threshold.

    What was I even doing here?  Those balloons meant Ministry of Morale!  That pink freak's merry band!

Even as I opened the door slowly, I knew that the answer was all too easy to come to.  Simple curiosity. This group had taken Sundial and now his PipBuck was sending me to something related to them.  If I could learn anything about what happened to him...

With an almost stereotypical creak, the door slid open and slammed shut behind me.  Echoing the sound into the dusty interior, I let my eyes adjust to the darkness in here before taking a better look around.

A grand floor swept before me, filled with small working desks or circular benches right up to the lines of bookshelves that filled the walls.  Below me, a large mosaic of Celestia and Luna led up to a low podium for lectures, and behind that, a great stairway that split and arced up to either side.  It led to a balcony of bookshelves in a circle all around this large main room. Beyond the stairs on the ground level, I could see a librarian's desk and staff book returns.

Taking a glance at my PipBuck, the arrow was pointing directly forward and to the right. Somewhere behind the stairs on the ground floor, I bet.

Each small clip of my hooves echoed dryly, the mostly intact structure cancelling all outdoor noise.  The lack of ambience was just what I needed. A break from the clangs and hisses outside that so hurt my head!  Hypersensitive hearing was not a boon post-alcohol, I was finding. This place would at least let my head settle for a while during my search.

I had a job to do before any hunting for old secrets though, so I approached the desks.  Most bore a smashed reading light that clamped onto the desk and plugged into something beneath the carpets either side of the mosaic.  I checked six before finally finding one that-

    I heard a laugh.

    Spinning around, I flicked out my saddle's mouthpiece.  The crosshair pinged up before my eye and I stood ready.

    Nothing.

    I was sure I'd heard something!  A clipped laugh in the distance, something likely only my hearing would have caught!  I waited at least a few minutes, keeping watch with both sight and sound while feeling the sweat of terror drip from my forehead.

    Absolutely nothing.

I turned back to the lamp and started to unplug it, warily glancing around me.  It came off easily and folded into my saddlebag. Only as I touched it did I notice it bore a lot less dust than the others.  For that matter, so did the seat. In fact, there were a stack of cleaner books beside it as well along with others littered on the floor.

I slowly began to realise why Protégé knew this place had reading lamps.

Looking at this one lonely seat in the library, I genuinely began to wonder just how lonely he was in Fillydelphia that he would have come to sit alone in this library.  Every time I saw him it was like he was seeking somepony. Once, I'd thought it was simply his interest in seeing me begin my journey to freedom, (Two years, yeah right) but I remembered every time he had been staring off somewhere.  Every time he seemed deep in thought when I would meet him. Like he just wanted ponies to share in his vision. Or was it something more specific?

Shaking my head, I decided to take a couple of the books as well, moaning under my breath about my stiff joints and rebelling stomach when I leaned down.  Whatever drove him wasn't a concern of mine. He had made his choice.

    Job done, I turned again to the back of the library.  There was something back there and I couldn't deny I wanted to know.  For Sundial's sake. Trotting like a ghost, I hunkered down and softly stepped one hoof at a time around the staircase to the staff desk.

    That laughter came again, a sort of giggle followed by a snort.

Ducking down before the staff desk, I closed my eyes and shivered.  What was I doing here? This was stupid! There was some freak out there pulling me in with temptation!  Yet I could not simply turn and go! That arrow beckoned me on the PipBuck! The laughter was muffled and distant, it could be some stupid sign outside for all I knew!

    Beep!

I squeaked myself as the PipBuck, well, pipped up again.  The arrow flashed and changed direction to be flickering to the left now. Around it, I could see a map open up on the screen, showing there was indeed deeper corridors in here.  I walked under the staff door's ledge (noting with some annoyance that I didn't have to duck at all) and followed the arrow again.

    Beep!

It changed to the right, sending me down that direction again.  I passed between lines of moulding papers and ancient books that were never resorted into the main library.  I couldn't help but notice my wings were flicked out slightly as though ready to suddenly flap and lift me away.

I reached a dead end.  Ahead of me I found the back of the storage area with piles of disorganised books that were knocked free from the staff shelves in the blast.  I saw posters above the walls bearing images of Twilight Sparkle and other unicorns joyously reading, whilst others bore a zebra glancing over the shoulder of a young pony reading a black and white book.  Even without reading, I admired their ability to tell a message through simply the art of the poster, despite the racially charged meaning.

    Then something caught my eye.  A single book left on the shelf perfectly still.

    Beep!

The arrow seemed to be indicating toward it.  I should have been questioning. I should have been running in fear to get my friends.  I should have been worrying and thinking, but after everything that had happened lately, I simply knew I couldn't go back to being like that.  It was time to pony up and do something for myself to make a discovery!

    Reaching out, I pulled the book from the bookshelf.  Or rather, I tried to.

With a thick grinding of metal, it jammed out before sticking where it was.  I retreated quickly, diving behind a bookshelf as the whirring of machines picked up.  Pistons churned and a gear turned with rusty squealing as I saw the entire bookshelf judder and move.  My mouth fell open when it began sinking into the floor before having to groan and clutch my head. Noise!  Too much noise for a hangover!

Groaning and holding my mismatched ears to my head, I simply curled up until the noises stopped ringing in my head.

    With a clatter of mechanical movement, the shelf finally stopped moving.  Carefully, I opened my eyes.

A small corridor behind an already open metal door lay before me.  Rather dark, it led to a set of steel steps heading downwards similar to that of the ghoul bunker in the crater.  Standing stock still, I simply didn't know what to think. Should I? Was I that curious to see? Anything could be down there. That laughter could be down there!

    Beep!

The arrow flickered forward.  With a brief look on the underside of the PipBuck, I saw my open shackles interlocked with Sundial's own mark.  I couldn't turn back. He had disappeared just as I almost had. I needed to know what happened.

    Buckling it back on, I trotted down the stairs.

    That laughter trickled up the stairwell as I kept going down.

My hooves moved slowly, taking each step carefully to avoid any creaking or slipping.  If something was down there, I was going to sneak up on it.

Gradually, the stairs ended.  Blinking until I got used to the darker nature down here, I saw the corridor widen out almost immediately and uttered a low 'woah.'

An entire secret base was down here.  There were offices to either side with half-height walls and glass panes showing right into them.  Each was filled with terminals and overturned desks, and coated in streamers or balloons that limply lay upon the floor.  Walls bore the symbol of the Ministry of Morale, terminals had some inscriptions or strangely pink glows on their screens, and I could see (and smell) the stench of a long-decayed trolley laden with cake and chocolate ahead of me in the walkway between offices.

Of course, what remained of the staff were down here too.  I tried not to look at the bones that flopped over desks or chairs in front of still functioning terminals.  Some lay under rugs at the side of the office in neat rows. They must have tried to survive down here with no way to get rid of their dead safely.

Turning away, I tried to steel myself.  I couldn't get too distracted. I would just find out what this PipBuck wanted and then get the hell out of here!

Gently, I trotted close to one of the walls and gazed around.  Every so often, I saw huge poster holders bearing pieces of paper and marked photos of ponies in front of several chairs.  Even without reading I could guess this was some place where they had once secretly tracked certain ponies. The thought that I might find where they brought those ponies terrified me to the core.

I dove under a table, my ears picking up the traces of sound again.  It was so much closer! Anypony could have heard it now! A laughing that descended into a mad giggle and a satisfied sigh.  The sound wove through the dead offices and past the silent bones. Then I heard another brief snicker even closer than that.

    Carefully, I poked my head out.  It was in here! It was in this very room!

    Yet I saw nothing.

    Trembling, regretting coming here, I dared to step out.

    “Naughty, naughty pony!  You aren't meant to be here!”

    Stopping dead, I let my head slowly turn to look the other way.

It hovered there.  A little steel ball of a sprite bot buzzing silently in the air!  No wonder I hadn't heard it. Those things made no sound at all when moving.  Since I'd last heard its noise the machine had flown right by me without me knowing!  Now it stared down at me.

    “I don't mind though.  Wanna play hide and seek?”

    The voice was bright and chirpy, the kind of voice I imagined Pinkie might have.

    My mouth stammered open.  “I-I...”

    “Okay, I'm 'it' first!  Get galloping! I'll count to ten!”

It would have seemed harmless, had it not been for the small energy blaster that started whirring and protruding from the bottom of the chassis.  Clearly this things definition of 'tag' was very different from mine! Scrambling up, I galloped off in the first direction I saw!

    “One!”

    Damn it!  Why couldn't I see over the walls to find an exit!

    “Twooo!”

    Rounding a corner, I saw one door and struggled to push it open.  The lock mockingly clattered in its almost broken hole.

    “Th-Th-Th-Th-threeeezzzzzzzzhhh-TEN!  Ready or not cheeky ponies, here I come!”

What!? That's cheating! I pulled at the lock and finally felt the satisfying crunch of the thin wood snapping beside the door frame.  Joyful, I pulled it open to leap inside and-

    It was a cupboard.

“Give me a f-f-flowering break!” I virtually screamed before turning to find another way.  Behind me, the sprite-bot floated idly around the corner and spotted me galloping off.

    “There you are!  Ha! Ha! HA!”

The last shout came along with a flash of pink and a burning energy flaring right by my ear to atomise a chair ahead of me in the cramped office chambers.  Screaming, I leapt onto and over a desk to avoid the next two blasts that slapped into the wood. On one hoof, the fact that it was only a sprite-bot was something of a relief compared to the nightmares of what that laugh I'd heard from upstairs was.  On the other hoof, it was a sprite-bot that wanted to kill me!

    Coming back to the main corridor that ran down the centre of the offices, I spotted the way out.

The sprite-bot had other plans. It whizzed out over the office desks and planted itself right in my way before charging its blaster again.  I saw it leak some sparks and judder in the air through an electronic laugh.

    “Nuh-uh-uh-uh-uh-uuuuuuuhFFFKK.”

I took the chance to flip out my saddle's mouthpiece and take aim. Blunderbuck's welding had proven true, for after setting the crosshairs over the sprite-bot and pulling the trigger, I saw the grapple whip out and slam right into the little metal nightmare!  Rebounding from the casing, the hook itself knocked it clean from the air with a dull clang and let its blaster open fire into the wall with a spray of pink sparks.

No time to wait around.  I turned and galloped down the office corridor until I found a way out, using the few seconds I'd bought myself to put some distance between me and it.  Behind me, I heard the blaster firing wildly and that voice asking me if I was having fun yet. I must have knocked its voice box on that impact, for the tone was more robotic and monotone now.

    Great, only I would have the luck to make it more scary!

Exiting the office, I found a few enclosed rooms and another stairwell.  The thought of being trapped in the store cupboards or likely interrogation rooms was too nightmarish to think about, so I took the stairs.  They curled around into a darker level lit only by sporadic lighting. On my left, I saw a medical symbol of butterflies and dove inside. I just hoped this was far enough to lose it!

After a brief period of hiding near the doorway and listening, I heard it still chirping away in the corridors above me and judged it safe to take a few seconds to hunt.  The cupboards and drawers were all pretty empty, but I managed to find a new set of scissors for my sewing and a couple bandages to add to our growing inventory. To my delight, the old fridge contained a half full bag of RadAway, something I eagerly poured into my canteen.  I'd need it by the time I got out of here, or was that just the alcohol on my throat? Urgh, Glimmer's parties could wait till I was out of Filly from now on.

    “Wheeeere are y-y-y-yooooou?  Hehehe! This is fun!”

A hoof shot to my mouth to hide the squeak of fear.  That thing had been so silent coming down the stairs I hadn't even noticed until it was right outside!  Pulling myself inside the fridge, I heard it bump against the door frame.

    “You're r-really good at this!”

It was in the medical bay!  My hoof gently kept the loose door shut.  Please don't somehow notice me. Please, PipBuck, don't beep!

But there was no sound.  None at all. In a way that was worse.  What if it had just given up and was waiting outside the fridge!  Oh dear, there was nothing else for it.

    Biting my lip and trying not to whimper, I peeked out.

    Nothing.  It had gone.  Breathing out at last, I trotted out into the room again before heading to the door.

    “Won't you poke your head out?  I wanna see you grin!”

It was upstairs again!  I wasted no time in getting out of the room and delving deeper into this strange, hidden bunker.  I could see a crossroads up ahead, but the path directly in front was blocked by a collapsed corridor in this apparently more unstable area.  Watching behind me repeatedly, I moved across the buckled floor to see what was left or right.

Immediately to my left, there was a gigantic metal door bearing a brass seal of three balloons about ten feet down the corridor.  I could see a terminal beside it but otherwise no way in. The other way looked and smelled damp, but at least had someplace to go.  Warily checking behind me again, I began trotting that way.

Why was my PipBuck bringing me here anyway?  I'd found Sundial's skeleton with the PipBuck itself, so what was dragging me in?  A part of the broken PipBuck? I noticed the ground felt wet and I realised I was trotting into a slowly deepening liquid dropping from a broken pipe further ahead.

    My ears perked up a little at an unknown sound: a mad clicking from my PipBuck.  Huh? What did that mean?

Lifting it, I glanced into the PipBuck itself and saw it telling me nothing.  It hadn't done that before. The symbol of balloons hadn't disappeared so what was...it...

    My eyes fell to the water beneath me.

    Glimmer had fixed the rad-warning. Oh cupcakes, I was in radiation!

    I turned and galloped back the way I'd come, splashing through the water.  Screw all of this!  I was going to sneak by that thing and get out!  This was too much now. I wasn't going to die of radiation down here from a leaky pipe!  I was-

    “I heeeear you!”

I turned the corner back to the stairwell corridor again and saw the horrible sight of that sprite-bot wandering down it again.  Seeming to hop with joy in the air, it began charging the blaster.

    “I r-r-really am good at tag! I should have to-oooooo-old you!”

    “Don't!  EEK!”

I dove away down the other side of the corridor and curled away from the pink blasts flickering past into the wall.  They left smouldering little holes in the thin metal that dripped slag to the floor. If that got me-oh no!

Scrambling to my hooves, I turned to run and slammed right into the huge blast door bearing three balloons.  Oh please open! I started pressing every button on the terminal I could, only to have a cross looking Pinkie Pie shake her head in a two-frame animation at me from the screen accompanied by a rather loud honk of denial.

    “OH COME ON!”

    I bashed the side with my PipBuck.  Come on, please!

    “Coming to get you!  Hehe! No-pony wins! I'm so good at tag I bet I would be the-kreeeeee-champion!”

    I fell with my back against the door, seeing the sprite-bot round the corner joyously and spin around to face me.

    Another voice echoed around me.  Male and robotic, it accompanied a sudden hiss of hydraulics.

    “PipBuck unit confirmed.”

Before I even knew what had happened, my frantic pushes back against the blast door led me to fall right through it into a pitch dark room.  Rolling as fast as I could, with pink jets of energy spearing after me so closely that I felt one whip through my mane, I tried to scramble out the way.  Immediately, the door slammed shut behind me, and cast me into darkness.

Lying still, patting out the small fire in my mane, I just slumped down, took a second to get my breath back, and swigged my RadAway, while making a mental note telling me to have no more adventuring when hungover.  My head...RadAway did not agree with my stomach right now either.

    Gradually, I brought myself to my senses again to take a few deep breaths and start to get up.

My eyes took a few long seconds to get used to the darkness, but I could see I was in a huge room just by a far off, tiny light.  Clutching my complaining stomach while I stood, I began to look around. I could see vague shapes, but nothing distinct.

A beam spotlight snapped on, pointed directly at me.  Yelping and closing my eyes again, I staggered back and peered out from under my hoof.  Lights sprung on all around the edges of what I now saw was a circular room. Photos of a certain pink pony surrounded by neon lighting flickered into life and floor lights lit the borders of the room.

Only they weren't what took my attention.  Yes, I could have seen the piles of balloon boxes, stuffed pony toys, and wooden candy canes against a wall.  I could perhaps have seen the desk bearing that same tri-balloon symbol on a brass plate at the back or the masses of little tins across the floor near it.  But my attention was rather more focussed on the colossal cannon that now swivelled on the spot and pointed directly at my face.  I had nowhere to go!

    Pointed directly at me, the cannon fired.

I wasn't an expert on weapons, but the sound was unlike anything I'd ever expected.  It sounded a lot more like the little thing Blunderbuck had fired last night at the table.  A small, concussive force knocked me clean over onto my rump as shrapnel bounced and landed all over me.

    It didn't hurt.  Wait, I was alive?

    Opening my eyes, I saw colours.  I was covered in streamers and little paper flakes.  The feeling of something striking me had been balloons that now floated above me.

    What kind of cannon was that?

Even amongst my bewilderment while sitting back on my hindquarters, I couldn't quite bring myself to understand.  I heard a little clink nearby as one of the balloons knocked something above me.  Confused, I looked up to see the balloons had hit a suspended basket of little bouncy balls that now fell into tubes and pipes strung up onto the ceiling.  I watched them twirl and cross over on their journeys. Eventually, they all began to reach one point within a basket that was slowly weighed down until it dropped.

The motion of it dropping pulled something at the side of the room up and let a large pink and yellow ball roll out across the room.  It struck the side of the desk and upset a balanced pen that rolled into a mousetrap. I winced as it went off and set alight a whole process of strange 'coincidences' that carried all over the room and grew into chairs falling and stuffed bears being catapulted over my head with precision that would have made acrobats jealous.  The whole room became a mass of activity until it all concentrated back in one epic movement of flying teddies and toy whirligigs whizzing across to the desk to all land in a huge toy chest behind it. Before my astounded eyes, the entire thing leaned forward under the weight, bumped the chair, and sent a fragile looking sphere rolling down a track that lowered from the ceiling.

    I knew that sphere, and I could guess now what it would land on.

The moment it hit the holder, a little spark of light formed from within it and grew into a spiralling galaxy of shimmering gems suspended in mid-air.  Whirling out from the orb they moved erratically and yet smoothly until they concentrated in one spot and glowed brighter. I knew the sequence now, following the recognisable shapes as they formed.  A pink glow that solidified and wove itself with twinkling lines and patterns. Lines, curves, and shapes before...before...

    No. ooooh no.

    The shape of a pony with a poofy mane and rounded face bearing a gigantic smile came to.  I shivered at the sight of her appearing.  Pinkie Pie!

She looked at herself, as though no doubt feeling a magical sensation while recording this.  Giggling, she looked up and directly at me. The shimmering lights shifted as she drew a deep breath and opened her eyes wide.

    Wait, what had surprised her?  What was she so happy abou-

    “HI, MURKY!”

    I blinked.  Then I blinked again.

    Then I simply pitched over and fainted.

Gradually, my eyes blinked and squinted.  The darkness fell away from visions where I felt myself letting go of somepony else. Of sitting down and closing my eyes with the last sight that of somepony watching me. Then of being carried somewhere.  Was that my mother? Was it Glimmer? Coral? Protégé? They were too small to be Brim.

    Then my eyes properly opened and it all evaporated.  Another dream cast to vague memory.

Instead, I found somepony else watching me from above.  Two huge sparkling eyes made of tiny star shapes gazed down from above and blinked incessantly.

    Pinkie Pie.

My own eyes shot open.  Scrambling so fast my scarcely healed neck and chest flared up in pain.  With a yelp, I shot back and away from the pink demon!

    “G-get away from me!”

    “Are you okay, little Murky Wurky?  Cos' you just fell over there really, really hard and hit your head.”

I kept moving backwards when she trotted forward.  No...no, forget this, I'd take my chances with the sprite-bot!  This thing was talking to me!  I got to my hooves, turned around, and made to gallop.  Only the moment I turned, she was right in front of me.

“And I know that hitting your head can make you go all woozy and crazy-eyed, like this!” Her eyes swivelled and rotated in their sockets.  “So I just thought I'd make sure you were all right! I used to take chocolate to make sure I was fine after I had a fall, cos' the doctors say that stops shock, you know?  I know all about chocolate, and cakes, and all the wonderful things they do can do; as well as being yummy in your tummy!”

    “Y-you know me!  How can you talk to me!?” I virtually screamed it, backing off to crash into her desk.  They were just recordings! “Stop following me everywhere!”

    The pink pony snorted and laughed out loud, rolling on her back before darting to her hooves again and skipping toward me.

    “Aww, but I told you before!  It's my Pinkie Sense that lets me know what's going to happen before it happens!  Sometimes it gets really crazy and I'll do something even I don't understand, like this!  Right now, I'm just talking to my desk and really, really hoping somepony called Murky will be doing all the right things for what I'm saying!  I sent him a letter before when I felt an itch on three and two-thirds hooves!”

    My breathing wasn't calming down much.  Had I actually died and gone to some crazy land?  The letter, though. That was all that gave any sort of proof that this somehow made sense, by not making any sense at all.  Why when I had a hangover?

    “S-so you predict the future?  So you're, um, predicting what I'm going to say and do before I, uh, say it?”

    Her head nodded frighteningly quick.

“That's riiight!  See? You aren't a dumb little pony even if you can't read or write, yet.  I did this because I realised there were some things I knew you wanted to ask and some things I needed to tell you!  So I left little clues around to get you here, like a scavenger hunt!  Did you have fun?”

    At this point, I was terrified to disagree or inquire about exactly how.  I nodded warily, and she beamed widely, the pink glow from the memory spell orb's form of her casting right over me.

    “Goodie!  The PipBuck, the letter, the little signal, and the picture of the balloons!  I knew you'd get it!”

“The PipBuck?  The-the arrow?” I looked down at it, before realising this was sort of what I had wanted. Answers!  “This is Sundial's PipBuck! You took him away! Arrested him!”

    “That's the smart bit!  Let your old Auntie Pinkie explain!”

She reached out and dragged me away from the desk to trot beside her, one hoof around my shoulder.  Then I stopped, and realised.

    “Y...y-you're touching me...”

    “Course I am, silly!”

    “HOW!?  The others! They couldn't touch me!  Memory projections can't touch ponies!”

    'Pinkie' merely rolled her eyes.  “Eh, they just weren't trying hard enough.  Now come on, I gotta tell you all about little Sundial!”

I just blinked and quietly decided to shut down the logical part of my brain for now.  It was better not to be thinking too hard, for my own sanity's sake. Feeling her grab my hoof, I was dragged at high speed across the room before a little projector screen.  Hopping back into view, I saw her lift a small pointer stick with her mouth and clap her hooves. The room darkened and I heard the projector spool up.

Before me, a sepia-toned image of Sundial popped up.  The picture had been taken as he wandered in the front door of a small home.

“See, we spotted this cute little buck early on when some of those nasty zebras started talking to him!  I felt so sad that he had to do what he did to try and help his marefriend! But we couldn't have our itty bitty secrets going to them, no no!  But then we got a better idea!”

The projector clicked and changed.  I saw a mass of small huts and tents in rows.  It looked a lot like some sort of refugee camp.  I sat in silence, partly through interest and partly through terror.  I took this time to try and come to terms that Pinkie Pie was effectively here with me.  Why my life?

    “Fillydelphia's a really cool city!  It's got awesome big machines that go chunk-chunk-chunk and sometimes even woowoo!  It makes lots of the big fancy things we use, but it also meant that the zebras also kept trying to get stuff from it!  All the ponies like me in the Ministries saw things going missing, like so many refugees in these camps. Poor Fluttershy was heartbroken, and I just kept trying to send her gifts to cheer her up.”

It changed again, this time to Hearts and Hooves Hospital.  Even in the pre-war era, it looked mismatched and in dire need of renovation.

“But then all these other ponies went missing too!  One of the really big surgeons here called Doctor Heartcare disappeared for weeks at a time!  That was so naughty that even the bigger doctors like Flowerpot and Weathervane started trying to get me to find him!  Only Weathervane was out so often with Dashie and the Shadowbolts that it was hard to get a chance to see him!”

Heartcare...but that was the Magister in the ghoul bunker Brim and I had found!  What did he have to do with this? The slide dropped into darkness between pictures and blew up another of the Wartime Manufactory.

“Then even workers here started to disappear!  Some talked about how they'd gotten better jobs but nopony ever saw them again!  That's why we caught little Sundial. We were watching the factory for the missing workers when a sprite-bot saw him.  They're so useful and cute! I just love the music they play, don't you?”

    “Uuuh, yes?” Disagreement was not something I wanted, even if one had just tried to kill me.

    Her face went shockingly wide with happiness.  “Thank you! Nopony has ever said they liked them before!”

“N-no po-ACK!” She had grabbed me and given me a hug so strong that two hundred years apart it still nearly crushed my ribs.  Gasping for breath and waggling every limb that had lifted from the ground, I realised that Brim had competition in strength! Sucking in air as she dropped me, I heard the slide change again.

    This one was Pinkie with her hoof around a visibly terrified Sundial.

    I could relate.

“I got him to go on a super special mission!  He wanted to help Equestria and I asked if he could become a double agent for us!  How cool is that? He would go and speak to the zebras again, give them things only we gave them, and become one of those workers that I guessed the zebras were taking!”

The slides shut down and the lights came back on.  Bewildered, but beginning to take a breath and accept at least the immediate reality, I stood up and looked at Pinkie.  I was seeing a different pony. For all the posters and scary watchfulness, she seemed childlike and playful, despite being much older than I was.

    “B-but what's this to do with me?”

The question hung in the air, a rare silence from Pinkie as she looked at me and clearly thought about how to answer my question.

    “Murky, you've probably guessed by now but there was something really, awfully bad going on in Fillydelphia!  That's what I wanted to find, but I knew that I couldn't do it on my own or give it out to too many other ponies.  There's a big nasty thing happening in Manehattan I need to go deal with so I had to make Sundial into the pony to try and deal with it and bring it to my attention after he had proof.”

    Sitting down, she actually looked a little sad with her ears drooping down and that playful tail resting upon the ground.

“There's so much going on now that I can't do it all, Murky.  See, I had this really big weird out moment and my Pinkie Sense told me that I needed to take some extra special precautions!  Sundial wasn't the first pony we'd sent to try and find things in Fillydelphia, but I hoped that because he was just a normal pony he might stand a better chance than an obvious trained pony.  Even then I knew that whatever the zebras were up to or building with stolen ponies, we might not figure it out or get rid of it forever!”

    Her hooves grabbed me by the shoulders, leaning her nose in to press against mine and tapping the side of my head.

    “That's where you come in!”

    “M-me?”

    “Even if Sundial gets word to us and we stop it, there might not be enough time if anything really bad happens!  That's why I needed to make sure I had somepony in the future who could pick it up to stop really bad ponies getting it!  This might be a lot smaller than the big things we all need to deal with right now or that are going on elsewhere, but that doesn't mean it's not important!  If all my old friends worked together we'd find it easy peasy, but we're too far away and busy to see each other these days.”

I needed a second.  Moving away from her, I trotted for a few seconds just to think.  My mind just wasn't settling. So, this weird pony could see what was going to happen in the future, and had set up all this because she knew I'd find Sundial's PipBuck to act as some sort of insurance against something bad that would be left untouched in the event of balefire warfare?

    A two hundred year insurance. One that I was meant to be in the grand scheme of pony history?

    Suddenly, I felt very small indeed.

I couldn't deny it made some sense though.  I had certainly seen these clues, just I hadn't figured they were all related.  Magister Heartcare. Fluttershy mentioning missing refugees. Sundial.

Like the star shapes I'd once seen, it was all linked.  Now somepony who had looked into future times had seen that I would know these things and chosen me to act as some sort of 'next in line.'

    “I...”

    This was insane.

    “I just...I don't know.”

    I heard her trot up behind me.

    “I'm really, really, reeeeally sorry for all you've been through, Murky.  I know sometimes it gets real sad, dark, and lonely. I had to work on a rock farm too before I learned to smile!  But I'll always be there to try and get you to learn how to as well! This is really important though. Sundial cared a lot and it could-”

    “I just want out.” I spoke quietly, turning to her.  “I'm sorry. I'm no hero or anything. I just want out of this place!  It's taking all I have just to do that.”

    Pinkie put her hoof to her chin and looked in deep thought.

    “Well, I guess you didn't see my other little clue then, did you?”

    “H-huh?”

“Didn't you see the little Pinkie-bot telling you where the way out was?  I left it in an old, big cargo box that was so big I could hear myself echo in it!”

I stopped for a few seconds.  I had-yes, I had heard it! List Seeker had sent me there before Barb's gang found me!  What had it said?

“It said…’the way out is just downstairs’...”   

    I thought I was remembering, but I saw Pinkie gurning as she twitched her legs and repeated it with rather frightening accuracy.

    “You were telling me...”

“Uh-huh!  Every scavenger hunt has gotta have a clue!  Those zebras got out of the city somehow, those sneaky things!  Every time we almost caught them they went underground into the metro and the tunnels!”

She was right. They couldn't leave above ground. The plan we had must’ve been on the right track!  They had some sort of route out of the city down there in the metro! Briefly, I couldn't help but remember how Aurora had some strange goings on down there too.  Coincidence? I thought not!

“So, Murky!  If you take on this super Pinkie Mission, it'll lead you to the way out by the end!  You were already on the right track, this'll just point you in the proper direction and make you the one to find whatever got left behind by the zebras and take care of it before anypony bad gets it too!  It'll take you to the way out, ending all this forever. You’d have got there anyway, I guess but...I figured you needed to know it.”

    She paused, looking more sincere and serious than I'd yet seen her.

    “Sundial believed in it.  You've been so like him up till now.”

    Pinkie was right.  Something about this felt right.  I had been following Sundial's story, the least I could do was see how it ended and help finish what he had started before the spells fell upon Equestria.

    “How many ponies have there been on this task?”

    “Oh, before Sundial?  Five! He was the sixth.  This has come a long way, Murky, and if we can stop this now and get you your freedom because of it, that's perfect!”

    “Yeah. Perfect.”

    I looked off to the side.  Try as I might, I just couldn't comprehend this at all.

    “Aw, c'mon Murky!  Get that frown upside down!”

“Not exactly easy in the city these days.  Pinkie, I don't know how much you know, but I don't even know if I'll get there!  I can dream and believe but it's so hard to smile, and feel confident about it! Sure, part of me feels better now, that even if I die and don't achieve it, I'll have died trying.  But I don't want that!  I want to be free and feel it all!  Live a life! I've never had the chance to truly feel happy.  I'm not even sure I know what it actually feels like.”

    “Pffft.”

    I stopped dead in my ramble at her blowing a raspberry.  How disrespectful! I was opening my heart here and-

    “Course you do, silly!  Here, let me show you!”

    She reached up, standing on her hind legs and clapped her hooves loudly.

    “Come on, bots!  Get your voices on and come out to show him!”

I heard the vents open in the room.  From within them, a low hum sounded. Growing in volume, I realised it was music.  Bouncy and happy music. All around us, I saw sprite-bots float in. Arcing around in the air and between the laid out presents or candy canes, they bobbed and formed into big circles that constantly rotated around both of us with that music growing in volume!  I fell closer to Pinkie, who only smiled and threw a hoof around my shoulders.

    A quiet murmuring began to spread as more and more of them entered the room.

I recognised them!  They were all the strange video screen ones I'd seen stalking me everywhere!  They were speaking as they came, a low chanting chorus among them. Pinkie herself joined it, spinning us around to see them all, as three circles of sprite-bots floated in opposite directions around the room, all facing into me!

    “Come on little Murky, smile smile smile...”

    The screens began to light up.  Each fizzing as they began to show me footage just like how Shackles' captured one had.  I stood breathless in wonder as I saw myself in every single one of them.

    “Fill your heart up with sunshine, sunshine!”

    I was laughing coming down a helter-skelter, shouting with joy and my front legs in the air.  Landing in the pit at the bottom, I upped and smiled directly at the sprite-bot's camera before trotting on with a spring in my step.  Another had me skipping in circles inside the Ministry of Image, delighted and happy with finding Littlepip's trail and a massive goofy grin on my face.

    “All you really need's a smile smile smile!”

    I was standing in Weathervane's office, smiling as I glanced at his picture of Sundial with a warm and gentle happiness across my face.  Then I was with Unity as we chuckled and shared glances at my journal while huddled together under a piece of scrap.

    “And everything will be fiii-iiiine!”

    Each sprite-bot joined in, growing in volume higher and higher as Pinkie whirled me around to see each screen one at a time.  I saw me sitting up, my wings outstretched for the first time since I was a foal. The look of delight upon my face indescribable!  The bots swirled and turned on the spot, almost dancing in the air as they chanted and sung, repeating themselves on the same chorus.  Pinkie swung me to face her, her voice picking up.

    “Give a perfect grin for me!  Just smile as wide as a mile! You'll be as happy as can be!”

    One more spin and I found myself facing one sprite-bot that had come forward.  Upon it, I saw it staring through a window. Inside, above a sea of laughing and cheering ponies, Glimmer and I danced hoof and hoof atop a table as they all chanted and stomped in time with us.  I was just having fun, carefree and happy. A glimpse of the life I had been having without ever truly remembering all the good times.

    I heard them chant again, growing in volume every time.

    “Smile!  Smile! Smiiiile!  Smiiile!”

    “Come on and smile, Murky!  You've got a beautiful smile!  One of the best I've ever seen! Why don't you do it more?  Look at it!”

Her voice in my ear when I simply saw that last clip from the Roamer felt so familiar.  Almost exactly like something Glimmerlight had said to me long ago. Under the chants, under the persuasion, I felt a grin come onto my face.  We had a way out for sure! The secrets of the past would light the way if we could simply discover that path! Sundial would be my guide, the story I'd always been following and was always meant to follow!

    I would be free!

    What was there to not smile about!?

Spinning around, I leapt up and spread my wings as best I could, letting it grow upon my face before finally exploding into being.  A huge beaming grin from ear to ear. Pinkie's face seemed to explode in joy at the sight, cheering aloud.

    “That's it!  You just have to smile!  Sing it!”

    “I...” I laughed.  “I just have to smiiile!”

    “That's it!  You just have to smiiile!”

    “I just have to smile!”

    We continued like that under the ongoing chorus of the sprite-bots for a while, before simply falling over from dizziness, exhaustion, old injury, and hangover all at once into a giggling heap.  The sprite-bots gradually filtered away.

    “You're not as creepy as I thought you were, Pinkie. Hehe!”

    The pink pony snorted at the odd compliment and rolled back to her hooves, helping me up.

    “We've got enough problems, if I can make a pony who really needed to learn to smile do so, I'll do it!  That's my thing!”

“Thank you, Pinkie...I see why it’s important. For me, for Sundial, for everyone I care for.” I stood more upright, my neck up proper like Weathervane told me.  “I won't let you or Sundial down. Me and my friends, we'll find the way.”

Pinkie almost looked sad for a second.  “Isn't that always how it works, silly? Hehehe!  They'll wonder where you are. Go give them a hug for me!  I've got serious business to get back to in Manehattan!”

Across the room, I heard something unlock and a portion of the wall slid open to reveal some stairs.  I could see the sparkles around Pinkie Pie's star-shape form beginning to fade and flicker. The memory orb was ending.  She looked with wonder at her own hooves.

    “Oooh. Well, this is it.  Off you go, Murky!”

    “Thank you...for watching out for me.”

    I reached forward and Pinkie bumped her hoof into mine.  She giggled once more.

    “I told them all. Pinkie Pie was going to watch over them forever.”

Her immense grin became a more genuine, caring smile as the apparition of a pony slowly spread and warped into a little orb of its own, that faded from view back into the sphere and left a few words lingering in the air...

    “I meant it.”

I simply stood still for a few seconds.  A lot had happened and been revealed, but I just gave a quiet moment of respect before moving off.  I was confused and filled with questions, but also a purpose and drive. I had regained my life, my free will, my wings, and now my drive.  The world that had took so much away had given them back out of the laughter-filled past.

    Without really knowing why, I felt a few tears drip from my eyes as I looked back from the stairwell.

I simply saw the orb sitting on its holder and heard the sounds of smiling music fading and echoing away into the dark future around me.

    It was approaching later in the afternoon as I returned to the Mall.

I hadn't rushed.  Aside from feeling stiff, an odd sense of melancholy had overtaken me upon seeing Pinkie's shape fade away.  Every time I looked up, I would see a huge balloon, billboard, or some poster announcing her presence. Pinkie Pie was gone forever, but she had lived up to her word.  Seeing the future, she had prepared for me and what I would need.

Somehow, despite the terrifying thought of some benevolent force watching me across history, I felt strangely reassured whenever I saw those eyes watching me now.

I didn't return to the plaza immediately.  Instead, I went directly to Protégé's office.  I knew my friends were likely out on shift still and I had no wish to sit alone.  Ragini was waiting on guard and wordlessly opened the door. Avoiding her gaze, I simply trotted inside and closed the door.

    “Ah, Murk.  You are back.”

Protégé sat at the window, leaning back into the frame with a book hovering before him.  With a little surprise, I saw it was the Daring Do one from before. Seeing me looking, he merely smiled and placed it down.

    “We all have our escapes.”

I offered a small nod, noticing the small hint in his words.  Sitting down before his desk, I began to pull the desk lamp out, only realising now that this was likely why he was using the window rather than his desk for light.

    “I, um, also saw these beside it.  I don't know why I brought them.”

    I dropped the books out too.  Trotting around his desk, Protégé picked one up.

“Ah!  Applied mathematics, my my. It has been a while.  Thank you, Murk. Judging from how relaxed you look, I imagine the library did you good?”

    After a second, I simply nodded.  “Yes, you could say that.”

“Excellent.” Protégé had turned to a smaller desk, fitting the lamp to it and plugging the magic wire leading into a tiny generator that sat in the corner.  With a small flick, an amber light shone in the darker room.

“Um, Protégé?  I thought about your, um, offer.” I bit my lip, watching as he turned one eye to me even whilst sorting the new books.  I couldn't help but notice he wasn't wearing the eyepiece. “I'd like to take you up on it, if it's still open.”

If I had to choose a word to try and describe the ‘ever hard to decipher’ look on his face, I would have gone with relieved.  Protégé sat a book on the small desk in front of a bench and placed a hoof to his chest.

“I'm glad you say that, Murk.  I promise you as early as we can we will investigate getting your friends out too.  For now, it will give you ample time to recover by acting as my assistant and aide. Truthfully, I just want you safe from Shackles.  You can stay here in the spare room over there and you will remain under my protection.”

    “Thank you.”

Protégé offered a small grin.  “Now don't go thinking this is a holiday.  You will be expected to still be my assistant.  To be up and preparing my things for the coming day, to take needless busy work from my schedule, or to keep things organised.  I'm sure you won't have a problem with that. Think of this to get you away from abuse as my gift to you.”

    That didn't sound so bad, even if the newly found will to never be a slave again in me hated the thought of doing anything for anypony.  He was just doing his best and despite myself, I giggled a little and actually seemed to surprise him.

    “A gift?  You mean a birthday gift?”

    Protégé laughed and shook his head, sitting upon the reading desk bench.

    “No, Murk.  A gift for you saving my life.  No, no. This is your birthday gift.”

My eyes shot open in surprise.  He shifted in the seat to face the desk in front of it and patted the seat beside him on the bench.

    “Come here, Murk.  Sit down.”

A little confused, I did just that.  In the amber light, I saw him turn from me and open one of the books I'd brought back with me between us.  It was just filled with words that meant nothing to me.

    “Now...”

    Protégé flipped to a certain page before turning back to me.

    “...I believe we should start with the alphabet.”

    Footnote: Perk Attained!

    Foal's First Literacy (Rank 1) – It may take some time to catch up with the rest, but slowly all those arcane shapes are starting to make a little bit of sense.  You may be able to recognise a few very simple words or letters from now on.