//------------------------------//
// 2. The Scent Of Something More 
// Story: Adrift Off Fiddler's Green: The Final Conversion Bureau Story 
// by Chatoyance 
//------------------------------//

 


Adrift Off 
Fiddler's Green


A     C o n v e r s i o n     B u r e a u     S t o r y
                                                              By Chatoyance






2. The Scent Of Something More




"I just... don't remember. I'm sorry. I suppose I'm not being a very good interview, am I? That's the word, right, interview? Or is it subject? Probably subject of an interview, or is there some colorful Newsie term? In any case, I expect I am not being a very good one, am I mister Frontpage?"

Frontpage finished scribbling with his mouth. He was always very careful to note the least little statement, however banal. Anything might be the perfect slant, and the slightest thing might turn out to be the nutgraf that made the piece - or even a golden lede, straight from the pony's mouth. Frontpage had awakened on the table after Conversion with his cutie mark - a fedora with a press pass - already in place, on his flank. Being a reporter wasn't just a job for him, even when he had been human. Across two entire universes, it truly was his life's calling.

"You're doing fine, Ms. Acres." Frontpage considered other papers that might take him. The Manehatten Bugle? Equestria Today? The Los Pegasus Tribune? The Trottsville Tattler? The Foal Free Press? No, he was a little old for that one... oh, Sweet Luna, why wouldn't Gotchararzzi understand that even in Equestria... there were ponies who wanted real news, not just stories about Canterlot celebrities and the dregs of old dead Earth's wealthy elite...

"Mister Frontpage?" Crimson had stretched her neck forward to stare intently at the reporter. "Are you alright? Is it the heat? It's perpetual summer here, all year round. For the bananas, you know. Would you like a fresh melonade? I could put some ice in a bag..."

Frontpage startled, and dabbed his foreleg at the sweat dripping down his muzzle. "Sorry. Um... yes, the heat. It is a little warmer than I am used to. My apologies." Crimson was beginning to rise, probably for ice or more to drink. "Please... I don't need anything. Well, other than this story. I really need this story. I need something, anyway." He regretted his tone the moment the words left his mouth.

Crimson's ears perked. "Mister Frontpage?"

Frontpage sighed. "My job is... sort of on the line here. This isn't my usual five W's with an H on the side. I've never been comfortable with pony-interest stories, I can never figure the slant, I can't figure out how to get a pony-interest piece above the fold, you know?"

"What do you usually write about?"

Frontpage shifted on the couch he was laying on. "Heh... I suppose you could say I like the big stuff. I like to get to the heart of what makes things work, the events that shape history, the secrets behind the everyday world. Some of my colleagues say I like the weird stuff, the oddball stuff too much. Maybe I do." He carefully sipped the last of his melonade. "My last story was about the Bluebloods, and the so-called 'distant nephew' of princess Celestia. He's no relative, not even close. There's something strange going on there, but my blind interview took a powder, my inches got buried, and now I can't go within thirty hooves of any relative of the Blueblood clan. But there's something redletter there, something big, something being covered up - I can smell it." Frontpage tapped his muzzle with a hoof. "I've got a nose, for news."

"I don't think I have any big juicy secrets for you." Crimson got up, off of her own couch, to pour more melonade for herself. "More? I'm up already." The reporter nodded, so Crimson filled his glass too. "I'm pretty sure the whole issue of the Covenant, and the Masada, are known by now?"

"Old news, I'm afraid. Most ponies didn't even know there was a colony of untransformed humans living on the back of Canterlot Mountain, and the only reason it even became an issue was... well, because of you and the other fillies and colts with you. What happened to all of you, and why, made Celestia's decision to void the agreement and end the Masada a very popular decision. Very convenient for her, actually..." Frontpage stared off, out the window, at the bananas for a while. "No. No. That really is tin-foil-hat time. She's smart and powerful, but she isn't devious. Well... not devious in that fashion, anyway. Not in a cruel way."

"Mister Frontpage?" Crimson tried to see what was out the window, but it was only an endless sea of mature banana plants. As always.

"Oh, sorry. Always looking for a scoop." Frontpage opened his notebook again, it had fallen shut when he had sipped his melonade. He flipped the pages, scanning them. "Tell me about your sister, then. She was a performer, right? Part of that big show in the sky way back when, the one seen all over Equestria?"

Crimson brightened. "Yes! Plantain is oh-so-talented, just incredible! She had the spiders doing rhythm - their entire language is made up of syncopated clicks, you know - and of course the bunnies, she had an entire troupe of... um..."

"Ms. Acres?"

Crimson raised her lowered ears and looked up. "They're all gone now. There was... an incident. But that was long ago. Long ago."

Now Frontpage brightened. Considerably. "Incident? It's clear that whatever it was, it was a traumatic moment. It must have been very difficult for you. Could you tell me a little about what happened?" Frontpage couldn't help but lean forward, pencil in teeth.

"It was Snow Bunnies. It's always Snow Bunnies with her. Ever since Crème..." Crimson stared off, out at the forever summer outside her windows. "They can't help it, the poor little dears. Snow Bunnies, I mean. The slightest thing can set them off. I have no idea how her little Crème kept herself in check for so long. She was only half Snow Bunny, that was probably it. They're like little fuzzy grenades with the pins all pulled. 'Grenade'. I don't use human words anymore, it's strange saying it. Grenade. I'm amazed that popped up in my head. How did I even learn that word?"

Frontpage watched the mare sadly sip her drink in silence. "You said you were..." he peeked at his notes "...twelve, when you moved to Equestria? You lived in Antarctica... mostly... and that you were very lonely. I know you don't recall much about that time, but you did mention a show you were fascinated by?"

Crimson's gaze shifted from the window to focus on the reporter. "Yes. Oh, I was quite the little fanatic. I don't remember the name, or much about it specifically, but it was a dramatization of a human woman going through a Bureau. Or maybe it was a live report. I can't quite recall. Hmm. It was very, very long ago. It made me want to Convert so badly. But that was quite impossible for me at the time. Oh, I used to watch that show over and over. I once met a mare... a human... woman... that liked it too. I remember that. I was not allowed to meet people very often, I was always under guard, but in she came, and walked right up and talked to me! Just like that!"

Crimson held her glass in her pasterns and lapped at her melonade with her tongue. It was fun to drink things that way, at least until the level of the liquid got too low in the glass. Then the edge of the glass would hurt the underside of her tongue, as it strained to reach down to lap at the liquid. Such silly fun. "I so hope nothing bad happened to her, whoever she was. She seemed nice. Genuinely nice. That was a rare thing, back then. That moment... I think about it sometimes. She left very suddenly when I pointed out my guards. I wonder if we could have been friends somehow. I always wanted friends, so much. I was very lonely, then. And then Celestia came!" The smile was so large that it pulled at her cheeks.

Noting that the change of subject had effectively raised Crimson's spirits, Frontpage flipped his notebook back to the page he had started with. "Is your sister here? Can I talk to her, too?"

Crimson shook her head. "No... she's at her institute, on the south side of Canterlot Mountain. She's always there, now."

"Institute?" Frontpage scribbled furiously.

"The Royal Equestrian Institute For The Integration Of Discordant Creatures. Ever so grand a title, but I guess that's to be expected, considering." Crimson noticed, out the window, Clover chasing Jinx near the front well. They seemed to be having fun.

"Expected? In what way?"

"The entire thing is funded and supported by princess Luna. I suspect she had a hoof in naming it, too. It was desperately nice of her to provide for my sister, and I am grateful, of course... but it does keep us apart... and, well..." Crimson sighed "Frankly, mister Frontpage, sometimes I feel that the institute, the funding, all of it, all it does is just make a fool of my sister. It certainly puts her in constant danger. I know it's her life, and her passion, but... maybe... maybe you shouldn't try to save every scary, dangerous creature, you know?"

Frontpage carefully set his notebook down on the couch, and raised his hoof to scratch the bridge of his nose. "Considering the upcoming newfoal festival, I find that sentiment a little surprising, Ms. Acres. I helped with a few articles about you and your friends back then, when I was just starting out at the Querier - a big move up for me at the time - and as terrifying as that bunny of yours was, well, I remember Earth pretty well. I have to say I'm dumpling grateful that the princesses didn't give up on our old world... and species."

Crimson's eyes narrowed, and then relaxed. Her ears raised up again. "You... you are right, of course. I was just a foal at the time, I didn't... know very much. Since then, I've learned a great deal about my parents, about what happened on the earth, About how things... worked... back then. I know I was just a child and could do nothing, but... you have a point, mister Frontpage. It's just been so long, and I never actually saw any of the... bad... things that went on." 

When he had finished scribbling, Frontpage set his pencil down in the spine of his notebook. "Maybe it's better to forget. Earth is long gone. Long, long gone. I can't say I've missed it." The melonade was sweet, but room-temperature now; the ice had all melted. "You never married, right?"

Crimson laughed and shook her head. "No. I've never found the right one. Oh, I have a lovely stable of really nice stallions who have given me some wonderful foals over the last century, but... I wouldn't really want to live with any of them, and they... well, they aren't the summer type. Perpetual, never-ending summer. A blessing and a curse both. I finally see what mother meant." Outside the window, the sun beat down, as it always did. Always. Always.

Frontpage looked over his messy, scribbled notes, and wiped perspiration from his muzzle, and from his poll. One of his eyes stung, where salty, dusty sweat had dripped into it. "I have to say It's a little hard to concentrate in this heat." He blinked his irritated eye several times. "It's really like this all the time?"

"There is a special arrangement with the local weather team. The entire area is summer all the year around. It doesn't even cool down when it rains." Crimson went to her kitchen and brought back a bowl of ice. She dispensed ice in the drinks, and offered Frontpage a cube to suck on. "We normally have some really powerful air conditioning in here. Our Bevelmeiter is broken. One of my fillies was playing in the basement, and somehow something got knocked into it. Even they aren't sure how it happened. We've got a replacement on order, but things take time and..."

The day felt endless, and in the perpetual heat, both Crimson and Frontpage found themselves simply sitting and sucking ice cubes for some indeterminate time.

Frontpage woke, as from a dream. "Your sister!"

"Mnnn? Yes?"

Frontpage shook his head and sipped some melonade. "She's being funded by the princess. Princess Luna, correct?"

Crimson stretched on the couch, and moved her hindquarters to make them more comfortable. She hadn't even noticed her hindleg was falling asleep until just this moment. Her flank tingled and felt prickly. "Yes. Quite well, in fact. The princess has poured a lot of bits into my sister's institute."

"Why?"

Crimson blinked. "I don't understand."

Frontpage made a few notes in his little book. "Why? Why would one of the diarchs of Equestria personally fund - lavishly, apparently - an institute on the border of the Everfree to help a few hazardous rabbits? What's her motivation? From my research, your sister isn't related to anypony in the court, she isn't known except for her performances with the Happy Pony Show, and that one event long, long ago... and I can't find any connection between her and the princess at all. Ever. Why help your sister? Why bother?"

"Well, because..." Crimson looked around the room. The plantation was large, roomy, but not overly fancy. The princesses did love bananas... no, actually, only Celestia did. It was said that Luna didn't actually care for bananas. Back during the time when they had been revivified, from petrification, Luna hadn't even been there. No... wait. She helped with Peony and Tulip, she was definitely there for that. It was so hard to remember, it had been so long ago. "Oh! Maybe..."

Frontpage knew from long experience that when an interview suddenly went 'Oh!' or 'Wait!' or even 'Perhaps..." with a long, drawn-out drift off into thought, it meant something. Usually something big, or profound, or juicy. It was a tell even a rookie could catch. Maybe not Puffpiece, but most any rookie. "Oh, maybe, what?" 

Crimson noticed the almost predatory gleam in the reporter's eye. Newfoal. Native ponies... there were ways, looks, movements, ways of saying things that native ponies just never did. It was something only another newfoal would notice. Even after all these years, even with being converted at such a young age, Crimson could still tell. She wished she couldn't, because it meant that in some subtle way, she had still not completely assimilated into her proper life. "Well... Plantain did tell me a story once. About meeting princess Luna. Late at night, in her tower. Sort of meeting her, anyway. After a fashion."

Frontpage's ears stood tall. His eyes locked onto the tan mare as if she were his favorite food. "After... a fashion? Sort of? The princess is a little... unmistakable. How does a pony 'sort of' meet the princess of the night?"

"She had... an experience." Crimson felt uncomfortable now, her sister had told her of the event in hushed tones, reverently, and somehow talking about it to a reporter felt strange. "She did not so much meet the princess face to face as... being granted an audience with what the princess... represents."

"You have completely lost me with mysterious words, and I am loving it." Frontpage tried to wipe the drips of sweat away from his notebook as he scribbled down everything Crimson had just said. "Details! A reporter lives or dies by details. What happened? We know when. And who. And where. Not why, not how, not yet. So what? What did your sister... experience?"

Now Crimson felt quite in a pickle. "I... it isn't that this is something I shouldn't be telling you - it wasn't a confidence - but it is something that... well, it's a little hard to say."

Frontpage paused from scribbling. "I've heard everything. From everypony. You'd be hard-pressed to surprise me. Go on."

"My sister was granted a glimpse of what happens after we die."

Frontpage dropped his pencil. It hit the sweat-sodden notebook and bounced off it and onto the floor. In the quiet, still, oven-like room it sounded like a log crashing down a cliff. "O...kay. You have surprised me. A lot, actually. That has to be the very last thing I thought I would hear today, and if this wasn't Equestria, I would be already discounting it as looly-talk. But... this is Equestria, where ponies fly and my breakfast was cooked by a unicorn who doesn't bother using a pan. He calls it 'float-a-frying'. I, myself, can make flowers bloom by wishing really hard. So...." Frontpage swallowed, hard. "What happens when we and daisies are in the same place, and we aren't doing the eating?"

Crimson stared at the reporter. "Are all reporters quite so morbid?"

"Oh, muffins, no!" Frontpage grinned. "You're fortunate you got me. I'm the sensitive type."

Crimson laughed. "Oh! Well, then, lucky me!"

"So, the question is on the table - what happens after we run off with the Pale Mare?"

"I think, mister Frontpage, that the mare we run off with isn't pale." Crimson smiled, faintly. "I suspect that the mare is actually a very deep midnight blue and favors cats, spiders and bats. And candy."

"Tell me everything. EVERYTHING." Frontpage was already off his seat and nibbling after his pencil, where it had rolled under the couch.















Crimson tried to decide whether to pack the long woolen scarf into her traveling saddlebags. The institute was on the mountain, and it was cold there, but it was located below the snow line. It wouldn't likely be that cold. Unless it was winter, of course. Crimson suddenly realized she had no idea what season it was for everypony else. After a moment, she stuffed the scarf in.  

"MOOOMM! I don't wan you to GOOOO!" Clover was pouting. It took everything Crimson had to stand firm and not nuzzle and hold her daughter. Sometimes it was difficult being a good mother.

"I will only be gone for a few days, maybe a week. That's my four legs and two of yours long." Crimson watched her youngest carefully try to count legs. She couldn't help but smile.

"Mother, who will take care of us while you are away?" Jinx spoke in measured tones, but Crimson knew from long experience what the filly must be feeling inside.

Crimson considered the toque with the fuzzy ball on top. Was that going too far? "Aunt Peony and Uncle Tumble will. They have business in Airs, and they've missed you two. They love you a lot, you know." 

"Unca Tumble smells funny." Clover wrinkled her nose until her muzzle formed a mask of distaste.

"That's because he's a diamond dog, sweetie. That's just how it is." Crimson shrugged with her ears and stuffed the soft hat into her saddlebags, next to the scarf.

"Why did aunt Peony marry a diamond dog?" Jinx looked around the room as if trying to memorize it. As if the room were leaving with her mother.

"Because she loves Uncle Tumble very, very much." Crimson searched through her closet for a raincoat. It might rain a lot, if it was spring and not winter out there.

"Do I hafta marry a diamond dog?" Clover's ears were low.

"Only if you want to. Do you have a dog in mind?" Crimson chose her blue raincoat. It was thin, and would pack easily. She liked it because it was long, and completely covered her hindquarters and tail.

"EWWWWWW!!!!" Clover began stomping around the room.

Crimson turned from her packing and sat down on her flanks. She raised her forelegs, and pulled her fillies to her. "No, not 'Eww', not ever! Aunt Peony and Uncle Tumble love each other, and that is the most important thing in all the world. It's the only important thing. I want you two to remember that always." Crimson kissed her children on their polls, and raised herself to her hooves.

"Do you think aunt Peony likes the way that Uncle Tumble smells?" Jinx, ever the analytical one.

"Yes, I expect she does. Love is magic that way. Like friendship is magic. Love is magic too." Crimson smiled. "Love has a way of making everything wonderful." Candies! Crimson ruffled through her drawers, sniffing out her tin of rose petal candies. Perfect for traveling.

"Unca Tumble still stinks." Clover giggled. "Stinky!"

Crimson bent her head down, closer to her fillies. "I don't want you saying that in front of aunt and uncle. Especially in front of Uncle Tumble. It's not nice. Understand?"

"I sorry." Clover's expression demonstrated she truly felt so.

"I know better, mother." Jinx was almost indignant. She took her position as older sister very seriously. She took everything very seriously.

"You are my good and precious fillies, and I love you. And so does Uncle Tumble and Aunt Peony, so be good around them and try to show them you love them too."

"I will be love to unca Tumble an' Peony, and I will be good!" Clover set her jaw as if she were preparing to adventure forth against impossible odds.

Crimson stared at her saddlebags. The raincoat had to go. What season was it out there? How could a pony possibly prepare for everything? She reconsidered the old, barely used scarf. The candies stay. The candies definitely stay. 















The Royal Equestrian Institute For The Integration Of Discordant Creatures had been constructed so as to overlook the Everfree from a position above the gap between the chaotic forest and the southern tip of the Canterlot Mountains. A narrow road passed through the gap. That road had once been the path that Crimson Beauty and those with her had thought to take, on their journey to escape the human masada.

Crimson, then Petra Alice Bettencourt, and five other human children, had fled the special enclave that had been given to the elite of earth. They had done so in order to become ponies. Their parents were members of the Good Families, the three-hundred wealthiest and most powerful names that had ruled the entire earth for centuries, behind the scenes. To these families, nations were mere false fronts, screens behind which to hide. Sometime during the Renaissance, the merchant class had secretly conquered the world, and had never let go. Money, truly, could buy anyone. In time, it had bought the entire earth.

With the coming of the Great Collapse, and the many attendant catastrophes that followed, the earth had become a planet doomed to die. With the oceans dead, the forests replaced with deserts, and the world blanketed in a global smog layer, there were but three generations left to Man. After that, the planet was fated to become another Venus - a world broiling in acidic poison and the silence of the grave.

Then Equestria arrived, expanding out of the north Pacific, a great hypersphere passing through the universe. Because of an ancient promise, Celestia had come to offer rescue and a new life to any who would take it. There was only one requirement - that any who emigrated must become Equestrian themselves, transformed into the pony-like beings that lived under her rule.

The Good Families, ancient and proud, had refused this not only for themselves, but for the billions of serfs they considered their property - the population of earth. In the end, Celestia had convinced them to allow the billions the choice to Convert and emigrate - but at a price. An agreement had been struck, the Covenant. It was a complicated contract that permitted the survival of humanity only if the ruling elite were allowed to remain human in shape, and provided with a fortress secluded from the common rabble.

There was one out - any elite, upon reaching the human legal age of maturity and consent, could choose transformation to pony form, and join Equestria as a full and true citizen. While their parents plotted violent conquest, little Petra, only thirteen, escaped the human masada with five of her friends - and many sapient chickens and pigs which the humans had been using for meat. They fled in order to seek the princesses, and personally beg them for immediate ponification, despite the rules of the Covenant.

Their journey was perilous, and the southern Canterlot Mountain road was guarded by agents of their parents. The children, in desperation, had chosen to cross the Everfree, regardless of the terrible risk. Things had gone very wrong indeed, and most of the party had been gravely injured.

"And you chose to be turned to stone, just chose that, even though you were fine?" Frontpage was aghast. Crimson's tale of her childhood adventure was terrifying enough, but after all of that, petrification too?

Crimson chuckled. She and Frontpage were riding in a earthpony-drawn carriage, the Southern Pass Express, that ran between the small town of Courbette near Airs Above the Ground and Canterlot City, by way of Ponyville. Along the route, the carriage could be asked to stop at Plantain's Institute. That was their destination. Frontpage very much wanted to interview Crimson's sister, and Crimson, for her part, was eager to see her sister again.  

Courbette was the closest town to the Acres Plantation. To the east and very high up was the pegasus village of Airs Above the Ground. That sky-village was the home of the pegasai that tended the weather for the Acres, and the entire region on the back side of Canterlot Mountain.

"If I hadn't, I would have been taken back to my parents, and I would have grown up while all of my friends remained young. Have you forgotten that human childhood only lasts a short while? That was not changed when Celestia and Luna personally converted the Good Families into Equestrian matter. We still had the same short lifespans, and the same short childhoods as terrestrial humans did. The Covenant was very harsh - those who wrote it did not want any deviation from human nature whatsoever."

Frontpage hung his head out the carriage window, and watched the vast plain of perfect grass and flowers pass by. The breeze was sweet, and smelled of nectar and deliciousness. He pulled his head back inside. "But still... to be turned to stone! What... what was it like?"

"It was like nothing. One moment, I was standing, waiting for it to happen, the next I was aware of my face. I was brought back to life from the top of my head on down. For a long time I couldn't breathe, but I didn't need to, so it wasn't scary - well, maybe a little - but gradually my chest became flesh and then I could." Crimson shifted on the carriage seat. It was the most lovely dark green, made of polished kelp leather, padded and made soft and a little bouncy.

"Couldn't breathe... and it was okay. Wow." Frontpage scribbled erratically in his notebook. The suspension of the carriage was old, and the ride was not exactly smooth. "So... you woke up as a pony and then what?"

"Actually, I didn't." Crimson sniffed briefly at the wood of the carriage. It spoke to her pony nose of decades of carrying passengers, ponies of every kind... and diamond dogs, and the occasional pig, goat, and sheep. Finally, she found it, her superhuman senses focusing in on a familiar scent. Her sister, Plantain. They had both ridden the carriage many times, back and forth between Courbette and the Institute.

"Didn't wake up? I don't understand."

Crimson smiled. "I wasn't a pony when I woke up. I was still human, still a little girl. Princess Celestia transformed me shortly after. She needed my consent, Covenant rules and all. By being petrified in stone, I had sailed through the years, still physically thirteen, but by the calender an adult. I experienced my transformation. I felt it happen, I watched my body change. I may be the only newfoal to have ever had that happen."

"This assignment just keeps getting better and better!" Frontpage lost his pencil in his excitement, it slipped from his teeth and skittered about the carriage floor. Both ponies worked to corral it as it rolled to and fro with the rumbling carriage. Finally, Frontpage was able to take it in his mouth. "What... what was that like?"

"It was glorious. Just glorious. It didn't hurt - I wasn't converted with potion, I was transformed by Celestia's direct will. I glowed, Frontpage, all over, like I was made of golden light. It felt like... like stretching, like a really good stretch that makes your muscles feel good and sets all the bones in your spine to rights. I'll never forget that moment. I had wanted to be a pony so much, you can't imagine... it was my greatest dream coming true. When I was stuck in Antarctica, constantly managed by indifferent guards, lonely beyond lonely, watching my pony show... oh, how much I wanted to go to a Bureau! I tried to run away even on earth, but Celestia stopped me."

Frontpage's ears stood up. "Celestia... was in Antarctica?" The pencil was too short now, so he had to reach into his saddlebag for one of his many pre-sharpened spares. A reporter could never have enough pre-sharpened spare pencils.

Crimson Beauty giggled. "After a fashion. She was a ghost. Everypony in the Good Families had a personal Celestia ghost. Every foal, filly, mare and stallion. Hundreds of Celestias, and we could only see the one that belonged to us. All day and all night she was there, she never left, not even in the bath. Not even on the toilet." Crimson sighed. "It was the first time in my life that I wasn't lonely. It was the first time I ever felt truly loved. It was a very special time."

"How long? How long did this... amazing... thing go on?" Frontpage thought he had covered the story of Equestria and the Bureaus from the inside. He thought he had gotten the full scoop.

"About a year. No... less. Six... eight months, maybe?" Crimson dug around in her own saddlebags for some hard candy to suck on. She offered a rosepetal-flavored confection to Frontpage, then took one herself. "Mmmmnn... I love these. So good. Mnn... anyway, that was how she convinced the Good Families. 'Let the humans choose!', 'Open up the Bureaus!' - or she would keep every single one of them company until the day they died. For us foals, it was the happiest time of our lives. But I think it was pure Tartarus for my parents. They let the Bureaus open. But they also made that swirling contract."

"You still resent it, after almost a century?" Frontpage smiled around his flower-sweet candy. It really was good. 

"Even in Equestria, even as a pony, I guess there are some things, human things, I still haven't gotten past. Yes, I have some resentment towards my foalhood, and my parents, and what we all had to go through because of them." Crimson offered another candy, and took one for herself. "There are some sorrows that never quite leave, no matter how many candies one eats."

Frontpage nodded, because it was true, and because he could think of no better response.