“Coming through,” I said, pushing my way to the front of the crowd of red-uniformed staff.
There was a wide space between the gathered ponies and the archway. Oil lamps still burned along the walls of the corridor leading to the reception. There was movement at the end of it: ponies stirring, probably guests itching for the party to start.
I looked around the front of the staff.
The several dozen red-clad servants stood in a half-moon formation around the archway, with Rarity at the front in her dark-blue dress. She was smiling. Forcing it, of course. Why couldn’t anyone see that she was struggling?
“So,” I said, squeezing myself in between a servant and Rarity at the center of the formation, “party’s about to begin, huh?”
“The gathering, dear, yes. Try to stand still.”
I looked down at my shifting hooves. “Are you sure we’re supposed to stand all front and center like this?”
“You can stand at the back if you prefer.”
“No,” I said, willing myself to stand still. “I like it here. I’m just a little excited is all.”
“It’s not the kind of gathering you’d be excited about.”
“Oh, I think it is.”
Rarity looked at me. “What are you grinning about?”
“You’ll see.”
Something stirred at the far end of the archway: two rows of stallions beginning the long march toward the hall.
Rarity opened her mouth, but a booming voice from the other side of the archway cut through the air first.
“Make way for the honorable mayor of Ponyville!”
The stallions approaching through the archway carried some kind of box between them, its polished wood glinting in the lamplight. More ponies followed behind them, all dressed in dark, dreary colors.
The shadow of the archway slid across them as they emerged into the light of the hall.
“What…” I breathed, eyes widening when I saw what the foremost stallions were carrying. “Oh.”
A coffin.
Something moved in the corner of my eye. The stage curtains rippled and stirred, then pulled open, revealing the street band. They grinned, tapped their cheap instruments once, twice, thrice, and raised their bows and drum sticks high over their heads.
I drew breath to shout something, anything.
Music loud enough to drown out a bar fight broke into the hall.
Rarity’s eyes widened in horror at the cheerful tune. Guests and staff gasped, looking around for the source of the music. The sound was fit for a tavern packed with cheers and laughter. There was no laughter here.
“Belle!”
I cringed, expecting Rarity to lash out at me. But it wasn’t Rarity’s voice. It was deeper. Much deeper.
My bones turned icy cold. A brutish stallion in a raincoat shoved himself to the front of the crowd. Chuck-Chuck.
“How the…” I breathed.
There was a sound of plates and glasses crashing behind me. All heads turned with mine to see the three acrobats cartwheeling across the tabletops, their colorful patchwork clothes flapping about as they knocked over vases and sent silverware clattering to the stone floor.
Rarity gaped as the three of them leaped to the floor, raised burning matches to their mouths, and breathed cones of fire high into the air.
The guests reared at the fireballs dissipating in front of their noses. The banner over the archway caught fire. Ponies cursed and shoved. The coffin slammed to the floor. Wood cracked, splinters flew, and the mayor’s corpse sprawled out on the floor in a shower of flower petals.
The band’s music sputtered and stumbled, but to their credit, they kept playing.
Chuck-Chuck stepped over the corpse on the floor. There was mud on his raincoat and blood on his hooves. He knocked one of the fire breathers aside and charged at me.
I tensed, heart in my throat, and threw myself to the side.
Chuck-Chuck missed me, but knocked into Rarity instead, sent her crashing to the floor.
I winced watching her fall, took a step toward her, but stopped short when a rough hoof grabbed my shoulder.
The big brute loomed over me. “You...” he snarled through clenched teeth, “unbelievable...”
Screams from a dozen ponies drowned out his voice. A burning banner tore in half, its lower half dangling close enough over the guests for the flames to lick their hats.
A group of waiters bumped against Chuck-Chuck on their way toward the archway, making his hold on me slacken.
I wrenched myself free and stumbled backward, anticipating that I would bump into someone behind me, and nearly falling over when I didn’t.
The hall descended into utter chaos as the fire spread to tablecloth and furniture and wooden ceiling. Servants and guests flowed past me like water on their way to the gallery stairs or the yawning archway.
My throat tightened. Tears pressed against my eyes. I took a trembling breath, clinging to a table behind me like driftwood at sea, eyes darting through the shifting mass of ponies.
A blue dress amongst the black and red caught my eye. Rarity stood under the archway, looking back at the burning hall.
“Rarity!” I shouted, but my voice was lost among a hundred others.
Fleeing guests pushed at her, forcing her to move toward the exit until she disappeared into the lamplit corridor with the rest of the flood.
I let go of the table and hurried toward the archway.
One of the windows shattered from the heat, a million pieces of colored of glass scattering across the floor.
I raised a hoof to shield my face, but none of the shards fell near me.
The band's music died. Another window shattered on the opposite wall, then another, and another. The fire was spreading fast.
Cool air rushed in through the broken windows, and the flames inside roared higher. Smoke rushed toward the new openings, stinging my eyes, so thick I could barely see.
I coughed and stumbled through the sooty fog. The crowd was thinning; most had already gotten out.
A tall, black figure rose in the gray smoke ahead of me.
I stopped.
The shadow in the smoke lumbered toward me, eyes glinting with firelight.
I stepped backward, ice running down my spine.
Chuck-Chuck’s face came into view through the smoke, his expression hard and cold like someone about to put down a sick dog. He walked faster, the fire spreading along the furniture behind him.
I turned and ran between the tables, coughing, the smoke growing thicker and the world dimmer with every stride I took. I looked over my shoulder.
The fire at the front of the hall was an orange smudge in the haze.
I ran into something at full speed—a chair maybe. I stumbled a few more steps, hit a table, and fell to the stone floor, biting my tongue.
I moaned and propped myself up on a knee. The murky world spun around me. I could hardly see past the tip of my nose.
Chuck-Chuck came charging through the smoke, roaring like a bull.
I ducked sideways against a table.
He anticipated it and slammed into my shoulder, sending me back to the floor with him falling over me. I slid on the floor until I hit a chair, pain lancing down my side.
Chuck-Chuck slowly stood up a few strides away.
I breathed so fast I felt dizzy, pain and aching forgotten in the terror of the moment. My eyes fixed on a big, silvery pot on a table. I charged my horn, wrapped my adrenaline-fueled magic around the pot and hurled it at him.
He flicked his head, horn flashing. The pot jerked sideways in the air, missing him, but the lid flew open, its steaming contents splashing onto him.
He staggered into a table, silverware rattling. The pot crashed to the floor and rolled away. He wiped steaming soup from his face and groaned through bared teeth.
I crawled away from him, my shoulder spasming with pain.
“You still don’t get it, do you?” his voice cut through the smoke. “Who I am. What I am?” He followed after me as slowly as I crawled.
My shoulder went numb. I shrank against the legs of a chair and looked up at him, heart pounding in my chest.
“The harder you push me away, the harder I strangle you,” he said. “You don’t run from me. You don’t escape me!” He closed the gap between us and he loomed over me. “Why do you insist on fighting the inevitable?” The muscles in his neck twitched. “Your time ran out a long time ago.”
The smoke lifted for a moment, and the vaulted ceiling high above came into view, its wooden beams glowing red and spitting embers.
I looked down at Chuck-Chuck, and up to the ceiling again. I tightened my jaw, grabbed a burning beam with my magic, and pulled at it with all my strength.
The ceiling crackled, and dust and ashes fell around us.
Chuck-Chuck leaned over me, and his eyes almost looked sad. “Why can’t I make you see?”
There came a loud crack above, and the burning beam fell free.
Chuck-Chuck looked up.
I heaved myself over, pushed against a table leg, and scrambled away as fast as my aching body could muster.
A deafening crash shot out behind me as I scrambled away. I crawled until the crashing sounds ended behind me, and looked back.
A pile of burning rubble lay where Chuck-Chuck had stood a moment before. One of his legs stuck out from under a massive beam, raincoat smoldering, smaller chunks of burning wood falling from the ceiling and adding to the smoldering pile.
I watched until only dust and ashes fell from the rafters, then let the back of my head sink against the floor and lay there panting and coughing.
My head pounded. Every inch of my body throbbed with pain and fatigue. I needed to smoke something fierce, to drift away to the moonlit lake where there was no pain or loneliness. But I didn’t have the strength to reach into my dress for the gem.
Bells rang in the distance. Not the clock tower’s—faster, higher, more urgent. It felt like they had been ringing for a long time. There were voices too, shouting over the crackling fire. It almost sounded like someone was shouting in my ear.
I groaned, trying raise my head to see.
The world bobbed up and down. I was on a stallion’s back, watching my forelegs swaying over the floor. A voice next to me said something, but I couldn’t make out the words.
Ponies in firefighters' uniforms moved through the smoke, horns glowing, water snaking through the air after them.
I lay still and watched the floor move beneath me, too exhausted to question or protest or cry.
The stallion carried me into the archway. The oil lamps had shattered, shards of glass glinting on the floor. All that remained of the beautiful paintings on my left were drooping, blackened husks.
The bells rang louder and louder as the floor turned from scorched carpet to clean marble. The smoke thinned, and fresh, cool air hit me like I’d been dumped in ice water.
I drew in a sharp breath and coughed, shuddering at the cold and wincing at the deafening fire bells.
The firepony carrying me sat me down at the top of the steps outside. “Wait here. Someone will see to you.” He turned and strode back into the burning building.
“Wait!” I wheezed after him. “Where is she? Where...”
The firepony disappeared into the smoke.
My eyes stung. Orange firelight shimmered across the wet cobblestones of the square. A large crowd had gathered some distance from the steps, more ponies flooding in from all sides to see the fire.
And in front of them all stood a mare in a dark-blue dress smudged with black.