Mater draco; magni et potentes.
Trixie plodded along the path through the subtropical landscape, it would be a while before the terrain and the climes dried out… it would be a while before she could make it back to a place where the rail-system could take her to the pony she knew had experience with a dragon… Twilight Sparkle.
She wasn’t sure how she felt about returning to Ponyville… or the little dragon latched on her foreleg. Hopefully, she would know how to get it off.
“Cheep!”the dragon chirped up at her, as if it understood that Trixie was thinking about him.
“And what is the Great and Powerful Trixie going to do about you, little one?” the unicorn asked, talking more to herself than the hatchling.
“Cheep!” the dragon replied, blinking his golden eyes at her.
Trixie found herself staring into those eyes, sighed, and thought, ‘I can’t just keep calling you “little one”, can I?’
Looking at the red and black leg-hugger she was reminded of the time she’d joined up with a carnival… she’d stayed long enough to make enough to buy her cart, and one of the workers there, an ash gray stallion named Brian who had once been a human introduced her to the human game played on a red and black board with little red and black disks.
‘What was that game called?’ Trixie thought, before the answer came like a lightning bolt and she remembered, ‘Checkers!’
“The Great and Powerful Trixie has decided that your name is Checkers.” The pony declared to the hatchling.
The hatchling replied with another “Cheep!” and seemed to snuggle into her leg.
* * *
Sweetie Belle was nearly to Sweet Apple Acers before she calmed down enough to blink the tears from her eyes. She never would have believed that Rarity would have been able to say such cruel lies — there was no way that Apple Bloom could be dead… there just couldn’t.
She drew up short and slowed to a trot as the sight of the burned out farmhouse came into view: there were only two walls left standing and a bit of the roof desperately clinging to the two walls, just as a piece of the second floor did.
Sweetie Bell found herself staring at the wreckage that had once been her friend’s house, one lone picture of Applejack and Big Macintosh holding a small bundle that was Apple Bloom hung on one of the remaining walls and for an instant the sunshine and birdsong seemed a cheerful and contrasting counterpoint to the sorrow and tears that Sweetie Bell felt.
After some indeterminate amount of time, she found herself wandering down the road from Ponyville sniffing as the tears dried on her cheeks. She didn’t care where the path led, just so long as it wasn’t back toward the burnt reminders of her friend, of her home, of her sister’s cruelty.
* * *
“I’m sorry miss, you can’t board the train with an unregistered animal.” the pony in charge of boarding the train explained.
“You have got to be kidding me.” Trixie said, “The Great and Powerful Trixie must be let on, she must return to Ponyville.”
“Yeah, well the Mighty and Terrible Phil cannot let you on.” the pony indicated himself, “There’s no way I’m going to put my job on the line allowing you to board with an unregistered animal.”
Trixie ground her teeth in frustration, the impact of humanity on Equestria was not all good… importing the ridiculous bureaucratic rules and applying them to the transportation system was one of them. Sure it was mostly non-intrusive when the pony was traveling without any luggage, but as soon as there was any carry on or checked luggage things got really bothersome really quickly… something about it being a relic of the Transportation Security Administration from the United States.
“Please, I’ve got to find a way to get it off, and the only pony I know with personal experience in dragons in Ponyville.”
“Oh, well, why didn’t you say so…” Phil asked, before shaking his head, “the answer’s still no.”
“What, but?”
“I will not let you on this train,” Phil interrupted with a grin, “no matter how much you may complain.”
“It is my job, I will explain,” Phil continued, wincing as he finished the line with, “so I’ll say it again.”
“I would not let you bring a knife, I will not let you bring your strife,”
“I would not let you board our train, with an animal… that’s insane.”
“I would not let you bring a goat, I would not let you bring a pig,”
“I would not let you bring a dog, no matter how much you did…”
Phil trailed off a moment, searching for a word, then mangling “beg” to rhyme with pig.
Trixie had, by this point, found herself facehooving and saying to herself, “The Great and Powerful Trixie has a Great and Powerful headache.”
“I would not let you bring a monkey, I would not let you bring a… donkey?” Phil continued, “I would not let you bring a cat, not even if you were a pony-bat.”
Trixie turned and made her through the town, perhaps at the next one she’d find someone more reasonable than Mighty and Terrible Phil… in any case, it would be hard to find somepony less helpful.
* * *
Doctor Horse found himself waking up in the lounge, again. This time, however, it wasn’t because of nurse Redheart inadvertently making noise and waking him, but due to her purposefully waking him.
“Doctor, there’s been a change in Pound Cake’s status…” Nurse said, urgency in her voice as she shook the doctor awake, “You wanted to be alerted…”
The doctor stumbled to his feet, “What happened?”
“He’s awake.” Nurse Redheart explained, smiling, “the grafts seem to be going better than we expected, too.”
“That’s good news,” Doctor Horse replied, wiping the sleep from his eyes. “I’d better go see him.”
Minutes later, after washing his face and pouring himself a mug of coffee, Doctor Horse walked into the room that housed the young Mr. Cake.
“Hey there, little guy.” the Doctor greeted, looking at the grafts and especially the burned wing. The way the grafts were taking there gave him some hope that the foal would possibly fly again… not a large chance, but not negligible either.
It was good news. The best in days, really… and it reminded Doctor Horse why exactly he’d become a doctor.
* * *
“I’m sorry ma’am, but you can’t board with an unregistered dragon.” the young mare said, nodding toward the reptile hugging Trixie’s leg… at least this time there wasn’t any rhyming.
“I see.” The Great and Powerful Trixie muttered, dead-tired from the walk to the town. “Thank you for your help.”
Trixie made her way off the platform and dragged herself into an alleyway, where she swayed tiredly as she prepared herself, gathering magic… and then disappeared in a flash of light, only to reappear on the roof of the second-to-last car on the train. She hunkered down, repressing the urge to let out a triumphant laugh, and waited for the train to start its trek across the landscape.
* * *
Scootaloo had been hoping to be thanked by Rainbow Dash, but instead only found herself ignored, then came the news that Apple Bloom was dead.
Sure, lots of ponies were missing, lots dead… but Apple Bloom? Spike? It was so unfair! First her mom, then Diamond Tiara, now Apple Bloom and Spike!?
She found herself getting angry as she sped along on her scooter, flying by the few pedestrians in Ponyville’s streets. She didn’t know where she was going, just that she had to go. It was the only thing that she could think of to do, and so she did it.
When she found herself passing the playground she suddenly remembered the school-yard taunting of Diamond Tiara and for a split moment took her eyes off of where she was going, looking back towards the schoolhouse… when she returned her attention to the path in front of her it was too late to avoid hitting a piece of debris that had probably fallen out of somepony’s load of wreckage as they hauled the remnants of ruined homes away.
Scootaloo was thrown from her scooter and landed awkwardly on her left foreleg before smashing face-first into somepony’s door.
She lay there for several minutes before the tears began to well up in her eyes and, maybe a minute later, overflowed to run down her cheeks — everything hurt, and not just her leg.
* * *
As the train neared Ponyville, Trixie allowed herself to smile; her rival would definitely know what to do about the dragon that enveloped her foreleg in its absurd little death-grip.
Seeing the landscape turn to the familiar outskirts of the town the magician saw a small unicorn filly, white with a pale dual-colored mane of mulberry and rose, apparently running from something… oh well, it wasn’t any of the Great and Powerful Trixie’s problem, now was it?
Gathering her magical energies again Trixie teleported herself off of the train, only to find herself rolling into a clump of bushes and trees at a rather high speed.
Bruised and battered, but not broken —the Great and Powerful Trixie could never be broken— Trixie extracted herself from the foliage and brambles and made her way into the town.
* * *
The crash of something against her door woke Cheerilee with a start, after pulling herself from her nice warm bed —which she could have sworn had been enchanted, or perhaps had some sort of electro-pony-magnet embedded in it— to investigate the sound, opened the door to find a crying Scootaloo falling into the doorway.
“I, no, what happened?” She asked the little filly.
The orange pegasus in her living room didn’t answer, but cried and sniffled in a manner that just tore at her heartstrings, only emphasized by the limping as Scootaloo righted herself and got up.
Scootaloo wanted to answer but found herself choking on the words, she wanted to talk but it just wouldn’t come — all that came was a choking sob and more tears… accompanied by more snot that threatened to run off her face as freely as the tears did.
“Come in…” the school teacher said, seeing that one of her students desperately needed to be comforted and found herself hoping that she could for the poor child’s sake.
* * *
Though he would never admit it to anyone, Shining Armor would always look on the Day of Fire with mixed emotions, the horror of a quarter of Equestria’s citizens disappearing in magical flames balanced against one of the happiest moments he could recall.
It was when one of the younger guards burst into flames while singing a truly horrid rendition of a human song… terrible because of who that young stallion was and how he was using the human’s song. It was none other than the punk kid who was trying to put the moves on his sister: Flash Sentry.
Seeing that little shit burst into black and red flame had almost been worth it!
Shining Armor took a calming breath, it wouldn’t do to let people see the sheer bloodlust and maniacal laughter the mere thought of Flash Sentry’s death brought on. It also didn’t help that the song he’d been “singing” was still stuck in Shining Armor’s head.
“Flash… …ah-aaaah!
He’ll save every one of us!” still echoed in his ears.