It’s too damn soon.
It’s not supposed to end like this. There was more I needed to do for Equestria and for myself. More that I should have told them about my world, if I’d known today would be the last chance.
Such as, it's not all amazing and convenient. My world has a load of problems too, most of them stemming from people: ruthless profiteers, religious fanatics, overzealous activists who still believe everything they were told in community college, and people who just aren't ready for some football.
Life doesn't last there, and neither do the things that come with it--relationships most of all. That’s what runs through my mind over and over as I and my bratty tutor descend to the bottom of a lake of slime. There’s no time for anything else. Holding my breath makes me lightheaded, and only the feeling of Silver Spoon clinging to me in fear stops me from giving up. The swamp is everywhere, everything, and even as we sink far below the bottom of the whirlpool it still pulls us along to our deaths.
But then it gets bored with us, coughs us up someplace else, and leaves us choking on something that isn’t mud: air.
It’s stale-smelling and damp, but it’s still air. I risk a gulp of it every few moments as Silver struggles to keep us both afloat. She’s the only one who can swim, and she thrashes along with surprising strength. This foal has got some fight in her, I’ll say that much.
She throws me off her shoulders, and I land painfully on a hard and rocky surface. But land is land, so I’m not complaining. Besides, I’m too busy barfing up about a quart of mud and silt. Silver joins in with gusto, and for a while the only sound is our frantic coughs ringing and echoing off the walls of…wherever the hell we are.
“Holy shit,” I rasp when I can talk again. “We’re alive.”
“Duh,” Silver mumbles. “Like I would ever...live it down...if I drowned in...mud.”
“Where are we?”
“Underwater…cave. Lagoon of…muck. My poor antique glasses…my poor antique pearl necklace. So dirty. Ewww.”
“Ew,” I agree.
Silence.
“Soooo, come on. Get up already.” She nudges me with her hoof.
I reach out and try to swat her away. “No. Lemme alone. I’m moping.”
Silver growls in frustration. “Oh my Goddesses. You are, like, SUCH a downer. You whine more than those blank flanks at school, you know?”
“Yeah. Now shut up. I didn’t ask you to come along, and your freaking valley girl talk isn’t making my 24-hour headache any better, you knooooow?” I retort mockingly.
“Hmph! I know that I returned a favor and totally saved your life! You’re welcome.”
I mumble some random syllables, hoping they’ll sound like “thank you.”
“…Whatever. So I guess you’re totally not interested in the antique waterproof jewelry box I’ve got in my mane.”
I flinch as more mud drips from my hair into my face. “For once, you’re absolutely right.”
She must be opening the box, because I hear a slight pop. “Even if it has like my spare glasses, a map, a survival kit, and those gross white and brown things you left at my house? Speaking of EWWW. What are they, anyway? They look kinda like this long chewy candy that Bon Bon makes, so I tasted one. Gag!”
“Oh, yeah. ‘Grody to the max’, huh?” I yawn. I wonder if I’ll ever feel like moving again. Huh. Bad-tasting white and brown things that I left at her house? Of all the crazy, weird-sounding…
Tempting…delicious…fragrant…oh-so-satisfying…
“MY SMOKES!” I crow. Fireworks of joy burst forth in my heart! I could swear I jumped to my hooves without even moving my legs.
“What?” Is all the foal can say before I tackle her to the floor of the cave.
“GIMME GIMME GIMME GIMME!”
“Ow! Like, what’s your major malfunction? Here, take all of them, just get off me.”
I cradle the tiny carton of cancer-filled goodness to my chest, babbling mindlessly. “That’s right, papa’s back. Oh, I missed you so much, my little darlings…but now we’ll be together forever and ever, and as soon as I get a match I…”
I freeze. Somewhere in the cave, water drips.
“…Silver Spoon?” I say with a huge, strained smile on my face. “Buddy? Galpal? B.P.F.F.?”
“Um…yes?” she answers from a safe distance.
“Do you happen to have some matches on you?”
“I have some in my survival kit. Why?”
“GIMME GIMME GIMME GIMME!”
I dive for her again, but I guess she jumps out of the way this time because I take yet another bone-jarring spill on the cave floor.
“Like, as if! We need to save those matches, okay? ‘Cause it’s freezing down here and we don’t know when we’ll make it out. We have to find some wood or something and make a fire.”
“Pleeeease?” I turn Snowdrop’s huge, blank, pitiable eyes upon her in full force. Yeah, it’s not fair, but you know what they say about desperate times. I stare unmercifully and wait for her to crack.
“Um…I’m over here. You’re, like, looking at the wall.”
Shit. “Look, I need a match, okay? I’ll do anything. I’ll come back for another tutoring session. No, ten!”
“No way, fake Snowdrop. Not ‘til we can make a fire. And only if you say ‘thank you’ properly this time.”
So where there’s fire, there’s smokes. I get it. Compared to the waiting, saying ‘thank you’ to a bratty foal is easy. “Thank you.”
“Tch! No way! Not like that.”
“What do you mean, not like that?!” I raise my front hooves in consternation. “Should I say it with a fright wig on?”
“Repeat after me: ‘thank you, Silver Spoon, awesomely special and magnificent pony who saved my life and my smokes, whatever those are…’” she says smugly.
I take back what I said about this being the easy part.
“Thank you, Silver Spoon,” I recite, trying to keep my teeth from grinding, “Marginally special and magnificent pony…”
“Hey! I said awesomely!”
“…Awesomely special and magnificent pony who saved my life and my smokes, after trying to eat them…”
“No editorials! ‘…Best friend of Diamond Tiara the incandescently cool, finest antiquarian in Equestria, and protector of Ponyville from the super-annoying scourge of the Cutie Mark Crusaders.’”
“Seriously?”
“Like, you’ve met them, haven’t you?”
I roll my eyes. “Point taken. Fine: best friend of Diamond Tiara the incandescently cruel…”
“HEY! No dissing Diamond!”
“…Finest caffeine freak in Equestria, and protector of Ponyville from three annoying foals who won’t shut up. Close enough. Now let’s get moving and find something to burn,” I swallow the knawing hunger in my gut and jam the cigs back into my mane. My mother told me there would be days like this. Although being stuck in the body of a blind filly with a cigarette craving probably wasn’t what she had in mind.
"Fine. Like, whatever."
“Where the hell are we, anyway? Twilight didn’t say anything about a cave below Froggy Bottom Bog.”
“Hmmm…let’s find out!” Eager hoofsteps echo through the cave, heading towards the dripping water.
“Slow down! Don’t leave me alone in here.” I scramble to catch up with her. The cloak around my neck is caked in mud, but I wouldn't lose it for anything. I guess Silver stopped already, because I bump right into her haunches. Oops.
“Oof! Hey, watch where you’re going!”
“No problem! Got some working eyes I can borrow?!”
“Look, just…here. Keep your hoof on my back and follow me,” she lifts one of my front legs over her withers. I hear the rustling of paper. “That’s weird. This map doesn’t show any cave under the Bog. Maybe it’s, like, undiscovered or something.”
My heart sinks. “Okay, let’s back up. Describe the place to me.”
“Ugh! It’s so boring. It’s this really big cavern. The rocks are all greenish-black and ugly looking. The ceiling is, I dunno, maybe a hundred strides high? And there’s a tunnel ahead of us that just goes on and on.”
“Is that where we’re going?”
“Totally. Unless you'd rather stay here or go back in the mud.”
“No, thank you.”
I keep pace with Silver and listen hard for any sounds besides the water and our hoofsteps. So here we are, trapped underground where not even Luna and the Elements can find us. Equestria is being smothered in snow, while Silver’s family is probably worried sick about her. Yeah, things could be better.
“Hey, Spoonbutt. What did you tell your parents?”
She sounds embarrassed. “Um…I might have told them I was staying over at Diamond’s for a few nights.”
“Oh yeah? Well, it’s already been a few nights, so you’re probably screwed.”
“Yeah,” she sighs. “I guess I lost track of the time. And with the Princess and those blank flanks’ big sisters around, I had to keep hiding. I never thought that describing my amazing mansion to somepony could take so long!”
“You went to all that trouble just to talk about your freaking house?! I still don’t believe it.”
“Well…maybe after a while I was kind of interested in all that talk about you saving Equestria and stuff. I mean, don’t get me wrong, Diamond Tiara is still the greatest pony in the world, and since I’m her best friend that makes me the second greatest, but if you get to the castle and make your magic snowballs or whatever…you might be in the top ten. And special ponies have to stick together. Even if one of them is, like, a blind alien zombie with no respect for antiques.”
I turn away, so she can’t see me crack a smile. “And even if the other is a stuck-up know-it-all coffee demon.”
“Hey, that reminds me, I brought some of my mom’s coffee in the survival kit!”
“…Great.”
------------------------------------------------------------------------
The walk lasts a long time. I stick to Silver Spoon like glue as we trot nervously through the cave. I’m instinctively looking around, not in an effort to see but to construct a mental picture of where we are from the sounds and feelings around us. I notice that the air is slowly getting warmer, and the occasional drips and drops from stalactites on the ceiling turns into a steady trickle from far off. Silver hears it too, and the thought of fresh water to drink spurs us onward. That’s when my hoof suddenly makes a very different sound on the floor.
“Hey!” I stop walking. “What are we standing on?”
“…Cobblestones.” Silver says excitedly. “They look old.”
“What kind of an undiscovered cave has a cobblestone floor?”
“You’re right. I wonder if…” Silver sounds as if she’s thinking out loud. She gasps, and her voice becomes hushed. “Oh, Celestia. Get out! Could it really be…”
“What? What is it?!”
“I’m not going to tell you until I know for sure. Keep going!” she stamps her legs impatiently. I follow her quickly into another wide open space, but this one feels different. Our steps and our voices don’t echo so much in here, and the sound of water is much closer. Finally we’re right on top of it, and the nerd stops in her tracks.
“Like, I totally don’t believe it. It’s a fountain!”
I can’t believe it either, so I reach out towards the noise. Silver guides me the rest of the way until I feel it washing over my hoof. It’s water, all right. “Holy shit.”
“I think I know where we are,” Silver Spoon sounds really excited now. “There’s this old legend about a place under the old castle that they don’t put on maps anymore. Not even an antique map like mine, it was so long ago. Like, from Discord’s time.”
“Go on, what about it?”
She hesitates. “Like I said, it’s just this old story. Most ponies don’t even believe it existed.”
I’m so antsy that I almost forget about my headache. “Well, we’re standing in it! Now what’s the story?”
“Okay, okay. It’s like, when Discord was doing his super-lame chaos stuff all over Equestria, the Princesses helped a bunch of ponies escape from him and live underground. They all worked together to carve out this really huge space. I guess it was a place to live, and a big market, and a secret headquarters all rolled into one. When everypony was safe, Celestia and Luna went out to challenge Discord. Then after they turned him to stone, the ponies didn’t need to hide in caves anymore, so they just moved out and sealed them up.”
“So…there were hundreds of refugee ponies living where we’re standing right now?”
“Yeah. Maybe like thousands, if the story is true. I don't know what they called these caves then, but now they're called the Lost Havens.”
“Wow,” I gulp. Until now, Discord and the Castle of the Two Sisters were just names that I skimmed over in boring textbooks. Stepping into a giant time capsule from that era is a whole new ballgame. My school field trip to the Minnesota State Capitol had nothing on this.
We risk a sip from the fountain. It tastes kind of funny, but neither one of us keels over after drinking and that’s good enough for me. Silver finds some old waterskins laying around nearby (no, I don’t know what creature’s skin they’re made of and I don’t really want to) and we wash up as much as we can. She wants to make some of that damn coffee too, but luckily for both of us there’s no heat and no way to filter the stuff.
The next room we enter is huge. Silver describes some strange carvings on the stone walls that show the reign of Discord and the rise of Celestia and Luna. But what she finds in the corner really makes my day.
“It’s a couple of rotting wooden benches!” she exclaims. “I think we can make a fire with them.”
I look sidelong in her direction. “Oh, I don’t know. Aren’t they…antiques?”
“Ugly antiques,” she says dismissively.
“Get a match,” I smile.
I whip the cigs out of my mane at roughly the speed of light. Moments later, we’re sitting around a warm fire and I am enjoying the best smoke of my life.
“So you’re supposed to, like, breathe them or something?” Silver Spoon sounds curious.
“Never mind, Spoonbutt. Humans only.”
“I have a name, all right, Faux-drop?”
“Yep,” I sigh happily. “I know.”
Nothing could bother me right now. I may be lost, stranded, separated from Luna and Rainbow Dash…but at least I’ve got my smokes back.
After a little while, Silver yawns. “I’m, like, so exhausted.”
“Same here. Let’s get one more drink of water and catch some Z’s.”
“Okay.”
After a quick run back to the fountain, we curl up around the fading fire and fall asleep.
My dreams that night (or whatever the time is above ground) start out surprisingly normal. No crazy stuff like switching dimensions or being scolded by an equine princess; just some passing visions that are forgotten as soon as they happen. I think I had that one dream where you’re falling endlessly into a pit, but after being chased around by real-life monsters it was more boring than scary. Then along comes the bar dream.
I’m just sitting there in a bar that looks a lot like the one in my hometown from the human world, except there’s a ball pit in the corner and it’s way more colorful inside. The counter and stools are pink…maybe for Pinkie Pie? The ceiling is blue, and Rainbow Dash once mentioned she was that color. The walls are pink and purple stripes; I’m not sure who that is. There’s some orange, yellow, and white around too. No clue about those either. But all the stuff that I would see at the bar in real life—horseshoes, coiled rope, a stuffed deer head with huge antlers—is still tacked up on the walls. In short, the place is absolutely butt-ugly. Rarity would have a heart attack if she saw it.
“Now what?” I mutter. I seem to be alone here. Hardly noticing that I’m in my human body, I clamber up onto a bar stool and wait for something to happen. Nothing does, so I raise a glass that magically appears in my hand and pound it on the counter. “Hey, can I get some service here?”
“Just a minute, sugarcube,” an orange pony with…are those freckles?...trots out of the back room and stands behind the counter. She’s smaller than Luna, with stubbier limbs and no horn, but…there’s something familiar about her. “Well, I’ll be! You sure are a big hoss, ain’t you?”
I’m so surprised I drop the glass. (Lucky for me it doesn’t fall, it just sort of drifts in midair.) I would know that voice anywhere! “Applejack?!”
“Now how would you know my name, stranger?” she regards me suspiciously. “I can’t say as I’ve ever seen anyone like you before. Or any thing, at that.”
“Applejack, it’s me!” I stand up and raise my hands. “Jay!”
She narrows her eyes. “Mister, you’ve got some nerve tryin’ to tell me a whopper like that. You don’t look like that nice lil’ filly any more than an apple does an orange!”
“Hold on, Applejack,” another familiar voice interjects with wonder. “I think it’s really him!”
My mouth falls open and I turn to the entrance, where a sky blue pony with wings and a multicolored mane is watching me curiously.
“Rainbow Dash,” I gasp. The room wavers and tilts around me. Am I about to wake up?!
I try to rush over to her before anything else can happen. She takes a cautious step back, but I throw my arms around her anyway.
“Whoa!” she wheezes. “Your real body is seriously strong, dude. Smells weird, too.”
“Shut up,” I sigh into her mane. “I’m alive, okay? I’m underground. You have to get Luna and come find me.”
She doesn’t move. Her coat suddenly feels hard and cold.
“Dash?” I move back. The dream has changed, and I’m hugging a statue. In memory of Snowdrop, says the sculpted platform underneath it.
It is her. An older Snowdrop with a few wrinkles and a warm smile on her face. There are clouds beneath my feet, but dozens of little white flowers are sprouting up anyway. I frown and step back.
“Luna? Are you here?”
“Jay,” My—no, Snowdrop’s voice. “It’s me.”
I look up again. The freaking statue is talking now.
Man, is that creepy or what?! Maybe there was something in that water after all.
“You must reach the castle,” the stone pegasus tells me. “Time is running out for Equestria.”
“I’m trying, damn it! But I’m stuck in some stupid cave underneath a…”
The moonlight around us shimmers and almost instantly solidifies into another pony. It’s Luna. And…Silver Spoon.
“What the heck am I doing here?” the foal asks, looking around in bewilderment. So that’s what she looks like. I have to admit, she described herself accurately.
“Your guess is as good as mine,” I grunt.
“EEEEEK! A monster! Save me, Princess Luna!” Silver cowers behind the Princess, who has been staring at Snowdrop since she appeared.
“It’s me, Spoonbutt.”
She recognizes the nickname, and maybe the tone of my voice, because she peeks out from behind Luna again. “…Fake Snowdrop? Is that what you really look like? Eww.”
“Shut up. Luna? Snow? You want to help us out of these caves?”
“We are trying, Jay. I apologize for losing thee. The hydra was a mightier foe than I anticipated, though I subdued it soon after,” Luna looks embarrassed. “And the Lost Havens are as difficult to access as their name suggests, particularly with all our supplies lost and blizzard conditions above. I have forgotten...much, from those perilous times.”
“It’s snowing in the Everfree now?!”
Snowdrop inclines her head sadly. “As I said, Jay…time is of the essence.”
I cross my arms. Time to go into coaching mode. “I get that. So let’s not waste any more time coming up with a plan. Get to the swamp, same place we were when the hydra attacked. Use your magic to create another whirlpool. Then freeze the swamp so it stays that way and you don’t drown in the mud. Then jump down there, find the lagoon, enter the caves and save our butts. Can you do that?”
Luna puts a hoof to her muzzle and thinks for a moment. “I…believe so. I can only hope that should we find you, our journey out will be unimpeded.”
“Unimpeded by what?”
Luna pauses, as if she’s wondering how much to tell me. Then her head snaps up and her eyes widen. “Jay! Young foal! Both of you, wake up!”
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Silver Spoon and I both snap awake in the room with the carved walls. I don’t feel our fire; it must have burned out. I listen hard and hear my breathing, Silver’s breathing, and…something else.
“Do you hear that?” I whisper.
She walks up next to me, letting me know she’s here. “Y-yeah.”
Just beyond the range where I can hear clearly, and definitely beyond where she can see, something echoes. As it comes nearer, the first thing I think of is the sound of a thousand tiny hailstones pelting the roof of my apartment in a storm last winter. Just countless loud taps on a hard surface.
Almost like a whole lot of hard, spindly legs clattering over stone floors, walls, and ceilings.
“Silver,” I say in a voice that sounds remarkably calm to my ears, “I’m going to teach you an important alien expression. It goes like this: ‘game over, man. Game over.’”
Jay's Cigarette Count: 8