//------------------------------//
// XLI - The Ghost Town 
// Story: Mortal Coil 
// by Reeve 
//------------------------------//

	The ferry travelled through the night, cutting smoothly across the water. Salty didn’t talk much, he seemed too focused on his job, so we made do with sitting in a single corner of the ferry and chatting among ourselves. It was amazing how Pinkie never seemed to run out of stories, one would think she had lived several lifetimes just to have experienced so much. As night settled in we decided to catch a few hours sleep, the ferry wouldn’t be arriving at Breakwater until early afternoon the next day, and we planned to set off as soon as possible for Brine.

It had taken me a while to drift off, sitting on a boat all day rather that traipsing across the country side for a change left me with quite a lot of energy. I eventually did, but found myself waking up not long after, suddenly feeling very cold. I tried to curl up tighter in the hopes of getting warm again and falling back to sleep, but the cold only seemed to increase with every minute. Finally I decided I’d had enough and sat up, intent on finding one of the others and risk snuggling up against them for some heat. As I opened my eyes however, I immediately knew something was wrong.

Fluttershy had been sleeping just a few feet from me before I finally drifted off, but now she was nowhere to be seen. I was too tired to think straight, so rather than immediately panic, I just felt slightly confused. Standing up I surveyed the ferry, hoping to see Fluttershy lying elsewhere, or at the very least see Pinkie Pie. I saw neither of them, more than that, Salty had disappeared too, and as I felt the fear begin to rise I saw that a thin mist had formed over the lough and had the ferry surrounded.

Everything was deathly silent, only the occasional lapping of water against the side of the ferry to assure me I hadn’t gone deaf. It was also getting colder, so I wrapped my jacket tightly around myself as my teeth began chattering. I walked around the ferry, hoping to find my friends obscured by the crates, but it was all to no avail, I was completely alone. I heard a loud creak behind me and swirled around, grasping for my sword. There was nothing there, nothing that could have made the sound, but nor was my sword in my belt.

I frowned, trying to remember the last time I had it. I had brought it out briefly and then subsequently dropped it when I was in the woods, but that had all been a dream, and I had my sword when I woke up in the burrow… hadn’t I? Had I really lost it? It was a sad thought to think after all I had been through with it, I had dropped it in the woods and not even bothered to go back and look for it. Feeling both fearful and now miserable, I drew one of my daggers and continued my search of the ferry.

I spun around again as I heard a loud splash come from the port side, it was loud and I even caught a glimpse of the water shooting up before raining back down. It sounded as if something heavy had just fallen in; I grimaced as my mind immediately thought of a body, perhaps a body I knew… I edged my way across the deck to where I had heard the splash, never letting my guard down and keeping my knife raised. Once I reached the side of the ferry, I took a deep breath and peeked out over. I surveyed the gently lapping water carefully, but there was nothing out of the ordinary. I was about to pull back when a hand broke through the surface, a horrible, skeletal hand grasping for my face, dragging a body wrapped in tattered cloth behind it.

I let out an almighty scream as I lurched back and simultaneously sat bolt upright. Fluttershy squealed in shock, leaping back from me while Pinkie Pie and Salty both stared at me with wide eyes. I glanced about me wildly, I was still on the barge, exactly where I had laid down to go to sleep. There was no mist, and the sun was just poking over the horizon, the rainclouds cleared considerably.

“S… Sorry,” I apologised breathlessly to everypony. “Just a… bad dream.”

Salt nodded understandably before carrying on with his own business, Pinkie Pie on the other hand still looked worried. She came over while Fluttershy calmed down and sat back down beside me.

“I heard you muttering in your sleep,” Fluttershy explained. “I had just leaned in to shake you awake when you… well, did that.”

“I’m sorry for scaring you,” I insisted. “I guess what happened in the woods shook me up more than I realised.”

“That’s completely normal,” Fluttershy assured me. “Certain undead can leave a lasting effect on ponies.”

“I was actually wondering…” I began thoughtfully, my eyes flicking up to Pinkie Pie. “Do you think that Wight was one of the monsters you’ve been hearing about?”

“I never heard anything that resembled that thing,” Pinkie said shaking her head.

“I really doubt it’s the same thing,” Fluttershy argued. “Wights are a commonly known form of undead, they’re rare, but they aren’t monsters.”

“Could have fooled me,” I muttered bitterly. “At least you made quick work of it, I never did say, but that mace is pretty impressive.”

“Well one of the Crusaders' main tasks is to protect the world from monsters and the undead,” Fluttershy explained. “Or at least, it used to be one of their main tasks. Both are so rare nowadays that they pretty much exclusively protect the Bask, but their weapons are still blessed to make short work of any such creatures should the need arise.”

“And for that I’m very grateful,” I reaffirmed.

“Monsters don’t seem to be as rare as you say,” Pinkie pointed out. “If the rumours I’m hearing are to be believed, but I don’t see your Crusaders doing anything about them.”

“You said it yourself,” Fluttershy countered. “Nopony believes the stories, the Crusaders aren’t going to leave the Bask just because a handful of ponies claim they saw monsters without any solid evidence.”

“Do you think if we provided that evidence, they would do something?” I asked.

“I wouldn’t get your hopes up,” Fluttershy muttered, her tone slightly dark. “The Crusaders still take orders from the High Priestess; it’s her you have to convince.”

“Ah well, we’ll make do with what we’ve got,” Pinkie said casually.

“What have we got?” Fluttershy asked, glancing up at Pinkie.

“You of course!” Pinkie answered, diving forward and grabbing Fluttershy’s cheeks. “Any monster that doesn’t drop dead from just how cute you are will drop dead when you beat them down with your awesome mace.”

“Oh dear…” Fluttershy mumbled through her puckered lips.

I sniggered behind my hoof at the sight, which earned me a pleading look from Fluttershy. After convincing Pinkie Pie to release her I stood up, making my way over to Salty to see if I could be of any use. As I walked, I suddenly remembered a particular aspect of my dream, and I quickly clutched at my sword, confirming that it was still there. I let out a sigh of relief when I felt the familiar sweepings beneath my hoof, I drew the rapier and twirled it in my hoof, smirking at how natural it felt. I heard a whistle behind me and turned to see Pinkie move into the emptiest area of the ferry, drawing her rondel daggers from her belt.

“I see you pulling that sword out,” she said in a teasing voice. “Come on, I want to see how much you’ve improved.”

It turned out I still had a long way to go before I could hold a candle to Pinkie Pie… without her cutting it in two with her lightning fast swings. Pinkie however, seemed impressed when we finished our little spar, insisting that I had improved greatly since we first trained together on Sweet Apple Acres. By the time we were returning our weapons to our respective belts, Breakwater had come into view and Salty asked us to help with the preparations for docking. 

Breakwater was a quaint little village, both it and Anchorage specialised in fishing, although Breakwater was the minor of the two. There were plenty of buildings; all packed tightly together, timber framed with wattle and daub walls, although some had their first floor walls made of grey brickwork. They had steep pitched roofs of slate and tall, narrow doors and windows. The roads were unpaved, which meant that after the recent bout of rain, they were still quite muddy with many puddles and potholes. 

I grimaced as I stepped off the wooden planks of the dock onto the road and felt my boots squelch into the wet muck. Fluttershy also wore a pained expression as flecks of dirt splattered up over her bright, white clothes. Pinkie Pie on the other hand was loving it, she even performed a cartwheel down the road just to show how much fun she was having playing in the mud, not caring when mud splashed up over her stripy harlequin outfit. 

“Are you sure you don’t need any more assistance?” I called back to Salty who had started unloading the ferry.

“No, no, you girls be on your way,” he insisted. “Don’t you be worrying about ol’ Salty now, he can look after himself.

“Well, thank you,” Fluttershy called after him as he dragged one of the crates away to a warehouse on the edge of the dock.

We had no intentions of waiting around Breakwater; we were already making good time so we decided to just keep moving north and we’d reach Olympus in no time. However as we neared the opposite end of the town, we noticed that large crowd had gathered there. While we couldn’t see what they were all so interested in, we could hear from their tones that they were disgruntled and angry about something. Pinkie bounced up and down to try and see over the heads of the crowd while Fluttershy and I waited for her to report what was going on.

“Looks like two ponies,” Pinkie said when she landed and turned back to us. “The ponies here seem angry at them.”

Fluttershy and I exchanged a concerned glance, so I approached one of the local ponies at the back of the crowd and tapped them on the shoulder.

“Excuse me sir,” I began, getting him to turn around and face me. “But what appears to be the problem?”

“A couple of Rebel agents!” the pony said bitterly, spitting on the ground at his hooves. “Wanting to come in and snoop around the village, but we aren’t having any of it.”

I backed up from the pony, turning back to my friends who looked as worried as I felt.

“Sounds like this town doesn’t like the Rebellion very much,” Fluttershy whispered.

“We’ll need to keep our mission on the down low then,” I replied, mainly addressing Pinkie Pie. “Those two must be the agents Maverick sent to check on the towns near Cragsburg, to make sure the Children of the Earth hadn’t done anything.”

“I see a pegasus over there,” Pinkie said, pointing into the crowd. “Not many ponies who aren’t earth ponies, but they’re definitely there.”

“We should see about talking to those agents once the crowd disperses,” I suggested, the other two nodding in response.

We moved away from the crowd, taking a seat on a low brick wall that ran around the perimeter of Breakwater. From where we sat I could see the two agents and the mob, they tried a little longer to convince the town ponies to let them through, but the mob wasn’t budging an inch. After a while, the agents gave up and started walking away from the town, the mob quickly dispersing. Once we were sure nopony would notice us, we trotted off after the agents. They stopped when they heard us approaching and turned to see us, the stallion looking thoroughly fed up while the mare seemed more curious.

“Hello, we heard you were having some trouble,” I informed them. “A pony in the town mentioned you were Rebel agents.”

“You’re not here to spit on us too are you?” the stallion asked in an annoyed voice. 

“No siree!” Pinkie replied rhythmically. “As a matter of fact, Rarity here is a Rebel agent just like you.”

“You are?” the mare asked, looking a little surprised as she looked me up and down and swept her gaze over my friends.

“Sort of,” I admitted “I know Maverick tasked you with coming here to make sure the Children of the Earth weren’t spreading their influence.”

“Yeah, we were,” the stallion confirmed, brightening up now that he knew we were on the same side. “But the damn townsfolk wouldn’t let us in; if we’d known they were going to be so hostile we wouldn’t have told them who we are.”

“Well they don’t know who we are,” I pointed out. “Why don’t we go back and find out what you needed to know?”

“Would you actually do that?” the mare asked hopefully. “That would be a great help, we can set up camp just out of sight of the town and wait for you there.”

“Alright then, we’ll ask about and be back here before you know it,” I promised them before turning around again and heading back into the town.

The ponies who had formed the mob had returned to work, so the streets were a little more packed with ponies wheeling trolleys and pulling carts. They were mostly filled with fish, but some were working with the materials that were transported on Salty’s ferry. It might seem odd, ponies fishing when we don’t eat them, but they served many purposes that made them a valuable commodity. Certain medicines and supplements could be derived from fish, and they fetched a high price when sold to foreign nations where carnivores like Griffons lived.

While Port Mule and Daybreak Landing focused on fishing in the open sea, Breakwater and Anchorage collected the freshwater specimens. If they were being collected for trading overseas, then it meant they would need to be kept in special, cold conditions to stop them from going off and losing all value. We decided to split up and ask around town individually about what the agents needed to know, agreeing to meet up in the centre of the village in an hour. During that hour I got shunned, shrugged off and ignored by dozens of ponies, anypony in the middle of work refused to stop for even a second to talk to me, those that weren’t busy didn’t know what I was talking about and weren’t interested either. 

When I came back to the town centre, I wasn’t surprised to learn that Fluttershy and Pinkie Pie had just as little luck as I had.

“Well this is annoying,” I grumbled “The ponies here are very rude.”

“They are busy with their own work,” Fluttershy reasoned.

“Still, how are we going to get information?” I asked.

“How does anypony get information when arriving somewhere new?” Pinkie asked rhetorically. “They go to the local tavern and ask the barkeeper, barkeepers hear everything!”

“I suppose it’s a place to start,” I accepted. “And hopefully finish.”

We followed Pinkie to the Breakwater tavern which overlooked the dock, I wondered if Pinkie had spotted it on the way in or if her ‘sense’ always helped her find places that supplied alcohol. We entered to find the place mostly deserted, a couple of ponies already into their drinks at the bar, and a stallion who stood behind it lazily running a cloth back and forth to give the impression he was doing something. Pinkie strode confidently up and slammed several bits down in front of the stallion who barely blinked as he looked up her, a bored expression on his face.

“Three ciders please!” Pinkie requested cheerfully.

The stallion stared at her for a moment, his look full of distain before he finally slid the bits back across to her.

“You’ll need twice that much hon,” he told her in a voice that matched his expression spot on.

Pinkie’s jaw dropped open at that.

“For cider?!” She exclaimed in disbelief. “Is it made from Celestia’s pi…”

“It’s alright!” I jumped in quickly. “Just make it two ciders, I can go without.”

The barkeeper nodded once, dragging the bits back before grabbing a pair of pint glasses and filling them up at the tap. Fluttershy accepted her glass gratefully a gulped down a mouthful, as a member of the Sisterhood she wasn’t specifically banned from drinking, although most accepted it as one of their rules without needing to be told, Fluttershy however appeared quite happy to take liberties with the ambiguity. When the barkeeper walked off to refill one of the other pony’s glasses, Fluttershy grimaced and Pinkie gaged audibly.

“Ugh, I might have been right when I guessed what it was made from,” Pinkie groaned, pushing her glass away by a few inches.

“If you don’t like it, tough!” the barkeeper snapped as he walked back over. “No refunds.”

“Whatever,” Pinkie muttered. “The sooner we’re out of this town and on our way to Brine the better.”

“Brine?” the barkeeper repeated, his eyes widening slightly. “You’re going up there?”

“Yes, why? Is that a problem?” I asked coolly.

“No, no, it’s a free country,” he replied casually. “It’s just that we don’t hear much from Brine lately, that is to say, we don’t hear from Brine at all.”

“Why’s that?” I asked, briefly meeting Pinkie’s gaze.

“No idea,” the barkeeper admitted. “Some ponies have gone up that way, including some local to here, haven’t heard from any of them since. They go up that way and they don’t come back.”

I glanced at Pinkie and Fluttershy; they were both starting to look concerned now.

“We once heard that there was a monster sighted near Brine,” Fluttershy informed him. “Do you think it’s true? Do you think that could be why you don’t hear from there anymore?”

“I wouldn’t know anything about a monster,” the barkeeper insisted. “Like I said, nopony who went up that way has come back to say.”

“So, would you suggest we go around Brine?” I asked casually, hoping to broach the next subject. “Like, would we be able to circle around to get on the road to Olympus or Cragsburg?”

“I guess you could try,” the barkeeper replied with an uninterested shrug. “Don’t know why you’d want to go to either of those places though, anypony with sense left in them got out of those cities when the war ended. There was a while where lots of ponies came through here after leaving the cities, they all seemed intent on going south in the hopes of finding some peace.”

“Did they say why?” I asked, although I knew full well why normal ponies would want to stay clear of both cities.

“They did,” the barkeeper said nodding. “Ponies coming down from Olympus said it was madness, they said they couldn’t handle all the fighting. The ponies from Cragsburg though, they never really did say what the problem was, just said it wasn’t safe or welcoming anymore. That’s interesting; because we know there’s still plenty of ponies in Olympus, we still do trade with them… assuming any of our traders have made it beyond Brine recently, but Cragsburg… it’s quiet.”

“That is interesting,” I agreed, sharing a wary look with Pinkie Pie. “It sounds like life is pretty precarious up here in the Lesser Pastures; don’t you think you’d be safe with some Rebel soldiers on guard?”

“Absolutely not!” the barkeeper stated loudly, suddenly angry. “They dragged this country into a war we didn’t ask for, and then left us to fend for ourselves when the Equestrians came marching through. We were left to hold our own while they all fought over which of them got to own us, we can sure as hay hold our own now!”

“Okay, okay,” I said quickly, holding my hooves up defensively. “I didn’t know, I won’t mention it again. Although that reminds me, you haven’t seen any strange ponies around town wearing green robes and armour that looks like granite, have you?”

“You know something about them?” the barkeeper asked, the hostility that he had maintained during our entire conversation fading slightly. “We had a couple of ponies dressed just like that poking their noses around here a few weeks ago, we tried asking them what was up, but they just left without a word, haven’t seen head nor tail of them since.”

“Well that’s good... that you haven’t seen them since I mean,” I replied. “Trust us when we say those ponies are bad news, if you see them again you should be ready to defend yourself.”

“Yeah, we saw them do some pretty awful things at Pivot,” Pinkie added. “If you have any pegasi or unicorns in this town, then those ponies are not your friends.”

“I’ll get the word out,” the barkeeper promised. “Since you probably aren’t staying for another round, and it’s coming up to the post work rush, I’ll have to ask you three to make some room.”

I nodded and slid off my stool, leading the way out of the bar just as another couple of ponies made their way in. Once outside, we huddled up to discuss what we had learnt from the irritating, although surprisingly talkative barkeeper.

“It sounds like this rumour was right,” I commented, looking to Pinkie Pie. “Something might actually be up at Brine.”

“I hope the ponies there are okay,” Fluttershy stated.

“They’re probably exaggerating how bad it is,” Pinkie assured her in a cheery tone. “I bet once we get there it won’t be anything we can’t handle.”

“I hope so, we can ask the ag… the two outside if they heard anything on their way here,” I suggested. “Plus we can report what we learned about the Children of the Earth.”

Decided, we made our way back down the muddy streets as a light rain began to fall. We reached the outskirts of the city and kept walking over the grassy hills until we found the two agents sitting beside a small campfire.

“You’re back, take a seat,” the stallion offered, gesturing at the ground around the fire.

We gladly sat down and reached out to warm up our hooves, as we did, I quickly filled in the two agents about what we learned from the barkeeper.

“It sounds like they were scouting ahead,” the mare theorised. “But there hasn’t been any sort of attack yet, and that was… what? A few weeks ago?”

“That’s what he told us,” I confirmed. “Maybe they didn’t think the town was worth going to the effort of invading.”

“Perhaps, but that’s great work,” the mare complimented. “Tomorrow we can travel to Brine and meet up with the other agents, see what they found out and we’ll have something substantial to report.”

“The barkeep also mentioned something about Brine,” Fluttershy brought up. “He said that they recently stopped hearing from there, and that ponies who went there didn’t come back.”

“We had heard a rumour of a monster near Brine,” I explained. “We were going to investigate it on our way to Olympus.”

“Well we certainly didn’t notice anything out of the ordinary,” the stallion said thoughtfully. “But then we did come around it while our companions went into the town directly, to do the same thing we came here to do. I think a monster is a bit far-fetched though; it seems a bit likelier that the Children of the Earth hit Brine, which would explain the sudden cut in communication. Luckily both the other agents were earth ponies, so they’ll be able to look around safely if that is the case.”

I could tell from the looks on my companions' faces that they weren’t entirely convinced by this idea, or perhaps like me, they simply wanted to believe that a monster was responsible, rather than accept the Children of the Earth had done to another town what they did in Pivot. We all got some sleep, although I volunteered to do the night watch to give the two agents a chance to sleep, plus I was rather reluctant to sleep when I remembered my nightmare. As soon as morning came, we stamped out the remains of the campfire and set out, our walking plan mean that without interruption we would reach Brine around early evening time.

This journey however turned out to be one of the rare ones where we had no interruptions what so ever, and arrived pleasantly on time for a change and no worse for wear than when we started. By the time we reached Brine, the rain had started coming down heavier so that the road mud beneath our hooves became extra wet and slippery. Arriving at the town itself, our only indication that something was wrong was there was nopony out and about in the streets, but that wasn’t a huge surprise considering the weather.

Then again Brine, like Glean, was a farming town, and we couldn’t see anypony out in the fields surrounding the town either, I found it hard to believe work stopped just because of a little bad weather. Brine was almost identical to Breakwater with regards to architecture, the same timber framed houses with wattle and daub walls, packed tightly together. The same soaking wet, muddy roads that were an absolute pain for walking on. The only major difference between the two towns was that instead of a dock, Brine had a large church with a tall spire perched on a hill at the far side. The further into the town we got, the more things wrong we began to notice and the more worried we collectively became. 

There were odd things like barrels and crates stacked up outside houses, as well as the odd wooden cart and even a stone well, but there were also front doors left slightly open, window shutters banging nosily in the wind, and an unusual number of crows perched on the roofs. The two agents stared in horror around us, clearly being quite new to unusual happenings, but for us this was practically routine.

“Doesn’t look like the Children of the Earth at least,” I commented, trying to find a silver lining in all this. “So for the moment let’s assume the monster rumour is true, the locals must be taking shelter somewhere, your other agents might be with them.”

“The church would be my first guess,” Fluttershy proposed, pointing up at the large structure overlooking the town. 

“That sounds promising,” I agreed, looking to the two agents who were still in shock. “Why don’t you head there, see if you can find the villagers and your partners. We’ll look around the town first and see if we can’t figure out what we’re up against.”

The mare nodded, and both her and the stallion walked down the street in the direction of the church until they were out of sight. That left Pinkie Pie, Fluttershy and I to search the ghost town for something that might give credence to the rumours Pinkie had heard. We travelled together, Fluttershy pointing out that it would be unwise to split up any further without knowing what we were dealing with. My own mind jumped back to the Wight and I was more than happy to agree with her. 

We started our search in the streets, looking around corners, down alleyways and behind crates. We found absolutely nothing that seemed out of the ordinary, no destruction that would have pointed at this being the work any sort of monster; it really did just look like all the villagers had disappeared in a split second.

“Rarity! Fluttershy!” Pinkie shouted out, grabbing both our attentions. “Check this out.”

We walked over to where Pinkie was standing, but as we got close she held up her hoof to signal for us to stop. I looked around for whatever Pinkie might have found, but again everything looked perfectly normal.

“What is it?” Fluttershy asked, apparently not seeing it either. 

“The hoof prints,” Pinkie replied, pointing at the ground.  

I looked down at the ground, there were indeed lots of hoof prints in the wet mud, I figured they had been made by us while we were searching around.

“Yes, there’re hoof prints,” I acknowledged. “What about them?”

“They aren’t ours,” Pinkie stated with some assurance. “At least, not all of them. There’re plenty of hoof prints in places where none of us walked, and they look like they were made relatively recently, probably not long before we arrived.”

“So there were ponies out and about before we arrived,” Fluttershy summarised. “Maybe they went into the houses after all.”

“I guess we should check them now,” I agreed. 

We picked a house at random, one where the front door was ajar, and knocked, waiting a few moments before deciding to enter. There was an awful stench as I stepped into the house, and it quickly became apparent that it was coming from the dinner table. Like the streets, the inside of the house gave the distinct impression of ponies living a perfectly normal life, before one day they simply ceased to be there. There were plates on the table with half eaten food that was now swarming with flies, I didn’t get too close, but I could tell that the food was several days old at least. The kitchen looked as if somepony had stopped in the middle of cooking, pots and pans still resting on the stove, greasy after having been used.

We searched the house high and low, but found nopony there. Once we all agreed it was a bust, we returned to the street and moved onto the next house along. I stepped on in, followed by Fluttershy, but at the time neither of us had noticed Pinkie freeze on the doorstep, distracted by something she had seen. I walked through the hall into the front room where a fire had long since burned out, which didn’t seem to bother the pony who was standing in front of the fire, gently swaying from side to side as he stared down at the ashes.

“Oh!” I exclaimed, slightly startled at finally seeing another pony in the town. “Sorry to barge in like this sir, but your front door was just lying open.”

The pony groaned slightly, his head tilting as I spoke.

“Tell me sir, did something happen here?” I asked as I approached the stallion. “You’re the only pony we’ve found so far and everything… well, it’s a mess frankly.”

The pony began to turn to face me, still making that low groaning noise. His movements were very stiff, and his overalls were tattered and covered in some dark substance that had dried a while ago. It was his face that really disturbed me, his eyes were pale, his jaw hung slack, and he looked incredibly gaunt and patchy in his fur.  

“Sir, you look awfully sick!” I pointed out, my eyes widening at his condition. “Why don’t you sit down and let my friend take a look at…”

It was at that moment he stopped groaning and let out a strained, screeching noise as he threw himself forward at me, reaching out for me with his forelegs, his head swinging forward and his jaw snapping for my neck. I leapt back, giving a small squeal of surprise and disgust, Fluttershy too gave a small scream. The stallion fell forwards and landed loudly on the floor where he writhed pathetically, trying to pick himself back up. Instinctively I drew my sword and pointed the tip at him, hoping I wouldn’t have to use it, this pony clearly needed a doctor, not a killer.

“Sir, I’m warning you!” I tried to say, although my voice shook slightly. “We can try to help you, but we need you to calm down.”

He didn’t give my weapon any heed as he clambered back to his hooves, staring up at me before charging a second time. Biting my lip, I side stepped the stallion and swept my sword width wise across his whole body, watching it slice through his overalls and flesh… but he just stood there as if he hadn’t even felt it. He turned slowly to where I had moved to, still fully intent on catching me and doing… whatever he was so intent on doing. I didn’t know what was wrong with him, it was obvious he was very ill with something, perhaps something magical, all I knew for sure was that he was a threat and I was holding a sword.

Instinctively I stood my ground a swung my sword in a wide arc, the same way I had seen Applejack do a number of times, as the pony rushed me for a third time. My sword sliced right through his throat, coming very close to decapitating him altogether. The pony’s head swung limply off his neck stump, remaining attached only by the smallest amount of flesh and vertebrae. I lowered my sword as I waited for him to drop, to finally be dead and stop trying to do me harm… but he never did. He stayed standing, the eyes in his dangling head swirling about in their sockets to stare directly at me. Then he put one hoof in front of the other…