The wind carried the smell of freshly-cut wood through the meadow on the village outskirts. The ponies living there were busy building yet another new house; a couple of mares just brought food for the constructors, who sat in the shadow, wiping sweat from their foreheads. A cart loaded with vegetables was being pulled down the dusty road. Some ponies were sitting on the bench, discussing something.
None of them noticed three ponies who sneaked out of the settlement and were currently hiding in the shadow of one of the hills surrounding it. Two of them were sitting under the only remaining tree, while the other was hopping around them.
“So...” the tall, greenish mare with a crosscut saw as her cutie mark put her hoof in her greasy mane. For a while, she was looking for the right words to describe what she felt, but there were none coming to her head. She took a deep breath. “I don’t get it.”
“Me neither.” An almost identical mare shrugged. Her mane was standing upwards in the most messy fashion and her cutie mark was a hacksaw. “It’s like, we and Hooffields…” She looked at the third mare, who stopped hopping and was now staring at them. “You wanted to say something, Buzzsaw?”
The third mare only shrugged, staring at the grass in front of her. Her two sisters nodded – Buzzsaw almost never spoke and it only got worse as she got older.
“What I thought.” The greenish mare sighed. “Buzzsaw is useless as usual and you, Hacksaw, ain’t no better. You two dragged me here and now you don’t say a word. What’s going on? Why don’t you go to the Hooffields?”
Hacksaw furrowed her eyebrows, trying to gather her thoughts. “That’d be... wrong,” she muttered. “Like, we were fighting them since I remember... And what now?” She swallowed hard. “Crosscut, it just doesn’t feel right.”
“That’s what I don’t get.” Crosscut sunk her hoof in her mane. “I mean, we’re cool now… We helped them build houses... and now what?”
“We can build another house,” Hacksaw said.
“What for?” Crosscut rolled her eyes. “How many more houses do you want to build? Soon there’ll be enough for all the ponies in Equestria!”
Hacksaw went silent, staring into the distance. Her lips were moving, but not a sound escaped them. “That’d be... a lot of houses,” she muttered eventually.
“How many?” Buzzsaw asked. She was lying on the grass, watching a butterfly flying above her.
“About a hundred,” Crosscut deadpanned. Buzzsaw opened her mouth, her eyes widening as she imagined all those houses, stacked along the road. She nodded slowly, struck by such a view, and went back to watching butterflies.
“So, yeah.” Hacksaw looked at her sister and nodded. “What should we do?”
“Dunno,” Crosscut replied. “I’ve heard the Hooffields are going to the market in Tall Tale.”
“We can rob them on their way,” Hacksaw said, standing up and flexing her muscles. Years of physical labour made their mark on the sisters; even though they were slim, each of them was strong enough to pull a cart full of wood by herself.
Crosscut looked at Hacksaw and cleared her throat. “We don’t rob them anymore, remember?”
“Umm... yeah.” Hacksaw looked down at her hooves. She scratched her mane, focusing on some particularly interesting blade of grass. “So... we can go with them?”
“I don’t like Tall Tale,” Crosscut said. “That... wouldn’t be wise.”
“I’ve never been there,” Hacksaw muttered. “You did?”
“Once.” For a moment, Crosscut closed her eyes. “When I was a little filly. We went with auntie Rosie to buy nails.”
“With mom?” Buzzsaw asked, smiling.
“With auntie Rosie.” Crosscut spat the last syllables as if they burned her mouth.
“How is it like?” Hacksaw leaned closer to her sister and looked at Buzzsaw who was picking up daisies to make a chain.
Crosscut scratched her chin, trying to recall the images of the distant past. “Big. Crowded. It smells.”
“How big? We could go there.” Hacksaw smiled. “It can’t be much bigger than the village we built.”
“It is. And we won’t go there.” Crosscut looked at Buzzsaw. “She wouldn’t like it.”
“How so?” Hacksaw asked. “Buzzie likes being outside. I haven’t seen her happier than she is now. Just look at her. She was bored of the fort. She’s happy like before–”
“Enough.” Crosscut muttered. “I get that she’s happy, but you know what happens to her... If it wasn’t for those freaks who came here, she’d shovel that Hooffield girl to death. If she sees the town...”
“She’ll be fine.” Hacksaw smiled at Buzzsaw who put the daisy chain on and was watching her sisters, tilting her head. “It’s been a while since she… snapped.”
“Really?” Crosscut walked to Buzzsaw and looked into her eyes. “Why don’t we take her to the other side of the hill, to that small pile of rocks where–”
“No!” Buzzsaw cried, dropping on the ground and clutching to her stomach. “Daddy, no!” She sobbed, hiding her face in her hooves.
Crosscut sighed and sat next to Buzzsaw, patting her mane. “There, there,” she muttered. “No one’s going to hurt you, sis–” She recoiled after Buzzsaw suddenly punched her. The crying mare stood up, making a guttural growl, and rushed to tackle her sister. Hacksaw saw that coming – she tripped Buzzsaw and caught her, pulling her away from Crosscut.
Buzzsaw thrashed, trying to free herself, but a few moments later she hung limply in her sister’s hooves and wept, sinking her face in Hacksaw’s coat.
“See?” Crosscut stood up, rubbing her swollen cheek. “We can’t go with her anywhere. If she does that again...”
“You started it,” Hacksaw replied, hugging Buzzsaw closer. “You... You did that to her.”
“I didn’t do nothing,” Crosscut muttered. “It’s all in her thick skull.”
“You reminded her of that!” Hacksaw exclaimed. “You don’t want us to leave the family!”
“What? No,” Crosscut said. “I’d leave myself if there was anything to see there. But, of course, you may go to Tall Tale or wherever you want. I’d like to see you taking care of Buzzsaw with all those ponies around, trying to do bad things to you.” She turned around and walked a few steps away from her sisters. Instead of going back to the village, however, she just sat on the grass.
“Cross?” Hacksaw walked to her sister with Buzzsaw still in her embrace. Instead of replying Crosscut ran up the hill, tripping over branches and slipping on the wet grass. Hacksaw and Buzzsaw galloped after her.
Crosscut stopped, as abruptly as she had ran earlier. She was only a few steps from the top of the hill, yet she turned to her sisters and sat on the ground. “It’s not our hill,” she muttered.
“Now it is,” Hacksaw said, looking down. “Listen, Cross, what you said was–”
“I’m sorry.” Crosscut walked to her sisters and lowered her head. “I shouldn’t have told that to Buzzsaw.”
“Let’s forget about it.” Hacksaw sat by Crosscut’s side. “Tell us more about Tall Tale. How are ponies there like?”
Crosscut said nothing, contemplating the landscape in front of her. From their position, they could easily see the ponies in the valley. One of their cousins was sitting in front of a new house with two Hooffields—Crosscut couldn’t quite recall their names—drinking water from a newly-dug well. Not far away from them, Big Daddy McColt was discussing something with Ma Hooffield. Some deeply-rooted instinct made Crosscut clench her hooves. However, she quickly remembered about the truce and lowered her head, listening to the wind.
It reminded her of that gloomy, Autumn day in Tall Tale, where the streets were covered in a carpet of dead, wet leaves. Crosscut thought of wandering knee-deep in them, trying to keep up with auntie Rosie.
“They’re different,” Crosscut said slowly. “More colourful. They keep running somewhere. And the pony who sold us the nails was bigger than auntie Rosie. He kept laughing.”
Buzzsaw purred, listening to the story. She lay on the grass and rolled in it, laughing.
“Tell her to stop,” Crosscut muttered. “She’ll snap her neck one day if she keeps rolling down the hill.”
“Let her play,” Hacksaw replied. “She ain’t one to snap her neck like that.”
Crosscut rolled her eyes, but she knew that arguing was no use. No matter what she did for Buzzsaw, the sister still held her in deep disregard. Judging by the crude charcoal drawings covering the walls of a decrepit wooden hut Buzzsaw had built and where she usually slept, Hacksaw was definitely her favourite sister.
“It was hard to keep an eye for her even without her roaming everywhere,” Crosscut said. “What if somepony hurts her?”
“Daddy won’t let ‘em,” Hacksaw replied. “Remember what he said? She can’t have more and why else would some–”
Crosscut had enough. Without a warning, she smacked Hacksaw in the back of the head and before her sister could recover, she tackled her, sitting on her chest and grabbing her neck with her hooves.
“Stop reminding me!” Crosscut spat, panting. “Our family is not everypony, Hacksaw! There are Hooffields and who knows how many ponies that may come here!”
“But… Hooffields are good now?” Hacksaw gasped, struggling for air.
“Yes, but they don’t know,” Crosscut replied. “And they won’t.”
“Why?” Hacksaw coughed. “We can tell ‘em that Buzzsaw–”
Crosscut let go of Hacksaw’s neck, only to land a punch on her jaw. “They can’t know. Do ya want to start a war again?” She raised her hoof.
“Crosscut angry?” Buzzsaw asked. She was standing in tall grass, her eyes wide.
“She deserved it,” Crosscut muttered, letting Hacksaw go.
Buzzsaw nodded. “Hacksaw naughty? Bad Hacksaw.”
Hacksaw straightened her clothes and picked up some leaves from her mane. “I liked war more,” she hissed. “At least my sister loved me.”
“I still love you, Hacksaw,” Crosscut replied. “Same with you, Buzzsaw. It’s just… this.” She waved her hoof in the direction of the village.
“Hooffields bad?” Buzzsaw’s eyes lit up.
“No,” Crosscut replied.
“Aww…” Buzzsaw lowered her head.
Hacksaw groaned. “You know what?” she asked, circling Crosscut and Buzzsaw. “Fuck you. I’m gonna go and beat up some Hooffield, so maybe everything will be like before.”
“Wait.” Crosscut rushed to stop her sister, but Hacksaw already ran off down the hill. Crosscut didn’t chase her; she just stood and stared. “Idiot,” she whispered. “What an idiot.”
“I’m sorry,” Buzzsaw muttered.
“Not you,” Crosscut said, embracing her sister. “You at least listen to me sometimes.”
“Hacksaw bad?” Buzzsaw frowned. “Not listen?”
“No idea.” Crosscut shrugged. “This is just… Hard, you know?”
Buzzsaw shrugged, mimicking her sister.
“I should stop her before she does something stupid,” Crosscut said, looking at the sun. “But maybe that’d be better?”
Buzzsaw tilted her head. “No beat Hacksaw.”
“How about Hooffields?” Crosscut rested her head on her hooves.
“No war,” Buzzsaw replied.
Crosscut sighed. “Then I need to find her? Damn.” She shook her sister’s hoof off of herself and stood up. “I’ll be back soon.”
She trotted down the hill. Buzzsaw watched her, lying on the ground and waving her hind legs in the air. Even though it was almost evening, the day was still pleasantly warm, so Buzzsaw stretched her muscles and rolled on her back. The faint echo of punches and Hacksaw’s screams found its way to her ears, but Buzzsaw couldn’t care less. She was sure that whatever her sisters were doing was for her own good.
Buzzsaw lowered her eyes on the village. She saw a group of ponies pulling Crosscut away from Hacksaw, who was lying on her side. Two mares sat next to her. One of them put her hoof on Hacksaw’s neck.
Buzzsaw felt a warm wind blowing on her face, so she turned her eyes away from the village. The sun was setting behind the hill on the opposite side of the valley, turning the sky red, pink, and yellow. Buzzsaw closed her eyes, smiling. She didn’t feel like going back to the village yet. After all, her sisters would come and get her if she stayed up late. They always did.
After all, her sisters loved her.