//------------------------------// // Hogdenville // Story: Friendship is Forever // by fabrosi //------------------------------// Chapter 5: Hogdenville As the train rumbled along, its seven clandestine passengers whispered to one another, hashing out plans for the challenge that lay ahead. In preparing themselves for what was to come, they were also staving off the sense of helplessness that pervaded the cabin. "You can just make another distraction, right, Twilight?" Spike asked. "Maybe," she whispered, "but I have to be looking at the spot where I create it, which would mean getting a clear view outside while the train is stopped. I'll see what I can do." "Shouldn't we have some sort of plan B?" asked Pinkie Pie. "You know, in case they catch us in here?" Twilight swallowed. "Unfortunately, if they see us, our best chance will probably be to make a run for it." That wasn't very comforting, but none of them had any better ideas. Huddling in complete darkness, Twilight began to feel claustrophobic. The walls pushed her thoughts inward, around her, into her. To see nothing, to hear nothing, to be nothing. She shook away the old thoughts—she needed to stay focused. After what felt like hours, the train came to a stop. They were helpless. None of them knew what was going on outside. Would anyone see them if they opened the door? Was there a hiding place nearby? As Twilight lay in frantic silence, paralyzed by these thoughts, the door suddenly opened, letting in bright light from some unseen source, with the subtler light of the moon and the stars behind it. "…more trouble than they're worth, if you ask me," said a gruff male voice that sounded frighteningly close. "Why not just leave the pigs be after the first time?" "Same as always," replied his companion, as the two of them opened of the nearest crates to the door and started lifting out what sounded like large metal objects. "You can't just stop at the first town. When you don't know where the exact source of the problem is, you gotta' assume it's coming from everywhere." "Yeah… this is an entire country, though. Isn't someone going to, you know, notice something?" "That's just it," said the other. Whatever they were lifting out of the crates, they must have grabbed enough of, because they stepped back outside the cabin. "We come here in small groups, just a few at a time. Once there are enough of us hidden…" he moved away, out of their range of hearing. Another group of ponies arrived, taking the metal objects out of the crates and carrying them off somewhere. Finally, the last one left, shutting the door on his way. The ponies' hearts were pounding. Twilight dared to light the cabin as dimly as she could, and sharply whispered, "Fluttershy, open the door a crack. You're the closest." Fluttershy whimpered softly, but did as she was told. Her hooves were trembling as she undid the latch and nudged the door as gently as possible. Slowly, cautiously, taking the smallest step every few seconds, everyone else gathered around the door, trying to look out. Then, without warning, the train started moving again, and they all collapsed in a heap. "Now what do we do?" Fluttershy whispered frantically. "There's only one thing to do," said Applejack, and she swung the door wide open. The train had only had a few seconds to build up speed, but it was accelerating quickly. After glancing behind the train to see if anyone was watching, Applejack hissed "Follow me!", jumped out of the train, hit the ground running, and ducked into the long, nearby stretch of brush partitioning the ground the train tracks were laid on from some nearby woods. Pinkie Pie was next, then Twilight and Spike. "C'mon, Fluttershy," said Rainbow Dash, giving her a nudge, but the pegasus pony refused to budge, and simply stood there shivering. Dash sighed. "Rarity?" she said, hoping she would be more willing. Rarity looked down at the ground speeding by and gulped. Then, she jumped off the train, closing her eyes in midair, and tumbled across the ground. Like the others, she immediately ran for cover, shaking off dirt as she dived into the bushes. "Come on, Fluttershy," Rainbow Dash repeated. "The train's only going to get faster… Anyway, you have wings, remember? You can fly to the ground instead of falling." Fluttershy still wouldn't move an inch, so Rainbow Dash did what any good friend would, and shoved her out of the train. Meanwhile, Twilight, Pinkie Pie, and Applejack were sneaking through some tall grass in the direction the train had gone, looking for the others. Far up ahead, they saw two dark, winged shapes flying away from the train tracks and into a ditch. Hoping to get a fix on their location, Twilight looked behind her. The full moon shone through a clear sky over an extremely long, tall cobblestone wall which had been erected to mark the border between Equestria and Sustria, and it seemed as though it might span the entire isthmus—though she couldn't see either end of it. "That wasn't on the map," she whispered. Once everypony was reunited, they began to sneak back towards their destination. The shadows cast by the trees and the wall obscured their path. From their vantage point, they could see a pony guard patrolling the wall, staying near a large torch. Other guards were posted along the entire wall every few hundred yards or so. "Twilight," said Rainbow Dash. "Can you teleport us to the other side?" "Maybe," she replied, "but I don't think that's our safest option. We don't know what's on the other side of the wall, so teleporting might put us ten feet underground, thirty feet above the ground, or in plain sight of the pigs." "Guess it's up to me, then," said Rainbow Dash. When the others looked at her quizzically, she explained: "Fluttershy and I can carry the rest of you over the wall one by one." Applejack volunteered to make the first trip, so they waited until the guard was looking at the other side of the wall, and then the two pegasi hoisted her up past the canopy and onto a section of wall about as far to the left of the guard as they could get without nearing the next guard over. The fliers set Applejack down so the three of them could survey the ground on the other side. At the sound of their hooves landing on the wall, the guards turned their heads. Rainbow Dash panicked and instinctively turned to jump off, but remembered Applejack. Not sure what else to do, she pushed her friend over the wall and into Sustria. She whispered apologies as she and Fluttershy caught the earth pony mid-fall and set her at the base of the wall. From there, they repeated the process (albeit more gracefully) until all six of them were outside Equestria. The vast, muddy, flat expanse that awaited them was in marked contrast to the heavily wooded region they'd just left. They noticed that the road continued on the other side, but it seemed like a bad idea to walk down it, so they made their way into some nearby plains, stepping around the deepest areas of mud as best they could, and eventually came across a gully that would provide them with ample cover. Rarity immediately tried to wipe her hooves off on a patch of grass. "I say we bed down here for the night," said Applejack. "The dark'd help keep those pigs from spottin' us, but we won't be able to see them, neither. 'Sides, we'll need our rest." Everypony agreed with her, so they withdrew tarps and sleeping bags from their saddlebags, set them down in the flattest spots they could find, settled down and slept under the stars. … Twilight tried to ignore a growing sense of guilt and unease as she crept through a large building that might have been a castle. She stopped dead as she rounded a corner and saw the same young alicorn from before, looking through a crack in one of the doors. "The terrible secret," said no one, as if to title the scene that was about to play out. Twilight drew close and tried to speak to the filly, but no words escaped her mouth. Just as she was trying to puzzle out why, the young one slowly turned to face her and she jumped back, for looking up at her was a pair of blackened, empty sockets. "Shh," she hissed, in a rasping, echoing voice that was so dead, so unfathomably far from love, hope or joy that tears of fear welled up in Twilight's eyes. Slowly, she turned her gaze back to the crack in the door. Twilight followed suit, though she couldn't have explained why. Inside, an alicorn, so ancient it seemed he must have been born alongside the Earth itself, lay feeble and helpless in his bed. As he wheezed laboriously, twinkling particles of vitality drifting out from his lungs and pores, his son dutifully rushed to his side from somewhere to the left with medicine and hot soup. The elder told the younger that there was something he must do, but the younger refused. His father insisted, saying that their race would surely die out otherwise, and that it was his last wish that the younger should perform this terrible task. The son trembled, fighting tears and hating himself as he promised his father that he would carry out the deed… … Twilight awoke to find herself still surrounded by darkness. She gazed around idly, trying to remember what her dream had been about before she was jolted into wakefulness by the sight of a dark figure perched at the top of the gully. As her eyes adjusted to the moonlight, however, she realized two things: firstly, the figure was pony-shaped, and secondly, whoever it was wasn't looking down at her, but out across the plains. "Pinkie?" she whispered, approaching her. "Oh… hey, Twilight." "What are you doing up here?" She didn't answer. After several seconds, Twilight added, "Your hair is still straight." "Yeah. It is." "Is it something you want to talk about?" Pinkie took a deep breath that was slightly unsteady, but not quite shuddering. "It's my Pinkie sense," she explained. Pinkie Pie couldn't see, but Twilight's pupils contracted and her nostrils flared. She'd had some very unpleasant experiences with Pinkie's Pinkie sense. "It's not the usual tics, though," she went on. "It's not a sudden, sharp feeling, like a twitch or an itch. It's more like…" she started speaking so quietly that Twilight had to move closer to hear. "…it's more like this constant, deep vibrating feeling, like there's a really loud sound everywhere, for miles and miles around, but even though it's loud, it's so low that I can't even hear it." Twilight heard real fear in her voice. "What do you think it means?" she asked. "I don't know… but, if I had to guess, I'd say it means bad things are going to happen. Not just one bad things, but a lot of them, and they're all related somehow. It's like… everything is going to change." "Well… you know, whatever happens, we can all count on each other. You know that, right?" Twilight couldn't see it, but Pinkie Pie smiled ever so slightly. "Yeah," she said. "I know." They gazed up at the night sky for a minute or more. Then, Twilight said "We should probably go back to sleep. We've got a big day tomorrow." "Yep." The two ponies returned to their makeshift beds. Twilight couldn't help but wonder why Pinkie's fear had sounded so familiar, like some old friend she'd known long ago. … When Twilight awoke the next day, she saw that Applejack had been the first to rise. She was in the middle of preparing breakfast for the others when they began to stir. Knowing it was no longer worth it to make them believe she was asleep, Twilight disentangled herself from her sleeping back, shaking, rubbing and stretching the sleep away. As they munched on their apples, everypony kept very quiet, unsure if any pigs would venture this far from the road. Rainbow Dash finished eating first and poked her head out of the gully to look around. "It's clear," she said, looking down at the others. Once everypony's stomach had been satiated, Twilight got out a map of Sustria. "Right, so I'd estimate we're somewhere around here"— she indicated a spot near the border— "and the closest town is Hogdenville, located a few hours away." "Perhaps you should cast the tracking spell now, so that we know whom to look for when we get there," suggested Rarity. "Good thinking, Rarity," said Twilight. She got the coin out from her saddlebag and set it on the ground in front of her. She closed her eyes and concentrated on it, forming images in her mind's eye of the ponies who had touched it. First, she saw herself, then Pinkie Pie, and then—she shuddered for a moment—the zebra assassin. Concentrating harder, she saw a pig—a wealthy one, by the look of his black cape and top hat. He also wore a bow tie and had a mole on his left cheek. Twilight was immediately struck by his ugliness, until she reminded herself that wasn't the point and tried to study him more closely. However, his image started to blur and morph into whoever had held the coin before him, but of course Twilight wasn't interested in that, so she awoke herself from her trance. "It was a pig, just like we thought," she explained, and described his appearance to them. "So..." said Spike, "do we just go to their town spy on them until we see one that looks like that?" "Yeah, guess so…" As they made their way across the plains, watching the road for pigs, Rarity said "I wonder what those ponies on the train came here for?" "Celestia must have some idea who tried to assassinate her," said Twilight. "They're probably here to investigate." "How do we know we won't get in their way?" asked Fluttershy. Twilight opened her mouth to give an answer before realizing she didn't have one. "We'll just have to help them cover ground faster," decided Applejack. "If we see them searchin' this town, we'll go to another one. That way, we'll also stand less chance of gettin' caught." A few cobblestone thatch-roof buildings appeared in the distance before they had even seen a single pig on the road. Twilight pulled out her binoculars and managed to spot several pigs, but none of them were the one they were looking for. "It's no good," she declared after a few minutes. "Somehow, we need to get in there and gather information." For several seconds, they stared at the town, unsure how to proceed. Then, Pinkie asked "Twilight? How's your shape-shifting magic?" … The pigs of Hogdenville had known a vague fear and distrust of the verdant, mountainous pony lands to the north for generations upon generations. The town was like a useless appendage belonging to some larger creature, swaying helplessly next to a dancing flame. Since Sustria had never once received attacks from Equestria since its formation, Emperor Irontusk saw no need to garrison the nation's northern border. For the most part, it was understood that no ponies ever came into Sustria, and no pigs ever went into Equestria, and that was that. Perhaps this was because the border was so narrow, or maybe it was because that had been the status quo for so long. In recent years, Emperor Irontusk had rallied Sustria's military and brought it to bear against a number of smaller, weaker, neighboring provinces. Officially, these had been considered part of the empire before, but the pigs had never bothered to make use of them. Goats, cows, sheep, llamas, and other hoofed creatures now occupied positions on Sustria's social ladder ranging from second-class citizens to slaves. After all, the pigs were a pragmatic race, and as long as they had the military might to keep these beasts under control, they were going to exercise that might. Twilight and friends were aware of none of this as they shuffled uneasily through Hogdenville, magically disguised as pigs. They were all slowed by the added bulk and stubby legs, and Twilight found it difficult to distinguish their another's identities—they were all varying shades of pink, without any real resemblance to their normal appearances. She couldn't shake the sense of awkward roundness, the strange absence of a neck. No one spoke to them or paid them any special attention, which was a just as well since they were completely ignorant of the pigs' social mores. Pigs, Twilight observed, were much less colorful and far more homogenous than ponies; there were pink, brown, and black pigs, but never a blue, red, or yellow pig. Some had tusks, while others did not, and none, of course, had cutie marks, which struck her as a bland and somewhat sad deficiency. Like ponies, nearly all of the pigs they saw seemed content to go without clothes, so it didn't take them long to cover maybe a third of the town looking for the caped pig. Nearly every building seemed to have been built irrespectively of its neighbors—doorways faced the road, but the walls tended to be oddly near or far from one another, resulting in both unclaimed, irregular quadrangles filled with weeds and dark, cramped alleyways. Partway through their search, the ponies ducked into such an alley. "We might not even be in the right town," whispered Rainbow Dash. "But how do we know where to go from here?" "Well," said Applejack, "it'll be risky, and it's a long shot… but I say we ask one of 'em if they've seen this pig. With any luck, they won't notice too much off about us." They stepped back out into the street. Pinkie Pie cleared her throat at a passing pink pig with black spots, but he didn't stop. "Excuse me," she said to him, trying to keep her voice from trembling. He turned around and raised an eyebrow at her. "I hope you don't mind, but we're looking for a pig with a bow tie, a black cape, a top hat, and a mole… Would you mind telling us if you've seen anyone like that?" "Nice accent," he said, and a lump formed in her throat. "Yeah, I'm pretty sure Lord Reginald looks somethin' like that, but I don't think I've ever seen him around here. Him and most of the other nobles tend to stay down in Truffledorf, and you'd have a pretty tough time getting a private audience with any of 'em. Where're you from, anyway?" "Oh, well thank you," she said, ignoring the question. The pig continued on his way. Twilight remembered seeing a city called Truffledorf on her map, so she moved to the front of the group and silently began leading the others out of the town via the road. On their way, however, they heard a shriek from somewhere off to their left. "My child! Where have you taken my child?" Across the road, a creature Fluttershy and Twilight recognized as a goat was desperately clinging to a large, grey, tusked boar, who was visibly irritated and tried to shake her off as he trudged away. Suddenly, he jerked away from her and butted her to the ground with surprising force, causing her to slide back a couple feet through the dirt. "As I understand it," he spat, looking at her obliquely, "you failed to pay what you owe to the empire. Consider the child a form of alternative payment." "…but… my only daughter… my little girl, my little baby girl"— "Shut up," he snarled, stomping on her tail and eliciting a sharp yelp. With a grunt, he turned to walk away without another backwards glance. It was a lucky thing no one was watching the disguised ponies, because it took three of them together to hold back a furious Rainbow Dash. "That jerk!" she hissed. "He has no right"— "Yes, Rainbow, we know," whispered Rarity in a pleading tone, "but you're going to give us away, and in case you haven't noticed, we are severely outnumbered." She continued to struggle for a few more tense moments, her shoulder blades twitching and squirming awkwardly as her agitated brain sent frantic signals to her no-longer-present wings. She calmed down, however, as she realized the danger of the situation, and left town silently with her relieved companions. The goat on the other side of the street remained on the ground, sobbing in muted despair. They wandered well away from the town and down the road, which gradually dipped into a small, shallow valley, with sheer dirt walls dominated by ivy. When they had a clear view of a few hundred feet ahead and were sure they were safely away from prying ears, Rainbow Dash snarled "I can't believe that pig treated her like that! And no one else did anything about it! They just kept walking!" "Yeah," added Pinkie Pie, "those pigs are like monsters! They're mean, and they pick on creatures that can't defend themselves…" "I'm just glad we were born in Equestria," said Rarity, "where at least everypony has a sense of common decency." "We don't know that they're all like that," said Twilight, "and remember, we're here to solve one injustice at a time. Once we deal with this… Lord… Reginald, we can see about righting some of the other wrongs in this place. Until then, we need to stay focused and stay hidden."