Dissonance

by Mindblower

Two

(([Note]: If you have not yet read the rewrite of the prior chapter, please do so to avoid confusion. Enjoy!))

*******

Dash awoke to find her eyes already open. She shuddered and pulled her wool blanket tighter around her body, but it was hardly enough to stifle the crushing cold that had crept into her every crevice. A dim fire burned in the center of the chamber, lighting up the inside of what appeared to be a train carriage. Whatever comforts had once existed within appeared to have been stripped away, however, leaving only the metal shell and a few bare necessities. A chilly wind blew in from a chipped window, as well as a few flecks of snow. Dash spotted three other lumps laying next to her, all of them huddled up in the corner furthest from the broken window. A small figure rested up against the fire, covered in a mix of thick cloth and formerly luxurious clothing, now reduced to tatters.

Dash coughed. Surprisingly, her throat wasn’t crushingly sore—it must not have been too long since she fell unconscious in the blizzard. Some life returned to her weary muscles as she remembered what had been chasing her.

“Hey, you awake?” the pony in the center of the rusted carriage asked, revealing himself as a young colt. He stood up and walked over, still mostly obscured by darkness. Dash could see some rags hanging off his front limbs, improperly wrapped, and some strands of his teal mane poking from under his head.

“Who are you?” Dash rasped, too weak to do most anything but look up.

“Oh, my name’s Lion’s Share, but you can just call me Lion,” the strange colt said. “You were just outside my place, and, well, that didn’t seem like the best place to take a nap. So I dragged you inside.”

“Well... thanks, I guess,” Dash muttered, clambering to her hooves even though the effort made her nauseous. She shook her head, remembering something important. She glanced back toward her sleeping friends. One, two... three...?

“What’s wrong?” Lion asked. Dash’s eyes had regained focus, and she saw that his entire head was wrapped up in muddy cloth, only one of his emerald eyes visible. The only sign of his mane was a matted lump atop his head, though the bandana he had covering his mouth served as the biggest oddity—it was several sizes too big, the tip falling down past his torso. She imagined it was made for a stallion the size of Big Macintosh.

The weathermare shook her head, but didn’t answer. Instead, she stumbled over each of her friends, slowly pulling back the blankets just enough so that she could identify them. The first thing she saw was an orange ear poking out of the first lump. Applejack. Willing her legs to keep her body off the ground, she slowly placed her hoof over the sleeping farmer and saw strands of pale pink hair lying on the ground in the light of the flickering fire. Fluttershy. A white hoof was tightly gripping the slumbering pegasus, its owner Dash recognized to be Rarity. Nopony else was present.

Dash swallowed, the ache in her throat significantly more severe. “Wh-... where’s P-Pinkie?”

“You had another friend?” Lion asked. “You four were all I saw when I went outside.”

Dash nodded, slowly turning around and clambering back over her friends. “Sh-she’s an earth pony. Curly hair.” Dash tried to press her wings closer to herself to no avail; they were already plastered to her side from the cold. “M-my name’s Rainbow Dash, by the way.”

Lion scratched the back of his neck, scratching off a few pieces of dirt in the process. “Nice to meet you, but... ‘Pinkie’ doesn’t really ring a bell. If you had a fifth friend, they probably just fell farther in the avalanche than you all did. Sorry.”

Fell farther in the avalanche. Dash blinked before raising a hoof to rub sand out of her eyes. “We... we’re still in Ponyville, right?”

Lion raised an eyebrow. “Never heard of it. That your home or something?”

Dash coughed, taking a seat next to Applejack and abandoning most personal space principles in exchange for some of her friend’s feverish warmth. “Could I have some water?”

“Sure, I actually had some snow melting...” Lion bent near the fire and picked a tin can up between his teeth before toting it over to Dash for her to drink. “Don’t drink too much. I’ve only got one can.”

Dash nodded, tilting it forward to take a few sips. The mostly-melted slush inside was nearly as cold as the air around them, and tasted faintly of tomatoes. She smacked her lips a bit at the salty aftertaste, then passed it back. “Thanks.”

“So... Ponyville? I guess that’s somewhere nearby?” Lion asked.

Dash found herself desperately wanting to answer yes, but instead rested her head in her hooves and whimpered, “I don’t even know anymore.”

“Wouldn’t surprise me if you were from down south,” Lion stated with a shrug as he rewrapped his right foreleg. “I know that Symm at least provides prisoners with clothes. That must mean you’re adventurers, right?”

“...Symm?” Dash asked.

Lion looked at her funny. He uttered a long sigh. “Yeah... you must have hit your head or something on the way down. Symm runs Equestria, remember? They have for as long anypony can remember.”

Dash was about to interrogate more when Applejack shifted under Dash’s weight. “Consarnit, Rainbow... git off me,” she breathed, clearly trying to shift position, but was too tired to muster the strength.

Dash slid her body a little to the side, allowing Applejack to roll onto her back and expose her torso to the elements.

“Could use a drink,” Applejack whispered, staring at the ceiling. Her expression grew more vacant with time, until she eventually curled up into a tight ball and closed her eyes.

As Lion retrieved the can, Rarity stretched and yawned, her eyelids fluttering as she examined her surroundings. “Goodness me, where in Equestria did we end up this time?”

“You are adventurers!” Lion stated, nearly slipping and kicking the can into Applejack’s face.

“Well, I suppose you could say that, given recent events.” Rarity sighed, wrapping herself in her comforters. “I do hope Celestia realizes what’s happened before too much longer. Now then, where exactly are we?”

“Exile Three,” Lion stated, looking up at Rarity attentively. “Are you the leader?”

Rarity chuckled, almost dismissing the question before bringing it into consideration with events past. “Well... I’m not sure,” she stated, feeling suddenly colder. She shivered, shook her head, and instead asked, “Erm, what’s your name again, sweetie?”

“Lion’s Share, adventurer extraordinaire!” he chirped, raising a hoof to his forehead in a haphazard salute. “Who’re you?”

“You may call me Rarity. Now, Lion, where are we, and how did you get out here?” the fashionista inquired, sitting down next to Applejack and feeling the farmer’s forehead. “Goodness, she’s burning up.”

“Oh, we’re in Exile Three. I got caught and sent here by the Symm for trying to nab somepony’s purse—but I didn’t even do it!” He collapsed to the floor, pouting. “My friends did, and I tripped when I tried to follow them.”

Rarity noted his words, but was for now focused more on Applejack, who she hastily bundled up as best she could. “Applejack, can you hear me?”

A tiny nod was the farmer’s only response. Her face was flushed, her jaw clenched, and her eyes shut tight.

“Uh-oh,” Lion mumbled upon seeing the object of Rarity’s focus. “She looks sick.”

Dash rolled her eyes. “Thanks, I couldn’t tell,” she muttered, glancing back at her friend and pawing a bit at her blanket. The fire had warmed the chamber a bit, at least enough to protect them if they all huddled together.

“Where’s Pinkie?” Rarity asked, just noticing her absence.

“Dunno,” Dash sighed, shivering. She glanced at the door to the outside, its hinges sealed with rust and frost compounded over the years, yet somehow still functional. “I’m going to look for her.”

Lion snorted. “Good luck. That avalanche we had last night missed this car by, like, a meter. I seriously doubt Pinkie’d be out there.”

“Gotta chance it,” Dash said, bracing herself and headed for the door.

Lion stood up to stop her. “Wait!” he exclaimed, rushing up and skidding to a stop in front of her. “It’s not a good idea to go out on your own. And you know why I’m sure Pinkie isn’t there? Because I found Rarity hanging off the edge of the cliffside, no joke.”

“So? I can still fly,” Dash said, attempting to brush him aside with a hoof.

Lion resisted. “You can’t fly out here; I’ve tried. The wind almost tore me apart. I know you don’t wanna hear it, but Pinkie is gone, and it’d be just stupid to trek all the way down to the base of the cliff for a body.”

Dash sucked in a breath. She wasn’t yet willing to consider the notion that Pinkie was dead—not until she saw it herself. She was probably just dropped somewhere else... but why?

“Whaddaya mean?” Lion asked.

Dash blinked, not realizing she had spoken aloud. “Maybe she and Twilight were sent to the same place. Look, Lion, you can tell we’re not from here.”

“Yeah, I can look at your hips and know you’re new,” Lion said, still guarding Dash’s path to the exit in case she made a run for it. “So what?”

“So, all I really know is that before I got here, there were six of us, and now there’s four,” Dash stated, flicking her tail before turning around and beginning to pace the room. “Which means, there’s something about Pinkie and Twilight that’s not like the rest of us.”

“Not necessarily, darling,” Rarity said. “Remember how that creature examined each of us in turn? He could just be taking his time separating all of us—though how, I’m not quite sure.”

Dash shook her head. If we split up, we’re doomed. But if we stick together, we’re sitting ducks for Verba to come back and tear us apart. I just know he’s somewhere out there, looking for us. “What do we do, Rarity?”

“...I’m the leader in Twilight’s stead?” the seamstress replied, only slightly surprised. She moved to uncover Fluttershy’s face. “Well, first of all, is there anything else we could use to bundle up?”

Lion shook his head, moistening his chapped lips. “You’re sleeping in my bed. It’s all I have. I would go into town to get more, but I don’t have any money.”

Rarity’s blood thickened a bit as she gazed at Fluttershy. She was almost too still to be alive. Thankfully, the unicorn saw faint puffs of condensation by her friend’s mouth. Rarity raised a hoof to the pegasus’s ears, rubbing them a bit. They were tough and leathery, which wasn’t a good sign. “She’s frostbitten. We need to move both of them next to the fire.”

With help from Dash and Lion, Rarity slid both of her ill friends to the warmth of the flame. As they did, Lion said, “I think this fire should last a few more hours. I have some oil in case it doesn’t, but once we’ve used that...”

“What kind of place is this?” Dash breathed, worn out merely from the act of shuffling her friends over a few meters.

“You don’t know either, huh?” Lion asked Rarity. When she shook her head, he sighed, sitting down and leaning back against Applejack, facing away from the fire. “I wonder how you even got here.”

“Your guess is as good as mine,” Dash grumbled, nestling up against Rarity to conserve heat.

“Well, Exile is where they put ponies to die. Once you’re here, there aren’t any laws, and the plains and mountains are too cold to cross—nopony’s ever escaped. Some ponies in town make a living here, though. I know there’s one herbalist who can cure basically anything,” Lion explained.

Rarity’s ears perked when he mentioned the herbalist. “Could he, perhaps, assist our friends?”

Lion shrugged, raising a hoof to pick wax out of his ear. “Maybe. I just know that he makes a killing here. So unless you have something he would want, tough luck.”

Dash glanced at Rarity. Their eyes sparked, both knowing what the other was about to say. The weathermare, however, shook her head.

“This is a dream straight out of Tartarus,” Dash growled, standing up and shaking half-melted crystals from her mane and tail, “but dream or no dream, I’m going.”

“I’m sure you’d like to think that, darling, but be honest with yourself. You’re just as sick as Applejack, and in no state to travel in a blizzard. You also don’t have the experience I do in... negotiations,” Rarity stated in return, glaring daggers up at her.

“Huh?” Lion asked, glancing between the two of them.

“I have a few tricks.” Dash coughed, wiped her nose, and flicked her mane. “You’re a unicorn. You won’t be able to make the trip like I will. Pegasi are supposed to be out in the cold.”

“And that resistance seems to have done you great service,” Rarity blurted, stepping up to her friend, her gaze now more pleading than threatening. “For the love of all that is good, darling, it is my job to sacrifice, not yours. Stay, I beg you.”

“And be useless while I lose two more of my friends? Fat chance,” Dash stated, flicking her tail to the side and turning away from Rarity to face Lion. “Hey, you. You’re coming with me to the town, now.”

“Uh, alright. I guess we could pick up some food there,” Lion said, catching something on the inside of his ear. He pulled out a bit of wax and examined it before rubbing it off on his torso. “I hope you have money, though.”

“Don’t worry.” Dash sat by the fire a few moments, absorbing as much energy as she could without burning herself, before standing up, wrapping herself as tight as she could in her shawl, and pushing open the door to the carriage. A blast of cold air burst in with enough force that Rarity was forced to lean backward.

“Don’t do this, Dash,” she pleaded, though she lacked conviction in the face of the wasteland outside. The blizzard had stopped, revealing a dark sky devoid of even a moon, and though the stars glimmered overhead, they were dim, hardly compensating for the landscape of snow and permafrost.

Dash didn’t answer. She instead braced herself, then hopped out into the tundra, following the tiny colt that was her guide, before shutting the door behind her.

---

The air outside had stilled significantly since the blizzard. Dash remarked to herself that the abandoned train carriage, mostly obscured by snow and ice, served as an ideal hiding spot in the frozen, rocky terrain—Rarity and the others were, in all likelihood, going to be safe in case any nasty ponies ran their way. The carriage itself was half-landed in the base of a mountain, and there didn’t seem to be anything notable around, save the craggy, half-collapsed path down the hillside below. The sun was utterly absent, as was the moon.

“It’s winter,” Lion said when he saw Dash’s eyes pointed toward the horizon. “The sun hasn’t rose since I got here.”

“How long is that?” Dash asked, blinking and turning her head as a chilling breeze raked across her face. She fluffed her wings a bit, her sturdy pegasus exterior serving her well in the bitter cold.

“Just a month, I guess. Hard to keep track of time,” Lion said, kicking a rock aside. He took a few steps toward the path. “The town’s around the mountain, but we have to take the long way ‘cause of the avalanche I found you guys in.”

“You were going to town when you found us?” Dash asked. “I thought you couldn’t afford anything.”

“I beg, and I steal things,” Lion said, staring straight ahead as he shuffled forward, knocking pepples aside as his hooves skidded on the icy rock face. Dash looked at him. He stared up at her. “What? How about you try surviving a month here without cash.”

She withdrew her unspoken criticism, at least temporarily—she needed to see how bad things were in the town itself. She focused on putting one hoof in front of the other instead, trying not to trip over herself as she half-skidded down the mountainside. Lion appeared much more nimble, and didn’t hesitate to make conversation. He was talkative enough for the both of them, but Dash could hardly blame him. She was likely the first friendly company he’d had in the month that he’d been stuck in this Celestia-forsaken tundra.

“So you’re an adventurer?” he asked, looking up at her with his right eye.

Dash looked up, seeing a low, flat plain ahead. There were a few dots of light signifying a town in the portion of it nearest to a cliff face, likely because of its partial shelter from the wind. “I’m not, really.”

“So you’ve never been anywhere cool?” Lion asked, almost pleading her for a story.

Dash found herself wanting to smile, but the cold had stiffened her face. She tousled his hair. “Well, sport, I have been to the Crystal Empire.”

He gaped. “No way! That place is, like, mega off-limits to everypony! How’d you get inside?”

She winked at him. “Well, it’s kinda in my job description to go wherever I want. Battling evil, wherever it rears its ugly snout, y’know?” She paused, considering what he’d just said. “Wait. Off-limits? But the train runs right through it.”

Lion kicked a stone. “I wish. It’s supposed to be a lot better than Equestria. But they closed it off a long time ago. Nopony’s allowed in at all.”

“Did Symm do that? What is Symm, anyway?” Dash asked, ignoring the sting of her increasingly chapped lips.

“Symbolic. It’s some huge organization. “Symm protects your whim.” “Support Symm—keep your speech proper and prim!” That’s what I always heard back home. It runs Equestria, s’far as I know. I never really paid attention. Too busy trying to find a way to eat,” Lion explained. “If they did anything, I don’t really remember. So what do you do, anyway?”

Dash raised her head proudly and proclaimed, “I’m the Element of Loyalty.”

Lion looked at her oddly. “You don’t have to lie to impress me, Rainbow.”

“Huh? But I am. Like, seriously,” Dash said, cantering ahead of him and looking him in the eye. “Look, do I have any reason to lie to you?”

Lion made a wide, sweeping gesture to the land around him. “Oh yeah? Why does this exist? Battling evil wherever it goes, huh? Didja take a day off r’somethin’?” He sharply turned, flicking Dash’s knee with his tail. “Let’s just go.”

Dash set her jaw. “But...” She trailed off, not knowing how to continue the argument. I’ve... never been to this place. Has this always been here? How come I never found out? She interrupted her considerations with a shake of her head. Right... remember how you got here, Rainbow. It’s just a dream. Still... I’d better talk to the others before I think too hard about all this.

---

*******

It was about another half hour of walking before they arrived in the tiny thorp that was the town. Three rough walls encompassed the perimeter, but the walls were not paved by brick or stone, giving the impression that somepony had taken a massive, square shovel and carved out a section of the mountain to be designated as habitable. They were standing over one of the sides, and Lion told her that it was easiest to escape the blistering wind of the plains by hugging the walls as they crossed through.

When Dash inquired about the town’s name, Lion replied simply, ‘Exile Three.’ It was about a mile from the border station where prisoners were thrust into the bitter cold, and the closest place where a freshly-clothed and chubby outsider could barter some of his remaining livelihood in exchange for a night of peace, and maybe some directions or advice on how to survive.

“They send you in with whatever you can carry on your back, but a lot of criminals that come here aren’t really the richest. Most of them have already been let go once, but then broke a deal saying they wouldn’t do it again,” the foal explained, keeping his voice and head low as they strode through the mostly empty lanes and using Dash’s body as a shield from anypony who otherwise would have caught sight of him. Dash noticed this, but decided not to be bothered—she couldn’t risk her only guide being skewered by whatever stallion inadvertently recognized him as the foal who’d stolen his hardtack.

The streets, if they could even be called that, were unpaved and uneven stone, and Dash flinched as the occasional bit of gravel poked the interior of her hoof. The paths were windswept, with snowy dust whipping around her ankles. There were a couple rough huts made of pine wood, but those didn’t look particularly new, and were battered horribly by the wind. A few ponies stood by the imposing cliff face at the other end of town, the edge of which Dash had trotted close to on her way down with Lion. Their eyes were tightly shut, and they hugged themselves as they tried to survive the onslaught that was life in Exile.

They passed by one of the stallions on their way. He was tightly wrapped, bundled in the rags of the cloak he had arrived in. Bits of his maroon coat poked out the cloth covering his head, as well as tufts of his even darker mane. He looked up as they passed, inciting Lion to hug Dash’s side tighter as he walked on the opposite side of her, but didn’t seem to notice the young thief. He instead looked directly at Dash—not moving, not speaking, but staring up at her, his expression unreadable underneath his garments. The weathermare sped her pace to a trot in an effort to keep her distance.

“Who was that?” Dash asked Lion as they approached the center wall.

“Who was what?” he asked in return, rubbing a flake of snow from his snout and scratching his eyelid.

Dash was about to reply, That stallion, but when she turned around, he had vanished. She pulled her blanket tighter and said, “Never mind.”

In the center of the wall, there was a small tunnel barred by a weave of pine branches and sap. Lion informed Dash that most homes were contained inside—some of the more selfless criminals had carved out living spaces and air vents inside, but they were little more than dank cavities in the mountain shielded from the wind. That was something of a plus, but coupled with the damp core of the mountain and the lack of good ventilation or sanitation, nopony could stay inside for long. Lion said that most of the some hundred ponies in town, at this hour, were sleeping inside the outside huts, resting atop one another in an effort to stave off the cold.

“In those tiny things?” Dash asked, glancing at them. There were only four, with one of them collapsed utterly, and the three remaining about each as big as camping tents. She tapped one of the logs making up the corners, jesting, “Jeez, I hope they can breathe.”

“Outfielder suffocated a couple months ago. He was sick, and somepony sat on his face while they were all asleep,” Lion said bluntly, continuing toward the wall. Upon hearing Dash’s response, or rather lack thereof, he looked back at her and said, “What, you think this is some kind of joke?”

Dash shook her head. “I... just don’t like thinking things are ever this hopeless.” She paused, silently following Lion as he walked forward, a bit of cloth dragging behind him. He climbed through the small hole that had been broken into the wall edging the plains, but Dash looked back once more—in case the mystery stallion had been following her—before clambering after him.

After a couple minutes, they neared the other edge of the cliff, which dropped off into what looked like a ravine about twenty meters below, with a rather steep slope leading down into its mouth. The ravine itself, shaped like a craggy scar, travelled far beyond the horizon, its depths already far too dark to see. The only sign that it was inhabited at all was the steps leading down to a rough hole in the wall, which appeared to burrow directly beneath the windswept plains.

“There are some cave systems in there where Symm set up an artificial farm. Most of the ponies in town will get to work there when they wake up,” Lion explained as they approached the mouth of the crevice.

“Y’know, why aren’t you with them?” Dash inquired. She noticed that the very rim of the sky had started to turn a lighter blue, but the sun was nowhere in sight.

“The farm doesn’t feed everypony,” Lion said, refusing to look back at her as she spoke. She strained to hear him over the increasing winds, but managed to glean meaning from his speech. “I got off on the wrong hoof.”

Dash bit her lip, trying to maybe think of advice to give up, but came up blank. “Just hang in there, okay? I’ll do what I can for you once I figure things out.”

They came to the small stone opening, not even big enough to fit two full-grown ponies side by side. Lion looked up at her before entering, his expression tough to judge. “...Thanks,” he said lowly before scrambling back up inside.

Dash sighed, almost slipping on her hooves as she clambered up after him. The entryway led to an unlit passage, but after Dash felt and brushed her way through one right turn and two lefts, she was met with a metal archway, within which a hazy, plasmetic field was suspended, blurring all vision through it. Lion had seemed to have already made his way through, so Dash supposed she might as well, too. The steps had to be forced, because the magical barrier resisted her entrance, but a few steps later, her momentum shifted, and she was propelled heel over head into a cacophony of sensation.

*******

The interior farm was a virtual explosion of life in comparison to the exterior of Exile. Despite its craggy rock ceiling, unnaturally flattened floor, and the clearly artificial orb of light floating in the the chamber’s center, actual green grew in the pale, dusty mountain soil, and she could not thank the Princesses enough for the relief it brought. The smell of struggling life filled her nostrils, and though that may not have been so grandiose in comparison to her home, it was overwhelming after having spent what felt like months out in the cold. Moreover, it was warm inside the artificial farm—in Ponyville, it would have been considered brisk, or chilly, but given her current whereabouts, Dash may as well have been sitting in a sauna.

That is why it took a moment for her to pick herself off of the ground and rub the stinging side of her face. Lion looked at her, and he may have been smiling.

“It’s always weird the first time,” he said, chuckling a bit.

Dash rolled her eyes before giving herself an opportunity to better examine the chamber. It was absolutely enormous compared to the outside, with what Dash approximated as two square kilometers, total, of farmland. In the center of the chamber glowed a sphere of energy in a hollowed-out portion of a pillar, resembling something of a mini-sun. White and blue pipes led in from the ceiling and into the pillar, curving along its side before ending different points respective to the color of the pipe. Water flowed out of the blue pipe into irrigation channels that formed a cross centered on the pillar. The channels ended at the edge of the room, but Dash couldn’t see through the stalks to guess where it went. She did see, though, some stalks by the opening of the white pipe—it must have been part of the ventilation system.

She looked at Lion, waiting for him to lead the way, but he was already turning back toward the entrance. “Hey! Where’re you going?”

He cringed. “Shh!” He pressed his ears to the back of his head, slowly glancing around, before standing back upright and glaring up at Dash. “I told you I’m not welcome here. You need to handle this yourself. I’ll wait outside.” Without waiting for response, he scampered back through the archway and vanished into the blur.

Dash sighed, at least relieved to be out of the wind and the cold. She tossed the blanket back from her head, shook frost from her mane, and started walking carefully on the path leading across the field. There was only one path she could see—everything else in the area was grass.

A few minutes later, she came across a wooden door with rusty hinges. There was a sign on it that read, Love the enthusiasm, sugarbooger, but we’re closed! Not particularly discouraged, Dash gave a quick two knocks on the door.

After a few minutes of waiting, she heard some haphazard hoofsteps from behind the roughly-boarded door. It shook as something stumbled into it, and Dash jumped back as the door swung open, revealing the scowling mare behind it. “‘Oo goes ‘ehrr?”

The unicorn wasn’t eye candy by any stretch of the imagination. Her pale gray face was covered in splotches that looked like dirt at first, but upon closer inspection revealed themselves to just be a facet of her coat’s pattern. She looked as if she had just woken up, as she was squinting, but one eye looked more open than the other. Part of the right side of her mouth was sunken; presumably she had teeth missing in that particular location. Her mane was but a wisp upon her head, too faded for Dash to discern the color. The hunch in her back seemed to impede her standing up properly, as she was looking at Dash’s chest, rather than her face. The entirety of her body was wrapped tightly in a tattered gray shawl that she appeared to have had stitched so that she would never need, or even be able, to take it off. Lastly, her horn had several strange markings on it, almost like claw marks.

All of this would have been less disconcerting for the weathermare, of course, if not for the fact that the mare otherwise looked barely a year older than she was.

“Um... My name’s Rainbow Dash, I-I guess. I’m here looking for some herbalist I heard about,” Dash said, trying not to back away from the odd little mare.

“Hum? Ya barge in a’ four in the mornin’ fer wot noh?” she asked, craning her neck up at Dash and raising a hoof to rub her eye before carefully inspecting her visitor. “No manner s’is wot ya got, missums. Say ya wanna herbalist? Ya mus’ men Peryer.” She licked her chapped lips, revealing to Dash that she was right—the mare lacked a portion of teeth on the top of her mouth, a portion that was, dare she think, hoof-sized. “Name’s Trinket, luf. Ya jus’ got ‘ere, aye?”

“Yeah. Are you the farmer in this place?” Dash asked.

“Foremare, luf,” Trinket said, making an extra effort to pronounce her title. “Ponies slave ‘ere day in, day owf. The lil’ sun ‘ere makes harvest erry season. I bake up the wheaf. Ain’ edible otherwise.”

Dash nodded, trying not to think too hard about the mare’s dreadful looks. “I-I’d love to tell you everything, but my friends are sick, and I heard that, um... Peryer can help them.”

“Per-ee-yer, luf. Can’f ‘elp my sfeech. Long sory. C’min,” Trinket said, turning her head slightly to the side to gaze at Dash as she crossed the door into the inner chamber.

“Perrier?” Dash asked as she followed Trinket inside.

The interior seemed to be a one-room home that was fairly well-furnished, despite its underground nature. The floor was tiled, and there was a bed in one corner and a stone oven in the other. Some plants grew in the third corner under the light of another orb that seemed to only be a smaller-scale version to the one outside, which also served as the room’s light source. The two-meter ceiling and walls were granite, but there was an opening in the top that was presumably a skylight. There was a faint churning, mechanical noise in the background, which Dash quickly identified as coming from a large metal box in the corner. Said box had two doors on its front side, but other than that, its steel frame was barren save splotches of dirt and white dust. The chamber smelled very nice—something must have been baking, and for a moment Dash was homesick for Sugarcube Corner.

The oddest portion of the room, however, was the decorations. Various knickknacks had been pinned to the wall. Anything from scraps of blue paper to butterfly wings were nailed into the wall—the only common theme seemed to be the vibrance of the artifacts, with the whole of them forming something of a makeshift color wheel.

“Aye, luf. ‘Ee’s the doc ‘round ‘ere. Ooh, s’done already?” Trinket rushed to the oven, which seemed to have been carved directly out of the wall. Her horn glowed faintly, and she levitated a pie out of the oven. The smell of blueberries mixed with pastry grew almost overpowering, and Dash stared as bits of the candied fruit bubbled up from the seams cut in the center of the pie. Blueberries must have been what Trinket was growing in the corner. “‘Ave sick friends, aye?”

“Yeah,” Dash affirmed, licking her lips. Her friends were probably hungry as all Tartarus by now—she sure was. They wouldn’t last long on empty stomachs in this climate.

“Aye, aye. Common owf ‘ere,” the farmer said, nodding as if she was sympathetic, though the faintest of grins danced on her dry, cracked lips. “Wanna helf, luf, buf there ain’ no spare. ‘Less ya ‘ave coin. Ten bifs ‘at ‘ere is.”

Dash considered the following course of action: One, smack Trinket silly and snatch the pie for herself. There was no step two. She abandoned this train of thought when she remembered that Lion himself had probably tried something similar and gotten himself kicked out of Exile, however redundant that may sound. She couldn’t risk that for her and her friends, especially if they were stuck here forever. So, instead, she sucked in a breath, glared at Trinket, and said through clenched teeth: “I just got here. How am I supposed to have money?”

“S’the only reason ya’d haf any t’all, luf,” Trinket said, setting the pie down on the makeshift stone counter and pushing it away from Dash. She opened her mouth to say something else but as she stared at Dash, her eyes widened slightly, exposing the left one as lazy. “Wot pre’ie ‘air,” she murmured, taking a few steps closer. “Wot pre’ie locks ya got ‘ere. Wot luck ya got—s’worf a cen’ime, my dear. I’ll take the lot.”

She raised a hoof to Dash’s exposed bangs, but the weathermare swatted her away. “Don’t touch me! Leave me alone!”

Trinket’s eyes narrowed. She took a breath, then said, “Les make a ‘fice. I’ll give ‘oo all’f ten bits, jus’ think’v that!”

Dash wanted to say no immediately again, but she couldn’t bring her mouth to say the words. Instead, she found herself saying, “It pays for pie...”

“Jus’ think’v that!” Trinket said.

What can I do...? It pays for pie, Dash thought. She mumbled, “Ten bits might just save Fluttershy.”

Without waiting for a response, but knowing Dash wouldn’t object, Trinket glided toward Dash’s tail. The weathermare felt a soft tug on her dock before she felt half of it sheared off. Trinket didn’t stop there, though. Quickly pushing Dash’s blanket off her head, she used magical shears to slice off whatever she could snag of her mane in one swipe. Dash had her eyes closed for the entire ordeal.

After she was finished, Trinket wrapped the pie up in Dash’s sheet and to her levitated it over, instructing her to grip the knot in her mouth to carry it properly, so that it wouldn’t spill everywhere. “I like ya. Hope ih’ helps, luf,” she said as she saw Dash out.

Dash felt noticeably colder leaving the room than she did coming in, especially considering her blanket was now being used to carry the pie, which was apparently baked in a thin stone tin. Make do with what’cha got, I guess. “Where can I find Perrier?”

“Oh, ‘im? Wen’ deep down in th’ caverns lookin’ fo’ the filly ‘a his. Ya’ll haf’ta search down below. Be careful. Ya wouldn’ be th’ firs’ pony ta fall down a lil’ ‘oo far.” And with that final warning, Trinket departed.

Dash sighed, shivering as she heard the eccentric mare shut the door behind her. She made her way across the plains, stretching her wings a bit and dreading her reentrance into Exile.

It was difficult to bear the blast that was sheer arctic cold upon exiting the magically insulated greenhouse. Even so, Dash forged on, her eyes watering as she fought even against the relatively small amount of wind that managed to enter the partly sheltered caverns from outside.

As promised, Lion was waiting outside the farm, having sat himself down at the last junction before a departee was fully exposed to the wrath of nature outside. He shifted when she approached slightly before clambering to his hooves as soon as he saw his companion’s cargo. “Is that...?”

“It’s a pie,” Dash said, placing it down in front of him.. “I need you to take it back to Rarity.”

Lion licked his lips. “No way. How did you—” He looked up at Dash’s torn mane. “...Oh. Well, you really lucked out. I didn’t know she took hair.”

“Only mine,” Dash said glumly, feeling the chill nip at her ears. “Look. I need to go down into the caverns if I’m ever going to get back to help in time. That means you have to take the food back to my friends, and then you can have some yourself, okay?”

“Y-you’re trusting me with this?” Lion asked, his gaping mouth betraying his shock.

“Not like I have any other choice, right?” Dash huffed. She knelt down so that she could look him in the eye. “This is really important, okay? Fluttershy and Applejack could die if you don’t get them something to eat. I need you to get this to them pronto.”

Lion looked at Dash, then at the pie, then back to Dash. “...Okay,” he said, staring her directly in the eye.

Dash thought he was being sincere, but just in case he wasn’t, she raised a hoof and poked at his chest, scowling, “And if I make it back from this alive to see that you made off with my friends’ food, you better believe I will hunt—you—down.” Three words, three pokes.

Lion swallowed. “Yeah. Gotcha.” Without waiting for a reply, he grabbed the knot between his teeth, heaved it up, and scampered off. Dash momentarily worried how he was carrying it, with one edge tilted toward him so that it wouldn’t bang into his neck while he cantered, but decided it wasn’t worth chasing him down over it. Whatever made it back to the wrecked train car would be edible, so long as Lion didn’t run off with it.

That in mind, she poked her head outside, setting her sights on the depths of the caves. She spotted a faint glow down in the depths—she didn’t know what it was, but she decided that would be a good place to start. Taking a breath and fluffing her wings a bit, she braced herself and rushed into the piercing gale, hugging the wall of the ravine as she descended into its depths, cold, afraid, and alone.

Comments

[Willsons]

Well I am confused, no matter

[Ninjab33z]

My mind is so full of fuck it'll be leaking out my ears for weeks

[pyronet000]

I wonder if we can really trust Lion. He's been nice so far, but in this wasteland who knows what will happen?

[wyatt542]

Nice le miserable refrence there

[Lihranka]

So... Why doesn't everyone in the village outside just live in the warm underground farm area? Sounds a lot more hospitable for ponies...