Railroad Seven-Three

by Defoloce

4. Salisbury

You can run with us
We’ve got everything you need
Run with us
We are free
Come with us
I see passion in your eyes
Run with us

-Lisa Lougheed, “Run with Us”

---

The two humans and three ponies were now southbound, still following 50 through Easton and out of the fog. There, away from the major city centers of DC and Baltimore, the battered champagne-colored pickup was finally able to get up to respectable road speeds. Balthazar, now taking his turn driving, still kept it slow enough for the benefit of the others in the back, however.

Sugar Spoon wasn't feeling well. Balthazar's rant, coupled with what he and Melchior had done immediately afterward, was making her wary of sharing space with the humans. She had rolled it over and over in her mind again. Sure, she'd been warned not to look, but in her innocence, she thought that there would be no more horrors now that the fighting was over.

It was becoming evident to the others in the bed with her. Melchior looked to Gavel and Melody, who shrugged. They rode along in silence for another mile or so before she asked, nudging the unicorn with a foot.

"Spoon, what's wrong?"

The Equestrian mare sighed. It wasn't good to keep things bottled up, but her interest in engaging with humans directly was also severely diminished. "When you and Balthazar did your 'cleanup'... I was watching."

Melchior sighed as well, keeping her voice gentle. "Oh. Well, I'm sorry for what you saw."

"You stabbed them!" she said, her voice cracking, already beginning to cry. "You took knives and you stabbed them all twice in the chest. Even Gaspar!" Her eyes were huge, shining with tears in the afternoon light. "Wasn't he your friend?"

This was news to Gavel and Melody. They both blinked, joining Sugar Spoon in searching the woman's face for answers. Melchior put her rifle down on the crate and held up a hand.

"It was to puncture the lungs and the thoracic cavity," she said. "The throat closes when you die. If we just dumped the bodies off the bridge straight away, then they'd float, and nobody wants to see that. The stab wounds are to let water into the torso and allow the bodies to sink."

"That's horrible!" cried the unicorn, resting her chin on the bed. "Do you enjoy this? Killing other humans and stabbing them so that their bodies can sink in water? You're staying out of Equestria to do stuff like that?"

Melchior shook her head sadly. "It's not about killing," she said. "If we just wanted to kill people, then we wouldn't be bringing ponies along for the ride. We know you don't like seeing it, but if it's what it takes to keep you safe, then that's what we do. The HLF guys operating here at the Barrier, they're true believers. The real deal. The hard core of the movement. They're not the soccer moms and religious folks out west holding signs and defacing pictures of Celestia. They weren't going to capture you, or yell at you, or lecture you, or throw rocks at you—they were going to kill you.

"I'm staying out of Equestria to make sure they can't. So is Balthazar, and so was Gaspar. We all wanted to be useful in our own way. That's what Balth was talking about, back there on the bridge. That's who's left here: the warrior caste. The soldiers. The only difference is the side they're choosing. Forces gather to oppose ponies, and so other forces gather to keep them in check."

Sugar Spoon wiped her cheeks with a foreleg. Her rich gold mane fell over her eyes. "I wish I'd stayed at the Bureau and waited for a carriage," she sobbed. "This place is just so terrible, I—"

"Do you hate humans?" asked Melchior.

"No!" said the green mare immediately. "I made tons of human friends while I was working at the Bureau! They always said such nice things about my food, and they'd joke and laugh with me and everything. Then they would go on to become ponies, and they were still my friends, so it was like nothing had really changed. I didn't care if they were on two legs or four, it didn't matter to me, but out here... it's... I don't know. I don't hate you, I just... feel sorry for you."

"Lots of ponies have told us that, you know," said Melchior. A smile crept onto her face. "Pitying someone can make them push back. It's part of the reason Balthazar can't stand Celestia: he thinks her attitude towards humans is condescending." She chuckled and rested her head on the back of the cab. "Man, what I wouldn't give to listen to those two have a chat."

"If Princess Celestia ever wants to speak with him, she will," said Sugar Spoon. "There's no red tape to seeing her. She can be anywhere she likes—even everywhere, if it suits her. If impression is needed, she will appear in her full glory. If discretion is needed, she will enter your dreams. She will speak to ten, or a hundred, or a thousand at a time, and they will all receive her full attention. Humans may know she's powerful, but you don't know just how powerful."

The unicorn pleaded with her eyes. "Become a pony, Melchior. Convince Balthazar to become a pony. Ask my friends here, if you don't believe me!"

She shook her head. "Every human you'd meet out here has their own reasons why they haven't. Gaspar's was revenge. Balthazar's is fear. I'd bet most stories would be similar to theirs."

"Is yours?" asked Melody.

Melchior picked her rifle back up and laid it across her lap. "It's actually a lot simpler than that, " she said. "I don't deserve to go."

"Not this again!" said Sugar Spoon, exasperated. "What is it with humans and this need to make martyrs of themselves? It's like a... a cult of pain! Hay, it's almost like you enjoy the idea of dying!"

Melody leaned her head over the side of the truck to let the wind cut through her mane. "From one Mel to another, let me just say that when I got converted, and I met Princess Celestia and Princess Luna in my dream or whatever it was, I almost cried with happiness. The only thing that could make me happier is if everyone else shared that bliss with me." She brought her head back in and looked squarely at Melchior. "That means you too."

"Is it pride?" asked Gavel. "I had a lot of that when I was a man. It was enough to keep me from going to get converted with my family. Balthazar had even read up on me. He told me about my own history on the way to the bridge, like a judge naming charges. But all that had been washed away when I woke up. I can't even describe how it felt, it was like this huge weight was lifted from me. Now all I have to worry about is how I'm going to be able to hug my wife and kids at the same time when I get to Equestria. Don't you want to have problems like that, rather than eating old MREs and getting shot at and having to find running water to bathe in?"

Melchior looked down at her hands. "We wouldn't have that problem anyway. We never shared too much about our personal lives before the Barrier, but I do know that nobody here in Railroad Seven-Three has anyone waiting for us in Equestria."

"That doesn't mean you'll be alone if you go!" said Sugar Spoon. "You'll make friends, Melchior, more friends than you ever thought possible! And you'll find a special somepony, and you can start a family! Anything you want, you can pursue it there!"

The unicorn stood, carefully making her way over to the woman on hooves unsteady with the swaying truck bed. She set her head down on Melchior's knee, scowling at the rifle next to her face.

"All you have to do," she said, "is give up the gun. Give up your stubborn pride, and forgive yourself for whatever it is that's keeping you here. That's all Princess Celestia asks for."

Melchior bit her lip and looked away, out at the empty road.

* * *

Balthazar whistled as he stepped out of the truck to survey the road ahead. He pulled his cap off and wiped his brow, his eyes wide.

"Ho-lee shit," he breathed.

"I've never heard of anything like this before," said Sugar Spoon.

"How is this even possible?" said Gavel.

Before them stretched Route 50, which split off to Salisbury and to the municipal bypass which took through-traffic around the town. The two lanes leading into town were coated with potion as far ahead as the eye could see, a ribbon of shimmering purple leading into Salisbury.

"PER's got some serious resources to throw around," said Melchior. "Where could it have all come from?"

"Doesn't matter," said Balthazar, walking back to the truck. "We're fording it."

Melody spun around. "Huh? Why?"

"It's a very basic area-denial strategy," said the man. "You've got multiple avenues of approach to cover, but not enough manpower to watch all of them. So, you mine up a road or avenue of approach in a very obvious, visible way, which will funnel enemy forces down another avenue, where you ambush them. The PER must have potion-bombers waiting along the bypass." He leaned into the cab and tossed something to Melchior, who caught it.

Balthazar pulled something else out from behind the driver's side seat and then knocked on the doorframe. "Mount up," he said.

"Can we stop and eat?" asked Melody. "Snacks on the road are fine, but eating meals while moving is bad for the digestion."

Melchior chuckled and herded the ponies back to the truck. "After we're through town, we'll have a nice picnic lunch on the other side somewhere. We could be ambushed too easily if we just stop here, where the PER's obviously been."

"Yeah, that would be a shame," said the unicorn under her breath as the ponies got back into the bed. Instead of getting into the bed with the ponies, however, Melchior got into the cab with Balthazar and they both rolled their windows up, sealing them inside.

Once everyone was in, Balthazar took the road into Salisbury.

Melody leaned over the side of the bed, watching the fragrant purple mixture coat the tire treads and mud flaps. Balthazar had slowed once more, and she guessed it was to keep potion from spraying up onto the body too much with the rotation of the tires. She looked ahead, and the potion-road just kept on going.

"I've never actually seen PER ponies before," said Gavel.

"If you had, you'd have become a pony a lot sooner than you did," replied Sugar Spoon. Her ears twitched, and she looked over at the tinted glass of the back window. The sliding window was closed.

"Hey," she lowered her voice. "The PER: have you ever heard of them actually hurting humans? Like, shooting them or beating them up or anything?"

The two newfoals shook their heads. "That'd be rather counterproductive, I think," said Melody. She looked out at the town. They were passing from a residential area into a commercial district, and the road was rather deliberately clear. There were restaurants and big-box stores, all abandoned, all with vast, empty parking lots. She shivered.

"Also, they're almost entirely ponies, and ponies don't do stuff like that," added Gavel.

"So the most that they'd do is just ponify them. Balthazar and Melchior, I mean. If they were to get their hooves on them."

Gavel shrugged. "I guess, but they're not going to—" he froze, then turned his head to look at the native Equestrian with one eye. "Spoon, what are you thinking?"

"We can save them!" she said, trying to keep her voice quiet just in case. "We can save them from themselves, just like Princess Celestia wants to do! All we have to do is figure out how to expose them to potion before they can react."

"Princess Celestia doesn't want that!" hissed Melody. "She's denounced the PER publically, many times! They're labeled an extremist group, just like the HLF! She's been very clear that ponification should always be a personal choice."

"They can come to Equestria with us! They can be happy, beyond their wildest dreams! All of Balthazar's anger and all of Melchior's regret? We can free them from that! From all that pain!" She looked from one pony to the other, trying to build some enthusiasm for the idea. "Look: with all of the fighting and all the bloodshed, I know they're trying to help ponies in their own... distinctly human... way. Their hearts are in the right place, I get that. They're prolonging their own suffering to keep ponies safe from other humans. Why don't we return the favor? Why don't we help them?"

"Mel's right," said Gavel. "It's not how Princess Celestia would want it. The first thing she and Princess Luna would have to do in their conversion-dream is apologize on our behalf, and how would that make us look? We might as well have gotten our own PER legbands for doing it."

Sugar Spoon gritted her teeth and looked over her shoulder at the flat black window. Empty strip malls and used-car lots ambled past on either side, and after a moment the potion coating the road came to an end. The truck's purple tire-prints soon faded away as the tires shed the potion covering them.

"I want them to convert more than anything myself," said Gavel, "and I want to see them shed all that pain too. All we can do, though, is have faith in them and be their friend. That's what the princesses are doing; I think we should follow their example."

Melody stepped up and nuzzled the unicorn. "Me too. You know what gives me comfort? I wouldn't bring it up while they're around, but... I've been trying to picture them as ponies. What they'd look like, where they'd choose to go, what they'd end up doing with their lives... try as I might, I can't picture them not being happy."

Sugar Spoon tried not to smile, and failed. She chuckled once and shook her head. "So you meant it when you said you think Balthazar'd make a handsome stallion?"

Melody giggled and nodded. "Take it from a former human; I know a handsome fellow when I see it. And Melchior would be a pretty mare, I bet."

"A shame about Gaspar, though," sighed Gavel.

At that, Sugar Spoon gave a small, mysterious smile.

"I wouldn't worry too much about him," she said.

* * *

Inside the cab, Balthazar was fuming.

"We're going to need a new Gaspar," he grumbled. "Fucking wonderful. I just know we're going to get some jagoff from Pennsylvania or the Carolinas who got his team wiped and needed to be offloaded on someone else."

"Yeah, yeah, glass half empty, I know," said Melchior. "We're gonna have to work on your charm a bit, aren't we?"

"Goddamn HLF," said Balthazar. "You know, these ponies get all up on Celestia's jock every chance they get, but if she's so great then why doesn't she do something about the people trying to kill her little yes-men, you know? It'd make our jobs a hell of a lot easier, if nothing else."

Melchior shrugged. "She moves in mysterious ways?" she offered.

Balthazar checked the mirrors—all three of them—for the tenth time in as many minutes. Salisbury was deserted, and even with the lawns around the office parks growing wild and the blue sky above, it seemed gray and decayed from the lack of people around.

"Only because she likes to see us twist in the wind. Humans, I mean. And humans killing humans? Hell, if she'd been watching us on the bridge she probably would've started stroking herself."

Melchior stuck out her tongue. "Don't be gross, Balth," she said. After a moment, she sighed and picked up the CB handset from the radio bolted to the side of the center console. "Guess we should check in, just in case shit goes bad here."

"It won't go bad," said Balthazar, taking his eyes off the road to give her a meaningful look.

Melchior just shrugged again and keyed the handset. "Dispatch, Dispatch, Railroad Seven-Three, come in, over."

A female voice from Railroad headquarters crackled over the pickup's door speakers. "Seven-Three, this is Dispatch, go ahead, over."

"Dispatch, please advise teams on the eastern shore that Salisbury is believed to have a strong PER presence along the bypass, how copy, over?"

"Seven-Three, Dispatch copies PER presence in Salisbury. Is that your twenty? Over."

"Sure is. We'll call once we're clear. Seven-Three out."

"It's bugging me," said Balthazar. "PER shouldn't be out this far east."

"Why not?" asked Melchior.

"'Cause there're no humans here anymore," he said. "The HLF, sure, they're trying to play goalie for all these ponies making a run for the border, but if you're looking for humans to po—"

There was a loud thunk and the entire windshield went purple.

"Shit!"

Balthazar startled, but accelerated, keeping the wheel steady. He turned on the windshield wipers and managed to clear enough of the stuff off of the glass to see again. Through the thin streaks of potion left by the wipers, he saw two pegasi flying ahead of the pickup, a vial of potion in each of their mouths.

Melchior pulled off her watch cap, unbuckled her seatbelt, and twisted around to fish behind her seat. Her hand finally closed around the gas mask she was looking for and she brought it into her lap. She started to loosen the straps, keeping an eye on the side window.

"Are we shooting?" she asked.

"Brandish, then shoot if they don't disengage," said Balthazar. The rhythmic, frantic flicking of the windshield wipers was the only sound in the cab for a couple of moments as she pulled the mask on and sealed it to her face.

"Just keep it steady," she said, her voice sounding hollow and detached through the respirator. Balthazar nodded and Melchior rolled down the window. She brought up her rifle from its resting place between the seat and the door and leaned out of the window, unfolding the buttstock and shouldering the weapon. She aimed directly at the right-hand pegasus.

"Stand down!" she shouted over the rush of wind past her ears. "Stand down or be fired upon. We're not stopping."

The yellow pegasus flipped onto his back and spit out the vial, which was dashed against the windshield. The wipers quickly cleared it out of the way.

"We advise you to stop, Railroad," the pegasus shouted back. "We have a spike strip up ahead."

"Bullshit!" cried Melchior. "You couldn't have set up that fast."

"We have feelers; we've known you were coming since you passed through Easton," replied the pegasus evenly, adding "We really would hate to see your vehicle flip over."

Melchior considered their options for a moment. "Make some distance now and tell your friends to do the same," she said. "If we see any potion, we're shooting. We see more than one pony within three hundred meters, we're shooting. If I so much as think I'm going to sneeze, we're shooting."

The pegasus nodded once, then tapped his comrade on the shoulder. The two flew off in formation, and Melchior lowered her weapon.

"Was that PER?" asked Melody's voice from the back. Melchior ignored her and slid back down into her seat, rolling the window back up.

"They said they have a spike strip deployed," she said to Balthazar.

"Son of a bitch. So we're stopping?"

"They're already watching us, and besides, what're we gonna do? Change a tire twenty feet from a PER blockade?"

"All right, but the second it looks like we're gonna lose control of the situation, start putting them down. Don't hesitate." He pressed on the brakes, hard, and three solid thumps were heard on the back window of the cab. The pickup came to a stop. Leaving the engine running, Balthazar brought the pickup into neutral and fetched his own gas mask from behind the seat, putting it on and sealing it as Melchior had done.

The two humans put on their protective-hearing headsets. Balthazar closed his left hand around his Galil and looked to Melchior, who had a hand on her door handle. His heart was beating so hard he could feel it in his tongue.

They flung the doors open simultaneously and stepped down onto the road, staying next to the truck and behind the doors. Melchior began scanning for pony-colors among the drab gray backdrop, her rifle up and ready. Balthazar listened silently for a moment. All was quiet. He knocked twice on the body of the truck.

"Senator, Equestria, you're up," came his tinny voice. "Get over here. Melody, you stay put."

"That hurt, you know," grumbled Gavel as he and Sugar Spoon hopped out of the truck and walked over to the man.

"You two wanna save lives so bad, well here's your chance," said Balthazar, taking a moment to look up in the sky. "The PER's here, in town. They had some folks watching the through-road after all."

"They're not going to hurt you," said Sugar Spoon.

"It's not our lives I'm talking about—it's theirs," said the man, his voice growing cold. "Mel and I are ready to fight if we have to, but you can keep it from coming to that."

"What do you want us to do?" asked Gavel. A gentle, warm breeze picked up and blew through his mane. It felt good.

"You two are the diplomats here, so talk to them. Go to the intersection up ahead and stand there in the open. They'll get the message. Get them to pull the spike strip up ahead and let us go through. If they do—and if they don't try to make a move on us—then we can keep this from getting bloody."

"Humans are one thing, but you would kill ponies?" asked Sugar Spoon.

"Oh, I see!" said the man, his face hidden behind the gas mask and smoked glass of the eyepieces. "Killing humans is fine and dandy, but when we draw down on ponies, ohh, that's too far!" His sigh was amplified by the respirator. "Look, we don't have time for this. They're PER. They're zealots, just like the guys on the bridge. If there's a snowball's chance in hell of them listening to reason, you'll have to find it. It's more than what we gave the HLF, Equestria."

Balthazar waved them along with his rifle, taking up a defensive stance once they'd cleared the door. Gavel and Sugar Spoon walked out ahead of the truck, down the center of the road.

The gray earth-pony looked over at Sugar Spoon. The green unicorn had a smile on her face.

"What're you so happy about?" he asked.

"This is our chance!" she said. "We can get them ponified."

Gavel's ears flattened. "If the talks go bad, or if the truck gets rushed, they'll open fire and kill ponies first," he hissed. "You don't want that, do you?"

"Of course not!" she said. "Besides, I never said anything about them getting ponified right now."

"Huh? What're you talking about?"

The idling engine of the pickup faded from earshot, and there was only the clopping of their hooves on the pavement. The two ponies stopped.

"You'll see," she said quietly.

It was a T intersection, with a boarded-up strip mall running along one side and the side road opposite. Gavel and Sugar Spoon saw a midnight-blue earth-pony mare approach them from a mattress store across the street. Through the plate-glass windows of the place, they could see three or four other ponies of various colors looking on, but making no move to join her.

She stopped in front of them, bowing her head. "Hello," she said. "My name is Cool Shade, with the Ponification for Earth's Rebirth. Happy to meet you!"

Sugar Spoon grinned. "Hi there, Cool Shade! I'm Sugar Spoon, Equestrian-born, and this is Gavel, a newfoal."

Gavel looked down and saw a band of fabric the exact color of potion around her leg, with the initials "PER" carefully stenciled onto it in white block letters. "We're here to negotiate you letting the humans through with us," said Gavel.

"Oh, of course!" said Cool Shade with a bright smile. "We can get them ponified and then all of you can be on your way!"

"Er, no, you don't understand," he said. "They don't want to be ponified. They're helping us get to the Barrier, and—"

"We know that, silly! They're Railroad, right? The HLF certainly wouldn't be tooling around here with ponies in tow! Well, we don't really have a problem with the Railroad as an organization, since they help ponies and all, but... well... you know! We have our principles to consider."

"You can let them by, can't you?" asked Gavel. "Just this once? If you don't yield, they're going to attack."

"Besides, they'll have to come back this way somewhere around here to get back to DC, maybe you can tag 'em then," offered Sugar Spoon, earning her a jab in the ribs from Gavel. The unicorn giggled.

"What team are they?" asked the PER pony.

"Huh?

"Which Railroad team are they?"

"Seven-Three," said Sugar Spoon.

Cool Shade's eyebrows lifted. "Ooh, what an honor for them to be making a trip this far south! Though I guess humans have pretty much given up the ghost on Delaware at this point. Oh well!" She giggled, and Gavel gave her a stern look.

"I don't think they're bluffing," he said. "They have very strong convictions."

"Well so do we!" she said. "And while I'm quite sure they're not above shooting innocent ponies who are only trying to help—they are humans, after all—it would be remiss of us not to spread the gift of ponification to all of the princesses' future subjects!"

Cool Shade then tapped a hoof to her chin and looked up at the sky. "Besides," she said, "if word got out that my chapter's gone soft on humans, we might get reassigned to conversion duty in the middle of nowhere!"

"I figured there would be an impasse here," said Sugar Spoon, "and you know, I've been giving it some thought. Let me know how this sounds..."

* * *

Melchior and Balthazar kept scanning the area for ponies trying to sneak up on them, paying careful attention to the sky. Fortunately, in the wake of the fog the sky had opened up to a deep, cloudless blue.

"What're they doing up there?" muttered Balthazar, peeking over the top of the pickup's door. "What's taking so long?"

"Dunno," said Melchior. "Don't get sidetracked in watching them, though. Keep your head on a swivel."

The young man scoffed, smiling under his mask. "And just who are you tellin' that to again?"

They both chuckled, keeping their rifles raised as they scanned.

* * *

The spike strip at the culvert bridge was barely out of the way before Railroad 7-3 barreled past, leaving the PER checkpoint and Salisbury in their dust.

In the back of the truck, Gavel glared silently at Sugar Spoon, who said nothing and only smiled back. Melody looked from one pair of eyes to the other and back again.

"Well?" she asked, stretching her wings a bit. "What happened? How'd you do it? Don't keep me in suspense!"

She could see that Gavel was rather unpleased. "Let's just say Spoon has a knack for what the PER likes to hear," he said.

Sugar Spoon took it as a compliment and closed her eyes, nodding her head sagely.

A gust of wind tousled Melody's mane, and she folded her wings quickly to prevent catching a drift of air. "We seem to be going rather fast," she said.

"I bet the humans want to get as far away from this place as possible," said Gavel.

Civilization receded from the roadsides, giving way to trees and overgrown fields of weed-choked crops. After several miles, Melody's stomach began to growl. She gingerly tapped on the back window with a hoof. The window slid open, and Melchior leaned into view.

"We haven't forgotten," she said. "We're stopping."

Railroad 7-3 pulled off the road onto a rather lush green field. The ponies hopped down from the truck and the humans got out of the cab, but they had their weapons with them. Their gas masks and hearing protection were also still on. Melody asked if anything was wrong.

"Just stay where you are," said Balthazar quietly. "All of you." He stopped several paces away from them, his rifle in his hands. Melchior pointed to Sugar Spoon, her other hand on her own weapon.

"Open your mouth," she ordered.

Sugar Spoon gave a confused look to her fellow ponies, then sat down on her haunches and opened her mouth.

"Wider."

Sugar Spoon stretched her mouth open as far as it would go.

"Lift your tongue."

The unicorn hesitated.

Melchior's voice grew threatening through the respirator. "Stop trying to think of a way out of this and lift your tongue!"

Sugar Spoon visibly hemmed and hawed with herself before spitting out a vial onto the grass. The vial was corked, and contained a familiar-looking purple fluid.

Melchior shouldered her rifle. "Get clear. Cover your ears."

The three ponies scrambled out of the way and brought their forelegs up over their heads just in time to muffle the sound of Melchior blasting open the vial with a single shot. The potion slid harmlessly down the blades of grass and into the soil.

The woman exhaled and safetied her rifle, slinging it and pulling off her earmuffs and gas mask. Balthazar did the same behind her.

Melchior waited until Sugar Spoon had worked up the nerve to make eye contact with her again. The other two ponies sidled away from the unicorn quietly, averting their eyes.

The woman knelt by the unicorn and brought her chin up with a finger.

"This wasn't our first dance with the PER," she said gently. "We've been able to make eight deliveries for a reason."

"Are you mad?" asked Sugar Spoon quietly, her eyes huge and fearful.

Melchior shook her head. "We used to get mad," she said, "but now we can sympathize. Ponies care, and they show it in many ways. Tough love, right?" She gave a small smile. "Humans care too, though; it's why the Railroad exists." Gavel and Melody relaxed a bit, and came to sit down by Sugar Spoon while Melchior spoke and Balthazar brought over the three sacks and two MREs.

"If we became ponies, what then?" she continued. "What about all of the others who would have come after, who now get hurt trying to make it to the barrier on their own? For us, who have this... unique skillset, getting ponified seems rather selfish, don't you think? There's still fighting to be done, fighting for a good cause, on the behalf of good people. I know you think it's horrible and all, but playing by Equestria's rules on Earth can get you killed. There are very few people who actually want to shoulder this burden, so please, let them do it."

Balthazar remained quiet, and returned once more with a rolled-up green army blanket, which he unfurled in the warm afternoon breeze and let settle on the ground. Everyone sat down on the blanket and began to eat.

"I mean, take Balth for example," said Melchior, jerking a thumb at her comrade. "Sure, he's surly, and he's afraid to be happy, but when it comes to a throwdown, he's definitely someone you want on your side."

The young man grumbled while everyone else had a laugh in the sunlight.

Comments

[Chatoyance]

This story is just awesome. I want you to hear that. I just think this story is incredible, and I am Muffin LOVING it. It's exceptional. I am really getting into these characters and their motivations and positions. Without question, you have created the first believable - to me, at least - humans who have valid reasons for not getting ponified. Valid, noble reasons, in their own way. Thank you for that.

This is just the best pony caravan underground railroad adventure. Yay. Double yay.

You make me feel proud to be a TCB story writer, doing fiction like this.

[Cloudhammer]

336669 Dangit Chaty, you stole all my compliments!

Really enjoying your character interactions, can't wait for what comes next

[Defoloce]

336669 337522

Wow, thank you so much! It's like you're reading my goals back to me—what I set out to accomplish with this story—and that's hugely fulfilling. It was a joy to read and feedback like this is really the core of why most of us sit down and bother to write about cartoon ponies at all: other people might enjoy it! And hey, who doesn't like that, huh?

The way I see it, ponies were designed from the ground up (by Celestia or Ms. Faust, depending upon how meta you want to be) in such a way that humans are reduced to quivering piles of cooing mush upon seeing them. From the human perspective, they are childlike in word, thought, deed, and appearance. People smarter than I am have given that phenomenon the name "neoteny," which are characteristics we generally associate with the notion of cuteness. Humans have a very strong innate desire to protect any creature, not just humans, that exhibit neotenic traits. In other words, it's an instinctual drive to preserve innocence. Plenty of people would be willing to take on these traits themselves in a sort of "return" to innocence, but what about people who identify through the protection itself, who have embraced their loss of innocence and are trying to harness it into positive action? Answering that question is what I plan on trying for this last chapter, or depending upon how it flows out, an epilogue.

[Sorren]

Not much to say other than what the two above me did. I feel lucky to have seen this in the new story section and figured, "hmmm, why not." Found myself a great story. Loving it so far.

[Natzo]

Giving up ones pride to me is cowardice, and sincerely anyone that want to convert to a pony for forgiveness is someone that can't stand up for himself and is just running away form their responsibility. Those that ran away to ponies not because of death but shame from their own nature are those than want their problem fixed for them, instead of overcoming and becoming better.

[LittleSallyDigby]

I love that the humans who can't forgive themselves forgive ponies.

[KrisSnow]

I wouldn't have let Sugar back into the truck.

[Defoloce]

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The Railroad is duty-bound to deliver as many ponies as possible to the Barrier safely. If it was just some stranger giving a pony the benefit of the doubt, then she might well have been left there, but for those who consider themselves professionals (as the Railroaders do), they have to put some things above personal feelings. From their perspective, the potion she'd tried to smuggle was the only threat Sugar Spoon posed, and once that was taken care of, it was back to business as usual.