When Friends are Said and Dun

by xenos29

Chapter 13

Blight left no trace when he disappeared, but once he had, Twilight couldn't shake the feeling that the sky had become darker, the mountain walls slightly steeper, and the snow between her hooves a little coarser. Blight's words still burned in her ears, but was beaten by the wind as it picked up and unkindly reminded her of more immediate concerns. The ponies needed to reach the Crystal Empire before dark, and without the train, Twilight was hard pressed for ideas. She desperately looked to her friends for some clue about what they should do next. She didn't find much.

"Now what?!" bawled Applejack, clearly trying not to cry. "We’re a hundred miles from anywhere, and we don’t even know what we’re gonna do when we get there!"

Alpenglow had disappeared entirely, but his hoofprints had carved the snow into a path that doubled back to the train. Everypony else was a mess. Rainbow was pacing back and forth with her head held low, fuming and kicking up snow. Pinkie was sitting on the tracks with her hoof around Fluttershy, who was sobbing quietly, asking what was going to happen to her cottage and animal friends. As for Rarity, she had simply sunken into the snow, staring blankly at the ground where she sat.

Miraculously, a spark of new understanding kept Twilight's own mind afloat. For better or worse, she finally understood what Princess Celestia, Luna, and Discord had meant in all their warnings and instructions: Blight wasn't just a nuisance, some troublemaker that could be chased out of town with a few scolding words. He was planning to overthrow the princesses, knew something long-buried about Alpenglow, and had just promised the ponies destruction of their homes and livelihoods as casually as somepony decided what to do with an afternoon. Perhaps worst of all, he was still vile- or deluded- enough to claim that he wanted to help Equestria. Twilight sure didn't believe it, and she began to wonder if Blight did himself.

The feeling of Spike climbing on guided Twilight back again to their current plight. The circumstances might have changed, but the immediate goal hadn't: reach the Crystal Empire, find something, anything about the Elements of Heroism they could use to stop Blight. The more Twilight thought about it, the more she realized how slim a lead it was. Still, if she didn’t keep leading her friends forward, she knew she might give up, and so would they. The newfound responsibility made her wonder if Princess Celestia had to do this often, to push on even in doubt just so ponies have someone to follow when things looked hopeless. She walked over to Fluttershy and helped her up.

"I'm sorry, girls, but we have to keep moving. Let’s head back to the train. It looks like Alpenglow has an idea."

The ponies marched back to the train in a silent, weary line, but stopped once they saw fortune's latest gift to them: the locomotive, smashed, buried underneath a small landslide that had come down during the fight. Without a shred of irony, Twilight silently wished this could have been the worst of the news, but in light of their exchange with Blight, it wasn't even close.

Alpenglow was on top of the freight car, busy unbuckling the latches that held the walls of the container together. With one last metal snap, the side of the container flipped open onto the snow, revealing a large chariot. The ornate vehicle was adorned with engravings of stars and comets, and despite the growing shade of the mountains, it gleamed as if sunlight were hitting its golden finish.

"You have your brother to thank for this, Twilight," Alpenglow said as he guided the chariot down the makeshift ramp. "He said he didn’t want us taking any chances." He pointed at Fluttershy and Rainbow. "Between the four of us, we can easily fly straight over the mountains to reach the empire. I'm guessing this pass must have been based on an old river, since it winds back and forth between the mountains, rather than going straight through. Either way, we'll never make it on foot going through here."

Alpenglow climbed inside the shipping container and removed several bags. He threw them on the ground. "Bundle up. We’re going to be out here a while."

"We should grab whatever we need from the train, too," Twilight added.

The ponies quickly retrieved their saddlebags from the caboose and returned to the chariot. The bags Alpenglow had given them contained heavy masks and cloaks, which everypony quickly put on before the next wind blew through.

They all gathered around the chariot and began to climb aboard. As Twilight strapped herself into the rear harness next to Fluttershy, she saw Applejack step in front of Alpenglow, her face the same as the one Twilight had seen on the train out of Ponyville, only stained red. In a low voice she demanded, "What'd Blight mean by what he whispered to you back there?"

Alpenglow steadily met her glare through his helmet. "It’s not important," he said flatly. "All that matters now is getting to the Crystal Empire..." His voice tightened. "...and that’s all you should be thinking about."

Where this conversation was going was all too clear. Twilight hurried to untangle herself from the harness. "Applejack, this really isn’t the best time-"

"Like hay it isn’t, Twilight," she said, keeping her eyes on Alpenglow. "You and the Princess said we could trust this guy, that he used to be some sorta hero!" She turned to Twilight. "We still don’t know him from a hole in the ground, and whenever we ask him about anythin' important, it just so happens he doesn’t remember!" She faced Alpenglow again. "I wouldn’t trust Blight as far as I could throw 'im, but that don’t mean I trust you."

"Come on, AJ, you saw him take on Blight back in Ponyville. We’re all on the same side," said Rainbow Dash, shaking impatiently in her harness.

Rarity climbed from the chariot and joined Applejack. "She isn’t wrong, Rainbow. The only reason we’re here is because he can never seem to remember anything we need, or whenever we've asked him."

Twilight finally freed herself from the harness and placed herself between Applejack and Alpenglow. "I know what Blight said hurt, Applejack," she said gently, "but you can’t take it out on Alpenglow. He’s here to help us."

"Shoot, Twilight, I know he rattled me up a bit, but that doesn’t change the facts. We can’t trust this guy! And if we can’t trust him, how can we expect him to help us save Ponyville? He’s been with Blight this whole time. How do we know he’s not brainwashed or somethin’ like that?"

The letter shouted for freedom in the back of Twilight's mind, but before she could even consider the possibility, the helmeted head leaned forward, scraping the brim of Applejack's hat.

The stallion's mouth uttered with mechanical clarity, "We're going to the Crystal Empire, we're going to stop Blight, and whether or not you trust me could not be of less importance to either of those goals."

Applejack stood her ground. "I ain’t gonna put my home, all our homes, in the hooves of somepony I don’t trust."

"You don’t have a choice."

"Really? ‘Cause you’ve been a real big help so far. I’m startin’ to think we shoulda asked one of those other knights for help." Twilight winced. Her gaze slowly shifted to the knight, whose head stiffly nodded.

"...You’re right. You don’t know me, and Blight obviously got to you." The voice coming from the helmet soured further. "You’ve already wasted plenty of our time standing here, and if you start doubting me or what we’re doing, it will cost us the town for sure, and it will be your fault."

Applejack’s eyes narrowed as they tried to bore through the knight. After several seconds, her legs locked in place. Soon after, they began to tremble, and so did her lips.

The helmet swiveled to face everypony and said loudly, "Let me be perfectly clear: I accept that Princess Celestia chose you all for a reason, but what you're doing right now is not going to cut it. Blight makes one threat, you all collapse and start crying. But this is bigger than you or your town. Keep going like this, and I promise we will fail, because every step we get closer to the Elements of Heroism, he’ll get crazier and meaner. The helmet found a way to lean even closer to Applejack and whisper, "You better get mean too...AJ."

Twilight remembered it was Alpenglow speaking as he turned to face everypony once more. "There is a strong possibility that Blight will make good on what he said, for no reason besides the fact that he can. So deal with it, because at this point, the only thing worth concerning yourselves with is stopping him. Nothing else matters."

Twilight wasn’t waiting to see what anypony else had to say. With a wave of her horn, she pushed Applejack and Alpenglow apart. "Enough! We’ll sort this out once we get to the Crystal Empire, but we need to go before it gets dark."

As if to prove her right, a gust of wind blew through the pass, causing everypony to flinch, even under their cloaks. Twilight looked to the entrance of the pass. Slivers of orange light clung to the walls, but they were growing shorter and thinner by the second. She was already having trouble making out everypony’s faces, though that may have been for the best as she watched Applejack and Rarity silently climb aboard the chariot.

As Twilight struggled to refasten the straps of her harness, a pair of hooves reached over from her right and began tightening them. Alpenglow quickly finished the last one, and Twilight met his shaded eyes through the visor. Her expression was a mix of sadness and reproach as she looked at him, trying to figure out what awful spell Blight had cast to make Alpenglow say what he had said. She sighed softly, shaking her head as he left to enter the remaining harness. Once in, he looked expectantly at Rainbow, then back at Fluttershy and Twilight. They all nodded, ready to fly, if nothing else.

Facing the entrance to the pass, the four began to run, kicking up plumes of snow as they did. To Twilight's fatigued relief, the chariot rose immediately once they all began flapping. Following Rainbow's lead, the chariot made a sharp u-turn towards the mountain, and the ponies began their steep climb upwards.