The Mare in the High Castle

by ponichaeism

Chapter 10

"What do you think?" somepony asked.

Flash concentrated very hard on not spilling the drink he'd gotten from the bar, then glanced where the other pony was gesturing, at a twisted and very abstract sculpture made of recycled garbage. It didn't look like any shape or figure Flash could put his hoof on, no matter how hard he concentrated. Finally, he turned to its maker and asked, "What....uh, what is it?"

The other pony gave him a curious look. "It's art, man."

"It's, uh, it's pretty abstract, but it's....good. Really good." He gave the artist a smile and pried himself away, back towards Fancy Pants's private booth. In one near corner of the Stable stood an easel holding a large canvas. On it, bits of photographs cluttered the space. All of them, pegasi and furniture and windows and autocarriages, had been carefully clipped out of magazines and advertisements and newspapers and arranged with an artful anarchy, fixed in place with a keen eye and a dab of glue. Every time Flash came around, a little bit more had been added to the blank white canvas, until it was at present an unruly mess of clashing photos with contrasting shades and light sources and film grains. Yet even to Flash's unartful eye, there was an indescribable sense of deeper order to the chaos. He couldn't put it into words, but all the pieces clicked together as a whole somehow. The eye took it all in just the way it was supposed to.

Fancy Pants, standing so still his white coat made him look carved from a block of marble, stared at the canvas for a long moment, utterly transfixed by the work he had created. His eye lingered on one piece of the collage where two foals sat at a cafe using two straws to drink from the same fountain drink. They smiled coyly at one another, simpering and earnest. A rose-colored portrait of an idyllic childhood, sickening-sweet. But inside the fountain drink were pasted pills from a Farrierben Pharmaceuticals ad, floating in the root beer float they were drinking.

As he sat down, Flash felt a brief pang of mourning as he wondered what it was like to make something. To bring a thing into being from nothingness. He was no artist, and never would be. Would never craft art with his own two hooves. It must be like having a foal, he thought. Another thing he would never do, although that one was by choice. Perhaps, if by some miracle they succeeded, he would reconsider, but he didn't consider it terribly likely. All he knew how to do was fight. He raised the cup to his lips and drank a sip, but then gave a shrug and downed the whole glass in one go, because he couldn't think of any reason not to.

"Aha," Fancy Pants murmured suddenly. He turned back to the table and took his copy of Ploughshare. It was the only one left, after he had passed the others out to his patrons. Either to be read or to be made into art; he wasn't picky. He used his magic to lift up a pair of scissors and painstakingly cut out one of the articles. Then he turned back to the canvas and magically laid the article on an unfinished area, a large photo of a living room straight from the Whinnydom-Neightson catalog. He shifted the article around slightly, measuring it against some invisible criterion Flash would never in a million years understand, until he found the proper place, slathered glue on the back, and pressed the newsprint firmly to the canvas.

"Yes, yes," he said to himself. "And then, the parents from High Life Magazine, walking through their living room blissfully unaware of the subtext reigning over them....and put the hats on them from the department store catalog....yes, yes, to juxtapose the fashion with...." He pasted an imaged of a happy family, mother, father, and foal, in the living room over the article, then lapsed into silence again as he stared at the collage, making intuitive leaps and seeing patterns that Flash's mind never would, until he called out, "What do you think, sweetie? Should I deck the family out in all their accoutrements, or is that just overkill, do you think?"

Across the table from Flash, Fleur-de-Lis yawned. "Whatever you think is best, dear."

Fancy Pants gave the art another long hard stare, then shrugged and said sprightly, "I think it speaks for itself, really."

Flash took a glance at Fleur, taking in her pale pink mane, then gave her a spare, hard smile when she looked his way. She didn't seem to care much about the art, but she reveled in the scene, or as much as her cold and aloof demeanor could revel. Always friendly, but never friends, he had noticed of her. She made connections and then filed them away for future reference. Not for the first time, he wondered what difference there was between her and the high society socialites of Canterlot. The art, the scene itself, was radically different, but the social climbing was the same.

Maybe there will always just be some ponies who use others as a means to an end, he thought. Making connections to get ahead in life. Maybe these two sides aren't as different as they seem. Or rather, they can be used by some ponies in a way that isn't that different. It's just two different cultures, but under the surface they work the exact same way.

It was an idea he had gleaned from the pages of Ploughshare, and it was one he grasped much more easily than art, because it was to do with science and physical laws, which were as rigid and unyielding as aesthetics was fluid. Flash pulled the mutilated copy of the magazine close and leafed through it.

'Once upon a time, the construct of serfdom sufficed to explain why the unicorn hegemony alone was fit to rule the land. Wealth, education, and technology were consolidated in castles and managed by the unicorns, to be parceled out to pegasus knights fighting for honor and chivalry and other assorted ideological constructs, but none was left for earth ponies, who toiled on their rural farms, isolation consigning them to ignorance. No access to new ideas or concepts will stagnate the mind just as a pond will stagnate from a blocked flow of water. But with the changing forces of production in society, and the industrial revolution they created, has arisen an increased demand for earth pony labor. In conjunction, stricter legal and social measures designed to ensure our cooperation have only brought us together and put the industrial instruments of freedom at our hooves.'

Flash flipped a few more pages, to an article about the expanding Empire. He would've preferred to read it more closely, but he was only killing time until Fancy Pants was finished, so he chose to whet his appetite in the meantime.

'But the more one examines this ideology of reclaiming territory historically considered 'pony', the more apparent the cracks become. Decades ago, when the military invaded Unicornia, one could make the argument that it was historically unicorn. After all, Equestria was founded by Unicornian exiles. But Saddle Arabia? Less so. And what about the terrain and climate of Grazambia suggests ponies were driven out by zebras, as the High Castle said?' Flash was the one who had pointed that out in the first place; it was nice to see his ideas in print. 'But when one justification fails a subtler one inevitably rises up to bolster it, taking hold of the hegemonic dialectic like wildfire. The concept of 'degeneracy' was the oil the gears of the Empire desperately required in order to keep turning. As its usefulness increased, it became the catch-all rubric for all thoughts and ideas the High Castle needs to destroy.'

Once more, Flash flipped through the magazine, but he stopped in the middle of an article on the recent bankruptcy of General Horsepower.

'As always, behind the facade of ideology the material forces of production are hard at work. This permanent state of war inflates demand for weapons and technologies - Would we have rocket planes if we didn't need to drop bombs? Would we have radios if we didn't need to coordinate troops? - and the labor to produce them is deliberately and forcefully undersold by the High Castle under the guise of 'patriotism'. As long as the food shipments continue, this economic slavery is considered justifiable(!) Enormous economic power is concentrated in the hooves of weapons manufacturers such as General Horsepower. When disastrous business decisions drove the firm to bankruptcy, did they close their factories? Of course not; another firm is set to buy them out. Soon, production will continue as if it had never been interrupted. The toiling workers have no respite, while the unicorn managers will happily profit from selling their labor to the pegasi military. We are told the arms industry serves the army, but both are merely heads of the Hydra: the High Castle itself, and the social framework that supports it. These aspects of society cannot be examined separately, but as part of an interconnected whole.'

The article ended with a dire warning:

'With such an awesome power against us, we cannot hope to defeat it through force. Violent insurrection, like the Earth Pony Liberation Front preach, will only serve to goad the pegasi and unicorns into defending their social framework, allowing them to trample the earth ponies with the full support of the public. Their crusade will bring the hammer of the High Castle down on all of us. The key to victory is dismantling the will to use the weapons at all, by defying the High Castle with what it fears most: the printing press and its ability to quickly and easily spread free thought.'

As Flash continued to read through the magazine, his thoughts drifted to the tireless pony behind them, who churned out an issue once a month, every month. Wrote everything, managed the layout and printing, made use of his endless and effortless inventiveness. Here's another pony who creates, Flash thought, and I just ferry the stuff from one place to the other.

He recalled his trip into the ghetto a few hours ago, ambling past the red-bricked back-to-backs that made up the earth pony quarters, making his rounds in row after row of cramped houses squeezed next to each other. They were made cheap and stuffed with families, sometimes fifteen earth ponies for each narrow slice of living space. It was like living in a bread box, but somehow they coped. He, on the other hoof, had an entire apartment. For his sacrifice. Just thinking the word made a bitter taste in his mouth.

When Flash started working for the royal mail, he requested the earth pony ghetto for his rounds, explaining that without wings he wouldn't arouse much suspicion. His boss consented, not suspecting the real reason Flash had volunteered: as a veteran, and a very pitifully wounded one at that, he could get in and out without attracting much suspicion. He had just the right profile for the task, straddling the between high profile and no profile. He could blend it with both earth ponies and pegasi, and that offered certain opportunities. And there was one stop, a very important stop, that he was interested in. As he stepped up to this particular door, one of many identical doors along the back-to-backs, he glanced around to see if anypony was watching him. It was a toxic place, where the High Castle turned earth ponies on each other and then offered them money to spy on their neighbors. But he didn't see anypony taking an undue interest, so he pushed the handle down and darted inside.

As he closed the door, he called, “Hello?” The lights were on, but there was no answer. He works the early shift, Flash thought, worried, so he should be home by now. “Anypony here?” he called again, louder.

He tip-hoofed down the hall, peeking into the tiny dining room and even smaller living room, but the place was silent. He opened the basement door and clomped down the steps, listening intently and wondering if the place had been raided and the Midnight Guard were hiding out of sight, licking their lips and snickering to themselves about the dumb pony blundering right into their trap.

The basement was dim and poorly lit. He fumbled around until he reached the cabinet resting against the wall. Putting his back into it, he pushed it aside. It rolled along on its hidden wheels. He ducked through the crude hole in the wall and stood up straight in the 'offices' - if they could be called that - of Ploughshare, hollowed out from the earth itself and supported by exposed wooden beams that made it look like a mine shaft. The printing press stood in the corner, its editor having disappeared. Flash rounded the corner of the L-shaped room and found the desk unoccupied. A mock-up of the next issue's cover lay on it.

“Could use a proofreader,” said a booming voice.

Flash jumped, his instincts screaming at him to flee. The bones that once anchored his wings to his body gouged streaks of pain along his back. He spun around to face the intruder, standing shadowed in the ragged hole in wall. But when the figure, dressed in his familiar boots and braces over an oil-stained button-up shirt, stepped into the room, Flash relaxed.

“You scared me,” he said.

“Well within my rights,” Big Mac replied, striding towards Flash. “Seems to me yer trespassing.”

“Hey, nopony answered the door.”

“Maybe Ah was out back.” Glowering, Mac added, “Or maybe Ah don't want yer kind 'round here.”

“What, dashing and handsome?”

“Ah was gonna say a wiseacre.” Big Mac's face split into a grin.

“'Wiseacre'? Sounds like something your granny would say.”

As Big Mac rounded the desk, he said, “Don't you be badmouthin' mah Granny Smith. But Ah really could use a proofreader. It's a mite long-winded, as it stands.”

“It's a propaganda tract, Mac. That's what they all sound like. You think that's bad, try reading the Equestrian Army training manual. You get a heaping of ideological propaganda mixed with instructions like, 'Aim towards enemy.'”

“Ah never said Ah expected pegasi to be the brains of this here operation, and Ah said so plain enough in the magazine, didn't I?”

Flash clutched a hoof melodramatically to his chest. “Mac, you're injuring my racial soul. Anyway, a propaganda tract is a fount of graceless information delivered in great big dollops. If you want style, write a novel. Or better yet, a musical. I hear the new one is pretty good.” He held out a foreleg. “Care to accompany me?”

“Ah'd rather have ten different earmarks stapled into mah ears.”

Flash had to admire Big MacIntosh. He had a rare passion and ferocity for an earth pony, yet it was tempered with good humor and a breezy attitude. He refused to be cowed by the system, and the act of defying them, even in secret, must be a powerful freeing feeling from the soul-crushing despair. He could empathize; helping the cause in his own small way was the only thing that made him feel alive anymore.

Flash shrugged. “That's your loss. Well, I have to get back on my rounds, but do you have them, or not?”

Big Mac pulled a stack of neatly wrapped Ploughshare issues, wrapped in plain brown paper, out from under his desk and gave them to Flash. After Flash stuck them down deep in the bottom of his messenger bag, he pulled out the Apple family's mail and passed it to Big Mac.

“Hmm,” he said, catching sight of the topmost envelope. “Bureau of Harmony. Wonder what they want with you.”

As Big Mac took the bundle, he remarked, “Probably 'bout Apple Bloom. Ah ain't got a clue how she landed that cushy position she's got. Ah just hope it don't go ta her head. We got too many earth ponies with a false consciousness as it is.”

“Well, I best get along,” Flash said, heading for the hole in the wall. “Next week, then. Unless you're coming to the Stable?”

“Too risky to make the trip now, with the EPLF. Word on the street is they're plannin' something, so watch yerself, you hear?”

“You know me,” Flash muttered as he walked out. “Always on the lookout for the enemy.”

It was certainly true, but what he didn't mention was that half the time he wanted to rush right for them and meet them in battle. It was a stroke of luck that Shadowbolt saved me, he thought. Otherwise, who knows what would have happened to me?

Of course, the Shadowbolts never do anything unless there's something in it for them. I doubt I've seen the last of that Colonel.

Fancy Pants was speaking to him, he realized. He stirred himself and looked up at the other stallion. "Huh?"

"I say, wake up, Flash."

I am, see? My false consciousness is all gone.

Fancy Pants had already covered the easel with a tarp to protect it. It lurked behind him, concealed, as he stared down at Flash. "I think that should do it. We don't wish to be late, do we?"

"I still don't see why you need me," Flash said, staring down at his hooves on the tabletop.

"Security. I know it seems a rather base use of you, but it is a skill you have. I need a pony to watch over us while I make contact. If this all goes well....think of the help it could bring to the cause."

"I guess so."

That's all I'll ever be, he thought. Never an artist or a thinker. Always a soldier. Then he thought, But at least I know what's worth fighting for now. He looked around the art gallery. This....this is freedom. Even if I don't understand it, I know that much at least. He stumbled across a hidden reserve of determination, and stood up from the table flush with confidence.

"Let's ride."

The first checkpoint Apple Bloom ran into was right at the edge of the ghetto, just as she guessed it would be. That would be the only checkpoint, too. Once she was through, it was smooth walking all the way home. Shadowbolts couldn't care less about what one earth pony did to another earth pony, so long as they stayed in the ghetto. She tapped her hoof impatiently, listening to the pegasus ponies complain about not being stationed in the theater district like everypony else. From what she gathered, they wanted to see some stars. Give me a loose paving stone, she thought, and I'll show you some stars.

“Maybe Rarity,” one soldier said. “I'd love to see her pearly white coat. I hear she goes to the theater a lot."

When she ain't workin' mah poor Granny Smith half to death, that is.

The line whittled away until there was nopony left between Apple Bloom and the Shadowbolt in charge. She gave her papers over and stood as still and non-threatening as she could manage. The pegasus lifted up her earmark and compared the serial number to the one in her passport. Apple Bloom gave her a great, big, dumb smile.

“Get along,” the pegasus said, more bored than anything. She stepped aside and waved Apple Bloom through.

That was the one and only time Apple Bloom was glad to obey a Shadowbolt. She walked between the two tanks, her coat standing on end as she imagined them suddenly lunging forward and crushing her. But she passed right them safely and made her way into the heart of the miserable dump she lived in; regardless, she smiled at it. It was home, after all, and was almost reassuring. If a pony made some graffiti in the unicorn or pegasus districts, it would be cleaned up almost instantly, and if the pony got caught they'd be sent to the Midnight Guard. But here, on these broken-down buildings, low to the ground and sagging lower, a pony could make a mark and count on it still being there tomorrow.

It would never change, and sometimes a pony needed something like that in her life. Home was something to grab hold of and hang on to in a turbulent world. The unicorns spent an enormous amount of effort on making their city look nice and neat. Big Mac told her they couldn't stand to be rotten on the outside because it reminded them of how rotten they were on the inside. Earth ponies didn't care, though. They knew they were pure of heart, so what was outside them didn't affect them at all.

On a street near her home, Apple Bloom saw another filly, Silver Spoon lounging on her stoop. The other filly had been sad ever since her best friend had left the ghetto and gone on to higher society. Right now, her father was serving some rich unicorn; Apple Bloom hated him for being a traitor to the earth ponies. But Silver Spoon was alright in Apple Bloom's eyes. They exchanged a smile and wave as Apple Bloom passed. Silver Spoon might not have her friend anymore, but earth ponies were never alone as long as they had each other.

With aching legs, Apple Bloom finally trudged into her house and let her saddlebag fall to the floor just inside the door. She hoped her big brother would have some great new idea to share. When he spoke about the struggle of the earth ponies for freedom and dignity, he became so passionate and animated and talkative. It warmed her heart to see him like that, to hear him explain all about the nobleness of the earth pony. Fighting the good fight for freedom. He was all anypony could ask for in a brother.

But to her surprise, she found him sitting at the kitchen with his head in his forehooves. Something's wrong, Apple Bloom thought. Wait. Is Big Mac....crying? Icy shivers up and down her spine. In all the years she'd been alive, through all the things piled on them, after all the oppression they'd weathered, she had never seen her older brother cry. Not until now.

Then, suddenly, she thought, Where's Granny?

“Oh, no,” she whispered.

He pushed the letter across the table, but that little scrap of paper was so terrible, so heavy and wearying, she didn't dare try and lift it. Instead, she backed away until she hit the wall. The room spun around her. She got so disoriented she fell to the ground and started crying herself. The only time she stopped was a momentary pause out of pure shock; it happened when Big Mac raised his hoof and brought it down on the table so hard it split in half with a terrific crack. Both halves fell against each other and slammed into the floor.

It was just like like a house breaking apart.

We'll make them pay, Apple Bloom thought. That Rarity, and anypony else who's responsible. We'll make them pay.

In the heart of the theater district, at the intersection of the two widest and most traveled streets, a marble globe of the moon rose from a thick pedestal that held it above the round traffic island. Twilight imagined looking down from the High Castle and seeing that statue at the center of everything. All the streets in the city radiated out from it. It was the very center of the free world. But, to her annoyance, the only thing her mind could compare the imaginary sight to was a target....or a dead fly in a star-spider's web. Straddling the orb, the princess of the night posed heroically and faced the night. In her marble eye gleamed the grand dream she was about to make reality. Her wings were spread wide, surrounding the little ticket booth nestled in the globe's eclipse. That squat and round hut, with its bright red neon sign, sat comfortably under the aegis of Luna's fanned feathers.

Some savvy unicorn, not too long ago, figured he or she could make a ton of money if they bought up the tickets to all the different shows wholesale and resold them from one central booth, putting a middlepony between the theaters and the patrons. All for a cut of the profit, naturally. Society didn't consider that scalping tickets, although Twilight couldn't say why. She was overcome with that unsettling, disconnected feeling again, the one that had haunted her in the supermarket. So many ponies putting themselves between consumers and what they need, then charging for their willful obstruction in the name of 'convenience'. Taking advantage of the freedom the free world gave ponies.

Her thoughts turned, as they usually did, to the bottle in her saddlebag. Standing in this long line, she was sobering up, and she didn't enjoy it very much. All these thoughts she had, picking the world around her apart; she would give anything for them to go away. Her tongue thirsted for the sour-sweet touch that would dull the pain of seeing the world's mechanisms exposed. How they pushed her around and pulled her until she broke. Why couldn't her mind just stop? Why did it have to do this to her? All she wanted was to watch a show.

“Attention, theatergoers,” a voice called from a speaker mounted on the ticket booth. “All standby and cancellation tickets for The River Runs Wild have been sold out. Sorry about that, folks.”

Half the line protested, offering mutters and moans and yells of frustration. Twilight ground her teeth, her pounding heart making her tremble. She spat silent curses at the ponies who went to the theater because it was trendy and fashionable. The place to be seen, and to see celebrities. They had no appreciation for true art, and never would. Worse, they cluttered up her world. How much better would it be if they all were culled? Placards for the shows being sold were mounted over the box office windows. As she watched, a pony hung a 'Sold Out' sign over The River Runs Wild. She gave the other shows a brief glance, but none appealed to her in the slightest. Sure, her tiresome brain told her musicals were designed to invoke emotional states in the observers, but at least Cynic DeKey's had plenty of delicious intellectual grain to chew on. More than she could say for any of the other shows advertised. Why did the heathens have to flock to the one good show, instead of all the musicals more suited to their intellectual barbarism?

Twilight drifted away from the dwindling line, wanting to kick somepony in the face. Who are you kidding? You're no fighter. You're not even strong enough to stand up to those Shadowbolt thugs--

Shut up! she thought savagely.

As she passed the tail end of the line, she saw a familiar face. That yellow pegasus who almost got her arrested. She'd been behind Twilight the whole time. Twilight pointedly looked away, a seething resentment in her chest compelling her to beat the pegasus bloody. If she hadn't almost been arrested, Twilight was sure she would've made it here before the tickets were sold out. From the corner of her eye, Twilight saw the pegasus's eyes and head drop, although her slumped posture told Twilight it was more out of cowardice than anger. Twilight was sure this pegasus wouldn't put up much of a fight. But she had no great desire to meet the Shadowbolts twice in one day, and walked away stiffly before her violent impulses got the better of her.

She slunk away from the line and into a side alley, looked around quickly to make sure nopony was watching, and levitated the cider bottle out of her bag. She took a long, hard swig. The prickling buzz spread from her head to her hooves. The tension stretching through her head and body eased. She capped the bottle and put it back.

“Hey, you,” a voice whispered.

She raised one foreleg off the ground, ready to run, but the stallion was at the mouth of the alleyway, and it was a dead end. But the other pony was scrawny and reedy, and wore a greasy yet nonthreatening smile. A bowler hat was slung down low on his head, as low as he could get it with his horn in the way. He offered her a greasy smile and magically fanned two tickets in front of her.

“I, uh, saw you on line over there. You just looked so upset you couldn't go to the show, and it nearly moved me to tears, I must admit. Well, it just so happens I ain't able to make it tonight. Perhaps we could, uh, make a deal to our mutual benefit?”

Twilight lowered her foreleg and frowned at the scalper. “How much?” When he named almost twice what they cost at the ticket booth, she snorted and said, “Ridiculous. I'm not paying that.”

He shrugged and magically moved them towards his vest pocket. “What a shame, what a shame! But alright. Maybe somepony else would be interested....”

Twilight turned in the general direction of her conapt. Her lonely, empty, silent conapt. Was getting away from that, if just for a little while, worth a few more bits? “Make it the box office price and a half,” she said, “and you've got a deal.” She faced him, her expression hard and impassive, refusing to budge on her offer.

After he took a moment to size her up, he smiled again and said, “You got yourself a deal." He lifted the second ticket up and magically waved it around. "Say, uh, you don't have a gentlecolt you want to invite, do you?”

“No,” she said coldly. “Just me.”

“Ah, well. You know what they say: The tempest of love is violent.”

“Starswirl's Storm,” she recited. “Act three, scene two. 'This storm, tempest of love, flinches not from/barraging all we holdfast in our breast/so that such as cannot safe passage find/are left broke on sweet shore of paradise/under banyan of heavenly delight.'”

“Couldn't have said it better myself,” he scalper said.

“Just give me the ticket,” Twilight said, pulling some coins out of her saddlebag. She closed the flap before the cider bottle could call out to her again.

“Much obliged,” the scalper said as they exchanged the tickets and coins. “Enjoy the show.” He slipped past Twilight, looking for another pony he could bilk money out of, like the parasite he was.

Twilight made it half a block before the cider's cry became too loud to bear. The crowd was growing bigger the deeper she got into the theater district. She slipped into another alley and drank from the bottle again, longer this time. It burned down her throat and settled in her stomach, where it then spread to her head and swirled around her brain, churning up her thoughts and emotions, mixing them together and diluting them with each other.

Hoping to draw a strength form the bottle that she didn't have while sober: the strength to go on, to fight back against the loneliness and the dark thoughts.

Creaking floorboards broke the silence of Granny Smith's dark room, but Apple Bloom kept her face buried in the soggy pillow. It was only Big Mac, or maybe Applejack had come home. She had sobbed for so long she hadn't paid much attention to the front door, or the time. The figure hovered, its breathing soft, watching over her. For just a little while, she pretended it was Granny Smith. As soon as she looked up, she would see her dear old granny standing there, wondering what AB was doing in her bed. And Apple Bloom would smile with relief and tell her dear old granny she'd had a terrible dream. And Granny Smith would smile and rub her head and tell her everything would be just fine.

“Ah reckon we should pack all a'this up,” Big Mac announced, breaking into Apple Bloom's beautiful illusion and ruining it forever.

“Don't you dare!” she shouted into the pillow. “Not a single thing.”

He didn't say anything more, but Apple Bloom pictured the frown on his face perfectly. He had never been sentimental. He always had to break things down and pick them to pieces. She finally lifted her head off the bed and let her eyes wander over Granny's things. The room was meager, but Granny had taken what she'd been dealt and made the space her own. The frilly pillows, the ceramic pigs dancing on the lace dresser covers, the family photos on the wall. Granny Smith had collected all these things, touched and arranged and poured her heart into all of them. The four walls, the furniture, the furnishings; it wasn't just a room, it was a puzzle with a Granny Smith-shaped hole in the center, waiting for the mare herself to come back and complete it. Even if Apple Bloom knew she never would return, there was still the outline of Granny Smith. If AB could figure out why all the pieces had come together the way they did, maybe she could figure out Granny Smith herself. Maybe that way, she would stay with Apple Bloom forever.

Big Mac's hooves stamped against the floor until they stopped and the mattress sank down. he sucked in a breathe, held it in his lungs, then exhaled. Always quick with words, her big brother was, but when it came to basic equine comfort he tripped over his own tongue. “The paper,” he said finally, “it don't come cheap. Some a'these should fetch a good price, Ah reckon.”

The magazine, then. Teary-eyed, Apple Bloom started snickering, because that was so like him. Always about the paper. His passion. All these relics Granny left behind, they were only things to him, things to be bought and sold. “You sound like a unicorn,” she said. “Since when did you care about getting a good price?”

“Just because Ah hate them don't mean we can escape from them,” her brother said. From his tone, he was wounded by her comment. “Now, it wouldn't be a very effective system if it were so easy fer a pony ta get around it, Ah figure. We have ta abide by it to survive. You think Ah like it? Cuz Ah don't.”

She couldn't take this anymore. Why couldn't Mac understand she didn't want to hear about money right now? She slipped off the bed and walked for the door, leaving her brother sitting on the bed, staring after her. “If'n ya touch any of Granny's things,” she said, “Ah'll fight ya off tooth and hoof.”

She went to her own room, tucked into a corner beneath the sloping roof's exposed rafters. She hadn't decorated it like Granny Smith had. She was young still, and it took months - a lifetime, really - to save up enough money to buy the comforts of life. And all the while, the unicorns tried their hardest to scam and wheedle that very same money out of an honest earth pony's hooves with bills and bills and bills: sky-high rent for broke-down buildings, rationed and stale food, medical check-ups. Besides, she didn't really care much about decoration, not like Granny Smith had. An old fuddy-duddy, her granny used to call herself; the memory brought a smile to Apple Bloom's lips. Granny didn't have any special skills, so she labored and saved up money and bought things to put around her room instead of spending it on something important. Apple Bloom supposed she took after Big Mac, no matter how much she wanted to deny it at the moment. She had no use for decoration. Instead, she spent her money on something far more important: her beat-up record player and the stack of records leaning against it. All of them were made from discarded X-Rays photos taken from a hospital. The irony of listening to an illegal record pressed onto an X-Ray of a pegasus's broken wing amused Apple Bloom to no end. All of it was made from trash the unicorns and pegasus ponies threw away, but the garbageponies were all earth ponies, and after two centuries of being forced to work in factories earth ponies had learned a lot about how machines work. The stupid unicorns had no idea what the earth ponies were doing with their trash.

She pushed up her mattress and scooped out a paltry pile of coins. They were all the bits she'd managed to save from her paycheck after the family bills were paid, but there wasn't enough.

Apple Bloom started to cry all over again.

It all came back around to money, just like Big Mac said. It didn't matter if it was a coin in the hoof or just the idea of it in the head, the money loomed large over everything. Everything was all about working to get some more, but for an earth pony there would never be enough. It was about that stupid mare whose face in profile was stamped into every coin. Her mark watched over everything they bought and sold, just like the moon on the flip side watched over the entire city every second of every day.

Apple Bloom grabbed her saddlebag and stormed out the door, bawling. She passed Big Mac as he left Granny's room, and thankfully he didn't say anything to her as she went inside and stared at all her dear granny's things. Granny Smith had helped raise her, but Granny Smith was gone. The only thing left of her were these things she had spent her whole life working to buy, and now all that work had put a price tag on each one. A price tag she could cash in. She tried to think of it less like she was selling Granny Smith off, piece by piece and more like she was paying Granny's work forward. And anyway, she didn't have to like it. Everypony had to abide by the way things were, just to to survive.

Big Mac is right. As usual. But that didn't mean she had to like it.

One by one, she started putting everything she could fit into her bag.

The Buckston factories had stood silent and unloved as long as Apple Bloom could remember. Their broken tiled windows were like smiles with teeth knocked out and their smokestacks slowly lurched to one side, struggling against the weight of the world. A gloomy layer of filth had settled over the red brick walls, turning them a dingy brown. The wind rattled the rusty chain-link fences sealing off the cracked and empty lots. A warped and cracked sign still hung from one: “'Where there is discord, may we bring harmony' - Director of Industrial Development Minorca Hatcher”. The mare in question, with a bouncy red bouffant the aging sign had turned brown, looked dreamily into the distance next to her words.

Once, earth ponies tended the forges and attended the assembly lines in all these factories, as far as the eye could see. And though their lives were meager and their prospects small, her sister said the earth ponies had in pretty good in comparison. Just like rural earth ponies buck the trees to get the fruit to drop, here in Canterlot the earth ponies bucked the machines and made goods for the unicorns to sell. Then the Winter Rising happened, partly because of low wages and hazardous machinery. But their parents were willing to fight for her and Applejack's future, and they both died for it in the Battle of the EBC Radio Tower, struggling to lead the Brigade to victory and sound the call to the rural earth ponies, to get them to rise up and overthrow their masters. Instead, they had been crushed into the dirt by the Civil Force and the militia and silenced forever.

Apple Bloom's first memory, in fact, was cowering in her crib at the shouting outside and wondering when her parents would come back. There was her sister, reassuring her everything would be alright. But the parents she'd been so worried about? Only a vague impression, a hazy memory, dim shadows of ponies.

She had grown up alongside the checkpoint system, after the pegasi had rounded up earth ponies from all across the city and marched them past the line to seal into the ghetto with their brethren. The unicorns, meanwhile, grew scared of working in earth pony neighborhoods, even with the Civil Force to protect them. The factories were still standing, but now they were empty shells. All the machines inside them, the heart and lungs and stomach of the factories, were swiftly disassembled and moved to the new industrial districts, where the pegasi patrolled often. The earth ponies didn't have enough money or resources to make more big machines like those, so the factories had withered and died and the ponies had stopped bucking. Most of them, anyway. Despite all that, earth ponies were hardy. Over the years they had slowly reclaimed the neighborhood, and traces of life could still be found in Buckston.

Apple Bloom trotted towards a doorway set into the side of a factory that, unlike the others, seemed slightly better cared-for. The windows had all been repaired with glass tiles taken from other factories, and ropes anchoring the smokestack to the ground kept it from falling over. A bustling thrum came through the walls as she approached. She knocked on the steel door and waited until a plate slid aside, allowing a pair of eyes to peer at her. It quickly slid shut again, but the door itself opened a moment later. A grizzled earth pony with an overbite peered around the lot and gestured for her to slip inside. The door banged shut once she was through.

Apple Bloom walked into the massive bazaar that filled up the carved-out heart of the factory. She passed what used to be an office in one corner, now converted into a small discotheque. On the makeshift stage, Octavia and the Kelpies were inventing a whole new kind of music before her eyes. At a window bossponies once used to watch earth ponies work, Apple Bloom instead looked in at the angry gray mare singing her angry song. This majestic new sound sounded kind of like the new rockafilly music that the unicorn radio loved to play recently, but this was louder and faster and the distorted electric guitar that made it sound so raw and rebellious. Dangerous, even. And she loved it that way. It made her want to stand up and throw paving stones at the nearest Civil Force soldier. The cry of injustice, silenced during the Winter Rising and drowned in blood, had risen again, and AB was happy to raise her voice with the sound.

"Well, you can read my lips," Octavia wailed, "no new axes....for earth ponies to swing. Just bury the hatchet....and get to working on the vision thing! Oh, yeaaah!" The drums pounded and the electric guitar rang out in a heavy chord as they went into the chorus. "Keep on buckin' in the free world!"

“Yo, Blooms!”

Apple Bloom turned away from the window. Weaving through the crowd of ponies in the bazaar came her cousin, Babs, who reared back and grinned in welcome. A gold chain dangled from her neck, glittering against her saffron coat.

“Hey, Babs,” Apple Bloom said.

"Keep on buckin' in the free world!" Octavia sang behind them.

Babs Seed effortlessly slipped her foreleg around Apple Bloom. Pulling her close. She asked, “Watcha doin' here, filly?”

“Ah got some stuff to sell.”

“Aw, you want some floral?” Babs lifted up the chain around her neck. The golden links were fashioned like flowers. “I can get you a good deal on some floral. Turn every colt's eye in the room.”

“Nah, Ah'm not looking fer jewelry.”

“Floral ain't just jewelry, Blooms. You wear this, ponies know you got connections. And down here, connections mean everythin'.”

Apple Bloom could guess what she meant by 'connections', but she chose not to. 'Ah don't want ya hanging around with Babs anymore,' Applejack told her. 'She's fallen in with some rough ponies, and the Suns of Buckston are near enough the roughest.' Big Mac, as usual, explained it in his own way: 'Someponies want ta make things better fer their kind. But some of 'em are so blinded by false consciousness they exploit other earth ponies ta make things better fer themselves. Some of 'em join the Midnight Guard and collaborate with the unicorns, others join the criminal gangs that thrive in the gutter.' But if Babs was involved with all that, Apple Bloom refused to pry. She didn't want to know about it. Babs was her cousin, and she'd always been nice, so it was only fair she be nice back. And if Babs could help her with her problems, then so be it.

“It's all about knowing the right pony,” Babs said, poking Apple Bloom. “And you, you know me. Now what are you lookin' to sell?”

“Some a'Granny's things,” Apple Bloom said. Her voice cracked. “She, uh, she passed away.”

“Aw, no,” Babs said, her lips wavering. “Not Granny Smith?”

“Yeah,” Apple Bloom said, holding back the tears.

Babs gave her a tight hug. “That's all right, Blooms. That's all right. We're strong. We'll get through this.”

“Yeah,” Apple Bloom said, wiping away her tears and sniffling. “We'll get through it all right.” She opened the flap of her saddlebag and showed Babs the things inside. “Ah gotta get rid of her things. We need the money.”

Babs nodded emphatically. “Course. Absolutely. I'll getcha a good deal, don't you worry. Come on.”

She led Apple Bloom into the bazaar, weaving through the thick crowd of ponies jostling for standing room. They walked past merchants selling their wares from rugs on the ground, from tables and carts, and even a few freestanding booths for those rich enough. Hanging pots and pans clattered together, rugs and paintings hung from poles, a dizzying array of glitzy saddlebags lined shelves, colorful lanterns and electric lights clustered together and gave off a multicolored glow like the ancient legends of rainbows, exotic foods smuggled in from the territories gave off delightful smells that tingled the nose; and above it all was the constant roar of ponies calling to each other, clamoring for discounts and haggling over prices.

Babs stopped in front of a kiosk. The pony behind the counter, a light brown stallion with darker black stubble covering his head, looked up. Bags ringed his eyes, but that was hardly unusual. Almost all the earth ponies in the bazaar had to pull double duty working for the unicorns, then come home and make more goods with almost none of the tools, money, material, or time, for selling at the bazaar. And as Apple Bloom looked over his furniture, though she wasn't an expert, she thought the craftsponyship was pretty good for something he had bucked together in his basement.

“What, uh, what can I do for you, Babs?” he asked, fidgeting a little.

Babs inspected some of his ceramic figurines. “I seem to recall, Davenport, that you, ah, owe my associates some favors. After your little accident.”

“You and the Suns know I'm good for it, Babs.”

“Just what I like to hear,” she said, breaking into a smile. She put her forehooves on Apple Bloom's shoulders and gently pushing her forward. “This is my cousin, and she's got some items you might be interested in. And you're gonna give her a good deal, hear me?”

“Sure thing.”

Apple Bloom laid all of Granny Smith's things out on the counter and let Davenport inspect them. As his eye hovered over the figurines and the frilly lace coverings, Apple Bloom gave them a mournful gaze. Granny's things, gone. The ones she'd picked out herself, from this very bazaar, to decorate her world. A part of Granny was in those things. She bought them because she saw something in them that was kin to her soul. And now they were being sold. Granny Smith was being sold.

“I can give you thirty-five bits,” Davenport finally said.

That's how much she's worth, Apple Bloom thought. Only thirty-five bits.

“That's it?” Babs asked coldly.

“Hey, it's been a slow week. You can check my lockbox if you want, but frankly thirty-five bits is already way too much for what she's selling. I wouldn't go a bit over twenty-five if it wasn't a favor for you, Babs.”

“What do you think, Blooms?” Babs asked. “Want me to make him up the price?”

“Nah,” Apple Bloom said sadly, “thirty-five is fine.”

“You heard the pony,” Babs said to Davenport. “Thirty-five bits.”

Davenport ducked behind the counter, made a click as he unlocked his lockbox, and came back up with a hoofful of coins. He laid them on the counter and pushed them over to Apple Bloom. It's not too late, she thought. Tell him to keep his money and take Granny Smith's things back. Keep them for her. Keep her alive with them.

Ah can't. We need the money, badly.

Apple Bloom scooped the money off the counter, everything Granny Smith had been worth, and put it all in her saddlebag. She thanked Davenport and walked away, her head drooping and her ears fallen. She felt so lost and alone in the middle of all these ponies, with those thoughts about her Granny in her head. She just wanted to finish up and go home.

“Hey, wait up,” Babs said, trotting alongside her. “Listen, about Granny Smith, I, uh, I was thinking about swinging by. Paying my respects.”

Apple Bloom stopped in the crowd of ponies and faced her cousin, “Ah....don't think that's such a good idea.”

Babs cocked her head. “Why not?”

“Applejack and Big Mac, they said some things about ya. About the ponies ya've been hanging out with. The....Suns of Buckston, they say. They don't want ya coming around any more. Ah'm not even supposed ta be hanging out with you.”

Babs remained silent for a moment, looking both vengeful and wounded at the same time. Then she said, “Is that so?”

"If'n it was up ta me, Ah wouldn't care, but....Ah'm sorry,” Apple Bloom said, tearing herself away. “Ah'm tired, and Ah just want ta go home.”

“Yeah, sure,” Babs said. “Well, maybe I'll see you around anyway.”

“Definitely,” Apple Bloom said, trying to spare her cousin's feelings.

Apple Bloom headed off into the crowd, looking for the one stall she knew very well, situated way back near one corner of the factory floor. As she approached the counter of the kiosk, two gated doors lined with records in cheap wax paper sleeves glued together from hamburger wrappers were spread out on either side.

“Hey, little filly,” the owner said. She smiled warmly.

“Is it in yet?” Apple Bloom asked, rearing back and putting her hooves on the counter.

“Sure is.” The owner pulled a record out of a stack beside her and slid it across the counter to Apple Bloom. “Six bits.”

“But it was only five bits last month.”

“Sorry,” the mare said. “Times are tough right now. Bills are going up, and I got to keep on bucking.”

"I understand," said Apple Bloom, who did indeed know that very well. She passed a few coins to the kiosk owner, thinking about how unfair it was that everypony needed so many of these little lumps of metal just to keep on buckin'.

Comments

[nucnik]

This is the first fanfic where I anxiously await new chapters. That is all.

[Balancer]

I...I just finished reading and honestly it's like some one has taken the...life, the joy out of the Equestria we know. This horrible, depressing , vindictive and down right spiteful world you have woven has left me feeling so powerless I'm struggling to imagine any possible good ending come from this. It's like you've taken the show and flipped it around, an eternal night indeed. Honestly at first I was enraged by these ponies, by the unjust and cruel treatment of the earth ponies, but as I read on the story stripped away my anger and left me with a feeling pity for all of them.

You have actually managed to take me through the stages of acceptance:
Denial- Maybe things are as bad as they look, maybe the mane6 will band together to set things right
Anger- How dare they treat earth ponies like that, how dare dash and Twilight be such such...perversions of their cannon selves
Bargaining- Maybe the mane6 will become friends, if only they could actually meet each other and see past the lies
Depression- OH GOD WHYYYYYY, the realization that the poison that runs through Equestria is caught in a positive feedback loop, a never ending cycle that even if it could be broken would only take effect decades, centuries after the cast need it to
Acceptance- This is the way things are and I can only feel pity for ponies who in another time and place, could have been friends.

TL;DR You are magnificent bastard and deserve all of the praise and way more attention.

Now if you'll excuse me I have to go weep into a pint glass singing winter wrap up

[Ravemastaj]

5039798
^
This.

Although, this universe has something that the original doesn't: a competent Flash Sentry. Which, in my opinion, is becoming a very important thing for all the ponies involved in this.

[Tetrominon]

Octavia and the Kelpies

I love you.

[q97randomguy]

And so the Apples finally learn that Granny Smith is dead. Well, at least most of them have…

Them not knowing has been absolute torture for a good number of chapters.

[Sunny]

And the flames of anger stoke higher, and the reckoning draws nearer, one hopes. But hope can be dashed. Who knows?

[Twilightsparklefairy]

5062585 True... True. I actually like Flash in this. That is amazing, considering how much I hate him usually... But I agree with what Balancer said... I just can't see this having a happy ending