Lullaby for Midlight

by Blankscape

Chapter 5 - Alarum Abound

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I could feel the emotions radiating from here. Something had happened, an accident in all likelihood. Not a month ago I would have slathered and lapped at such a shower of energies, even if it wasn't as flavorful as elated emotion or as strong as base panic and fear. But now I was disgusted by the mere sensation of it, and I did my best to ignore it. In fact, I no longer needed to feed in such a way, not since that day.

Nevertheless, the ruckus behind me was of no concern to me anymore, and this part of my senses would now be geared toward intents and endeavors decidedly less base. But something else caught my attention, enough to illicit a very slight turn of my head. A particular hue in the spectrum was absent, or rather had faded. It was that pony. She was...

I paid it no mind any longer. I kept walking... My ear flicked at a strange sensation…an incessant sensation.

And yet its ardor was an unblinking sun, lidless and unrelenting. It tossed pangs of distress my way with every wave that pulsated, the incessant emotion knocking at some far away doorstep in the back of my mind. I thought it ironic, that one such as I would be beset by such an invasive thought, but the feeling would not relent in its glare. Even as I walked through the midst of Ponyville, even as its heat bore down on the back of my neck and on the tips of my ears, I did not let up. I was as cold and unfeeling as the steady drizzle that trickled from the fickle Equestrian sky, not giving thought to where the winds blew me. Just as indifferent as the dark that once welcomed me in solace and comfort...the dark where I no longer found such sentiments. I'd be damned if I were to spare these entitled scums a sliver of a kind thought!

The dirt path I treaded along was packed down and fairly dry, but the coming rains would see it soften again and turn into a runny loam. Looking up it seemed the climes were being fed by weather that came from the nearby Jagd. The static in the air gave me reason to believe the incoming rains would fall harder this time around, even harder than the early morning shower. I had better pick up the pace before that happened, lest I let my hooves get dirty. For those inclined to look, it would be a dead giveaway for me, and every pony would know who I was.

I had spoken too soon…and there it went again, that strange sensation. I did my absolute best to block it out.

On the last leg of the dirt path, a stampede of ponies zoomed past me from town square, taking me by surprise. The small mob was headed off by pegasii who hollered to the few trailing ponies following them by hoof. I stood stock still and let them move around me like a rock in a stream. As they passed, I turned to glance back at Sweet Apple Acres, its farmhouse a little more than an indistinct block in the horizon. With my eyes and a bit of magick, I could see from here that the barn still under construction had fallen over, likely from the sudden winds. But my business there was done. I had fed myself and no ponies had seen me. I could care less, and so I would.

"I said go home, will ya, squirt?" A voice hollered within earshot.

"Honest, I'm fine! I can make it up to everypony. Even if I have to make my cutie mark say sorry," replied a small orange filly, meaning every word as she rounded the bend on a squeaky scooter. She headed off another pony--it was her!

It took all the self-control I had to keep myself from fuming. Magick in Equestria was strangely more impressionable and literal that I would have burst into flames if I let myself seethe for even a moment. Just let them pass. Things would be fine if I just let them go their merry way.

The prism pegasus regarded her words carefully. "It's plain to see you're fine. But you've done enough damage as it is!" She returned, causing the filly to slow her pace a peg.

She made the turn in a bandaged hobble, one on a front leg, the other on a wing, and a third on a back leg, all on the same side. They stopped in the middle of the road as I approached. With the mob behind me too far to matter now, no pony was close was near the three of us. The ghost of a smile crept onto the corner of my lips. The temptation was tantalizing to resist! Oh, it would be too easy to put her out of her misery right here and now--AAAAAHH! Fire, fire, fire!

I fumbled in a little jig, dousing the tiny flame with a hoof. The show I had put on caught their attention.

"Ugh, what are you doing, Vinny?" The walking prism called to me.

Vinny, who was...oh, she was the ground pounder mare I had impersonated on my way out. Crepe Vine I heard them call her. "Oh, nothing. Just spit-balling moves for an impromptu act I was planning. It's a musical, you know..." The deadpan in her face was obvious. I didn't need that tumbleweed to comically drive that point home, thank you very much. The filly on the other hand, she was curious.

"You mean for the farm? I've never heard from Applebloom that Sweet Apple Acres was hosting a play. Kinda isn’t their thing... Don't you work there?"

"Well, obviously I do. I'm a farm hand there," I answered, going with the flow as they would say in these parts.

The prism pegasus came forward in a slight hobble, her deadpan replaced by dubious cynicism. "Then what are you doing over here? Look right behind you!" She pointed a hoof to the farm.

"Oh...Ah!" I turned and squinted, mustering half a believing voice enough to convince them. "When did that happen?"

"Oh, you mean you didn't hear all the screaming and commotion, and not see the mob of ponies passing you by to boot?" She exclaimed with that sass I came to hate about her back at Canterlot. "What are you doing here anyway…"

The two of them came closer.

"Well, you see..." What was her name again? I needed to think quickly! Try and remember--ah, that's it! And don't forget that country twang, either! "Apple Mam sent me on an errand just now. But there were so many things to pick up from the lumber shop, I guess I just blocked everything out trying to keep it in mind. She didn’t give me a list, see."

By her looks, it seemed she didn’t have time to deal with my excuses. "Eh, whatever. In any case, we're headed to the farm. You should come with, in case they need more hooves," she said with a blue hoof pointed at their destination. “Applejack will be fuming when we get there, I’m sure.”

"Sure thing!" I returned, stifling a grumble.

Either way implied risks. If I had just walked away regardless of any excuse I proffered, it would have given them reason to grow suspicious. I had better tag along and simply sneak away when a window presented itself. So long as I didn’t place myself near the actual Crepe Vine, things would be fine. I peered into myself and found her aura. I was in the clear still. This detour was just a minor hitch, but it made me want to see these ponies crushed into a smouldering chasm, the both of them. I stifled that thought away too, lest I risked catching fire again.

The way back was a short gallop, if I had galloped the way in the first place that is. The two pegasii trailed behind me with the older one limping on a hoof, while propping herself up as the filly pushed her along with her scooter. It would have been even more suspicious if I ran ahead and just ducked into the bushes. The little one was eyeing me as they went along, and I couldn't have that. The prism mare fumbled in her footing, her wings opening up at unbidden memory to find purchase in the winds that came our way. The ground was getting soggier by the minute. Seeing her struggle lent me some small solace, but the little one continued eying me ever vigilantly, as if I had crossed her at some point. Ugh, I had better go help her then.

"Ah, thanks for the help, Vinny." She opened her good wing and laid it over my withers as I approached her from her side. "You know, I normally wouldn't be so quick to take a helping hoof if there were more ponies around... You won't tell anypony, will you?"

She had asked as I caught a glance of the orange filly rolling along on her scooter and giving me the stink eye. I returned her gesture with a raspberry, which she also returned. Though, if I had my way with her, I would have caved her head in with a strong hoof down in a swift moment, a speck like the lesser bugs that crawled around us. A chuckle echoed in me for the thought. Thankfully, the prideful mare propped up against me didn't notice, her head held low for stepping out of her comfort zone. Well, like she could notice my emotions in the first place!

"Oh, um... I won't if you don’t want me to. Though does it really matter that much?"

"Of course, it matters! She's Rainbow Dash, Element of Loyalty, Wonderbolt in the making, the only living thing on wings to ever perform a sonic rainboom! Not even the Princesses can outfly her on good ol’ wing power alone!" The little filly exploded in a gush of fanaticism, bearing such an audacity that radiated at me as if the mere thought of doubting this mare was to doubt the rising of the sun. Her words echoed a slight warmth in the prism pony as well. "She has to keep up her reputation! She’s practically the leader of the Mane Six, when Twilight not around."

The mare, Rainbow Dash as I have just learned her name, cocked her head to the filly. "Is that what they call us? Pretty catchy, ‘Mane Six,’" she repeated with an incredulous smirk and a chuckle.

"Well, that's what Diamond Tiara said that her Canterlot friends called you guys, anyway. They even said you guys might be getting a Power Ponies spin-off!"

The mere mention of being featured a spin-off, whatever that was, elated the prideful mare into a grin. "Heh, well, Scoots," Rainbow began with a jovial tone that transitioned into one more serious, shooing the smirk the news of a spinoff that had plastered on her face, “Let’s just pin that thought up for later, okay?” Her gaze focused on the ruined structure in the distance, a little more than an oversized haystack at this point.

“Something tells me you’ll be doing more than just making up.”

The little filly followed her gaze and her emotional color flushed a shade bluer, anticipating what awaited us in our destination. But we were only a third of the way. And it would make for quite a tense silence if I let it go on like this.

The prism mare then directed her attention me. “You’re awfully untalkative today, Vinny…”

Oh lords, this was exasperating. I didn’t anticipate this. I had to say something to keep façade! Something whiny, or cheerful maybe? No, I didn’t know this Vinny well enough to act that way in certainty. Perhaps a neutral response would be middlingly inconspicuous.

“I was just thinking, Dash,” I started up before she could suspect me. “Maybe you should nip this problem in the bud?”

“Oh wow, you thinking outside of work?” She turned her head to me, and let down her jest in seeing how seriously I regarded this talk. And I had to, unless I’d be discovered.

“What do you mean exactly?”

Just say something meaningless! Spout nonsense, she’ll extract her own meaning from it all. “Well, you’re propping yourself up like some hot jock that craves attention every waking hour. You’re going to get knocked off your pedestal one day. I just hope that getting knocked off doesn’t drain all the color from your rainbow, so to speak…”

Rainbow took to my words and looked inward as I helped her amble down the road that slowly turned muddy. “Why don’t you do yourself a favor? Level things for a while and take it down a peg before this becomes too big for you to handle?” Needless to say, I had only ever known this mare from the other side of a hostile engagement, a brief one at that. So I chose to embed a little bit of speechcraft in my words, goading her to believing them if she didn’t already, harmless in the long run, but just enough to keep the illusion lasting for a bit longer. It was a simple enough spell for one such as I. All I had to do was blink and there. The spell was cast. Her eyes tinted in a shade of green ever so slightly…and quickly dispelled. That was odd.

“Pfft, yeah right. The last thing she needs to do is take things slower. That’s like the opposite of being 'Rainbow Dash!' And that's why she has Tank. Right, Rainbow? ” The filly turned to the limping pegasus so sure of herself. She even raised a hoof awaiting a high-five, but the pondering look about the countenance of the mare she admired lowered her forearm down and quickly wiped her haughty disposition off.

“Hmm…you say some pretty level stuff, Vinny… What grass do you put in your crepe’s again? Or is it some secret egghead juice in the dough? Don’t tell me you put meat in it…” She half-joked as far as I could tell and I threw some words whose meaning escaped me and only me. What did she have against meats?

“Well, most of the usual and the rest is a secret, personal recipe,” I answered, playfully winking.

The response made her chuckle, but then the rains began to pour down as she regarded my earlier words with more thought. The little orange filly said nothing as she buzzed along on her scooter beside us. We continued our walk in silence.

‘Hmmm, it seemed I hadn’t a thing to worry for,’ I thought with my ears flicking at something odd… There it went again! And it was making them stare. Just block it out…

We had a third of the way left before us by the time the rains picked up and loosed its downpour upon the town. And by downpour, it was right and proper rain. But considering the intermittent spells of soft showers the ponies kept to a remarkable schedule, these were close to stormy climes along scales of their concern. Perhaps they just loved the whimsy of the pastel sky and the insufferably bright sun. None of those were here at the moment, and I was calmed by the hues halfway to the shade I was used to…where comforts and solace awaited…and silent treachery… Shaking my head, I skidded to a halt with some effort as a particularly big pool of mud nearly slipped my notice, and I pulled Rainbow Dash out from relative danger. That didn’t spare Scoots—a name which sounded like an ekename to me—from that fate however. Rainbow had a chuckle as she stood on the side, looking on as I pulled the filly out. Not wanting to waste time, we had let her walk it off and the rains wash the mud off her for the rest of the commute. That was the last of their cheery disposition though. For the more we closed in on the farm, the more happy emotions bled out of them to make way for a whole palette of anxiety and distress, a scene completely surreal to the likes of them sliding into view.

Sweet Apple Acres was the farm’s name, now that I had the time to deign a read of its welcome sign. The farm itself was anything but sweet this late afternoon. Though I remained stoic inside, I did my best to reciprocate the faces of Rainbow Dash and Scoots as we entered the property.

Last I recalled they were breaking work by the time I decided to indulge and feast. It had been a strange sensation eating solid food and guzzling drink again, but my hunger had overshadowed the peculiarity of digestion as they then cleared the barns and huddled for their day’s pay. It shouldn’t have collapsed any time soon, but it did, much to my own dampened surprise. Lesser bugs of Equestria were even more incompetent. No one should have been hurt by the barn’s collapse, and the way these ponies carried themselves pointed to the likelihood. But this spectrum… I had been ken to many a sight far more desolate than these ponies will ever know, but what I saw made me wonder. Such an ambiance and the looks on their faces…the ponies were dumped as they would say, of that there was no doubt. But filtering out all the ponies who had passed me awhile ago and the farm ponies, it was as if the workers were no strangers to ill tidings. The crying in the air, their sounds and motions mirrored a familiarity to that place closely. That gray plane…the dreary place that they so despisingly called the Aerie. A droning doldrum of survivors that sidled through the debris, looking for scraps. I had ever only chanced upon the place once before on my march to Equestria, but the shades of emotion that loomed there were so murky and cloying, a changeling would find better chance of seeing the sun in my home. Now recounting the sunless place itself, the thought made me laugh, but I stifled it to maintain the gloomy air. Who were these ponies? The air they put forth was an air not out of place in the Aerie, a defeatist’s hue. I had wanted nothing to do with its people and I had whisked my retinue from that place as fast as our wings could take us. The Aerie was not place to be for anything, and I could sense it in their emotions, a veneer of normalcy that belied the sorrow and discontent of the masses. And perchance their desires were handed to them in an instant, I reasoned the voided black of their want would only grow. Magick was a substance of irresistible wont outside the Jagds, a deep rooted vice for over a millennium. Had they their hands on some form of magick from here where the stuff seeped like no one’s business… I shuddered to think how things would have escalated for them, only to go the dogs as quickly as it came. The vision was a smattering of the havoc that beset my people…when that demon proffered a deceitful salvation, so very long ago.

A brush against something hard knocked me out of my tangent daze, and the scene of the now turned to focus in my eyes again. I looked at the thing, the table with soggy blueprint strewn across slightly ripped on its surface. I was right though, it shouldn’t have collapsed so soon. The bugs ‘round here were incompetent indeed!

Rainbow Dash was looking at something else though, gasping at the sight in front of her with Scoots joining in.

“Granny Smith!” The small orange filly yelled, leaving us behind. She ran up to the large red stallion near the old mare, letting go of her scooter for the first time since I had seen her. “What happened, Big Mac? Is she hurt?”

The stallion nodded with his head held low, replying between sobs well-masked by the rain. “No, Scootaloo… Granny’s fine, she just done fainted is all.” I had hobbled my way with Rainbow Dash in tow, but she didn’t have the words yet. Neither did I, for it was clear to me this just wasn’t it.

Scootaloo, as I had now learned to be her proper name, she cocked her head confused. “Then what gives? Ponies are all acting sad, like somepony got hurt or…” There was a blip in her hue. The filly wanted to go on, to ask if the worse had happened. But she caught the end of the thought before it came out. The possibility was alien to her. The hesitance on her face spoke of the weight the words would impart on her tongue and the warmth they would briefly steal from her should she finish the thought.

“Somepony did get hurt,” he answered, somberly pointing to a trio who sat by on a beam of timber set at the corner of the farmhouse.

Our collective gaze turned and the two ponies in my company turned a shade paler again. It was that blasted cowpony, Applejack and two others. The three of us drew near and I was allowed a closer inspection of them without having to squint my irises. She sat there with arms around the two fillies who bawled against her. The fillies were less than fine, but she herself looked even worse for wear. And that was saying something. The fillies on her lap were covered in cuts and splinters, none of which were too severe for such young ponies. Their half-lidded eyes were webbed red with veins, the bags under their eyes having freshly turned dark, while the rain concealed the rivers they cried, but only just. Applejack herself was a phantom, her coat having visibly turned a pale sandy color while she herself neither spoke nor moved and only stared into vacant space. Not even the hooves she had around the barrels of the weeping children on her lap moved. Her mouth was agape…her hue a dark pit. As I read her countenance, the voices between us clamored. The two fillies, a light yellow one with a red mane and tail accented by a crummy pink bow that sagged in the rain, and the other a pristine white unicorn with two toned hair. Their features crumpled into a mess as they pressed their faces against her.

“Applebloom, Sweetie Belle! Oh my gosh, you two look horrible!” Scootaloo zipped over to them in a hurry, addressing her crying friends.

“Applejack,” Rainbow Dash began amidst the filly trying to talk to her friends, trying to find the words. But the farmpony didn't answer. Rainbow and Scootaloo continued to talk over each other, but the words they spoke were as clear as day to one such as I.

“I can’t believe this all just happened! Did the barn really fall over you two? Look at all those cuts and splinters… Please stop crying!”

“Applejack, you okay?” Taking a hint, I took a few steps forward to let her nudge a hoof at her friend. Her eyes moved slightly at the touch and sound of new voices up close, not batting her lids as the rain wetted them sober in the place of coddling salted tears.

“We were supposed to catch that thief red-hoofed,” Scootaloo went on, hoping her recounting of her blunder would make her friends feel better. The present hues were not a good selection, not good at all. They were contrasting each other, and if this went on, one hue would…I chose to let it play out in front of me, as curious as I was. “And I went over to get Rainbow Dash, like you said so she could help us catch them. But I got caught that freak whirlwind and it took me for one heck of a ride! It was amazing, but it was terrible also. Then that brave mare who isn’t as cool as Dash dove into it all and pushed me out! It was amazing, but also kinda stupid now that I think back… Is that mare okay? I hope she isn’t too—”

There it was…the slip, a twain.

A hue had bled out and burst in anger, and it was Applejack’s. For a split second, it had turned a furious red. Her hoof fell down, caught in mine before it could land a swift blow on the babbling filly’s face. As her spectrum doused from a red back into black, we all stared blankly at the development, even the crying fillies.

“Applejack! What the buck!?” Rainbow Dash yelled, limping over to her friend in a hurry and shoving her hard from her spot on the log. The cowpony tumble back but didn’t resist the fall. She meagerly propped herself up by her elbows after.

“You better explain yourself fast, or so help me, Colgate’s gonna be getting one heck of a surprise appointment for tomorrow!” The blue mare threatened in spite of her own injuries with a hoof cocked.

She winced in pain, nearly reeling back as she did her best to keep her bad wing from flaring up with her emotions. The fillies stood by me, frightened beyond anything they had seen until this point, their emotions literally painted on their faces in my eyes. Upon my own lips, yours truly only ever deigned to grace a thin line, unfeeling and stoic as can be. I knew, for this just wasn’t it either. I was just thankful no pony had noticed how out of character I was for my disguise.

Moments passed and not even a peep came out of Applejack, her eyes listless and mouth still agape like a fish out of water. “Say something, you bucking rotten apple!”

At her unresponsiveness, the pegasus let loose a backhoof that knocked the stetson of her friend’s head. The action caused the fillies to reel, particularly the yellow one, whom I assumed was the farmpony’s sister, being held back by her friends.

“Applejack! Rainbow, please--!” I cut her off with a hoof.

“No,” I said, locking my gaze with hers. “Let it happen... This needs to happen.”

At my words, the fillies hushed their voices, anxious for what they might see. If only they could see what I saw. Turning back to the bandaged patchwork that was Rainbow Dash, her hue was a fuming red. Next my eyes settled over the sorry pony on the ground. A dark green slowly pooled out from the black hue that loomed around her. That was a good sign. The hue then evolved into a dark blue, then into a middling blue, and then finally a dreary indigo. Applejack shed her first tear unnoticed as the rain continued to fall, but I saw it clear as day, a trickle down her face brimming with indigo. She turned to the pegasus who was still fuming at her. When their eyes locked, she cried a torrent not even the rain could hide.

Rainbow relented, her own anger simmering coldly with the pitter patter around her as she lowered her hoof. “Applejack…just say something, will you?” She shied her eyes, ashamed that she had raised a hoof at her friend in earnest hostility.

The cowpony sobbed and sobbed, but she managed to speak between them. “Blood, so much blood…” She cradled her head in her arms, casting her shell-shocked gaze to the ground.

“You mean the girls?” Rainbow asked to clarify with a hoof waving to our general direction. The unicorn filly and the younger Apple only held each other as their tiny-winged friend could only wonder, still in the dark. “It’s just a bunch of cuts and scrapes! They’re not bleeding anymore, they’re totally fine! And you overreacted, buster!”

“I’m sorry I pushed ya…” Applejack kept going on between sobs. “I’m sorry…I’m sorry…I’m sorry!”

Rainbow scrunched her brow, her hue assuming a frustrated yellow as she eyed her wailing friend. The fillies huddled closer to me, Scootaloo still confused and only growing more anxious while her friends managed to wring out a few more tears. I could feel every drop of it. Even the ones over there just past the corner.

“I’m sorry… I’m sorry…I’m sorry…I’m sorry…I’m sorry…I’m sorry…I’m sorry!”

Rainbow had had enough. “Stop crying and try speaking Eoch properly like a grown mare! You’re not making any sense!” She pulled Applejack up by her shoulders and shook her back and forth.

Applebloom, whom I assumed was the yellow one, swooped in and put herself between the irate pegasus, unable to see her sister treated like that anymore. “Rainbow Dash!” She yelled as the mare dropped her sister and let her continue bawling, sprawled on the ground. “It’s not her fault!”

“What!?” Her frustrated gaze fell upon the yellow filly, . "Just tell me what the buck happened!?"

She pointed in a general direction, towards the barn that had fallen over at the back. “See for yourself!” The unicorn filly drew close to Applebloom and laid a hoof on her withers, both still crying. They rejoined Applejack in sorrow and sobs as we made for our next stop.

Past the turn, there we saw it... We had yet to see the full picture but their hues already evolved into an icy blue.

A yellow winged mare stood there blocking the sight as a griffon stood close by, looking on. They were a short stone’s throw away, but the ground around them was vibrant as if it had drunk from a fresh spring of blood. The mare and the griffon were covered in it. Even in the short distance, the simple act of making our way there was a weighty and taxing affair with these two ponies in tow. Coming halfway, the cold sentiments of Scootaloo and Rainbow Dash gnawed at my focus too much, I had let her off and settled the bandaged mare to sit on the ground.

“This is far enough, she’s much too young to see,” I said in somber monotone.

We both looked over to the filly beside us. She stared blankly into space and quavered at her limbs, bearing the same listless expression as the cowpony before she had broken into sobs. Hers was a small blotch that centered right over her little filly heart, an aureole of deep icy blue that approached pitch black. Rainbow Dash held the filly close and spoke in a hush voice to her. I would have listened in, but there were…other matters at hoof.

I approached and saw the griffon who wallowed on the side in despair, beak gritting and gnashing with regret while a talon covered his eyes. The yellow mare had flushed her own disposition in hues of denial. Hers was an ugly and dizzying swirl of dull and murky colors, an octarine deprived of its luster and left to waste away in the dust of some forgotten cave. She kept to a desperate rhythm as she pressed hooves on her friend’s barrel, keen against reality to have her breathing again. And when that didn’t work, she pressed her lips down to breath air into her lungs.

Neither efforts were fruitful, nor did they acknowledged me as I approached. It was unbearable to watch.

“It's futile…”

The yellow mare turned around, finally noticing me after having said one word. “…What did you say?” Her glare was force crashing against me, but I did not falter neither at her glare nor her radiating hues.

“You’re in denial…”

This last bit I threw quickly churned her ire, and the octarine evolved into a furious red. She rose up and turned around to gave me a swift buck, sending me in a short tumble back. While she had more pent-up rage and desperation to let loose on me, Rainbow had somehow put herself between us in spite of her state. Her griffon friend quickly came to as well, and he held her back. Getting back on my hooves, I passed the griffon and the mare with Rainbow herself taking it all in with a passivity completely unlike herself when she bravely fought in Canterlot. Scootaloo had somehow snuck past all of us and stepped before the body that laid cold and unmoving on the ground. Her slip was surprisingly less extraneous, and she cried looking down at the results of her mistakes with a face of stone.

Restrained by the griffon, the mare behind me raged on, spouting expletive after expletive as I approached her friend's corse and the filly who regarded it with silent tears. Her words were arrows upon the shield I held up in my ears. They flicked and swiveled incessantly at the noises that plagued me, and they fidgeted even more so in this rain. I rested a hoof on the stock still Scootaloo.

“We all are…”

I then nodded for her to rejoin Rainbow Dash who stood a stride behind us. The action somehow registered through her despair and her foal hooves shuffled and dragged on the muddy ground along the way.

"So am I…”

The admittance escaped me when I didn’t mean to…

Here it was…my slip, a snap. The twain in my resolve to never get involved and let these ponies rot away in their indulgence. I had forgotten myself…

I had set it all up...I was partly responsible for this…and yet there was something I could do.

I leaned down to the lifeless body, lips slightly ajar and frozen on her face in a parting smile. Whispering into her ear, a tiny light flitted from me over her body, fluttering here and there before settling in her bosom.

“Don’t go…” I began, with more sincerity than I thought I had left.

“Don't go gently…” The voices around me dissipated and turned silent as they listened and watched on. “Don't go gently…don't go gently…”

My hooves rested on her chest, and then I raised one up in the air.

“This…this is not your good night!”

Her head jerked upward as my hoof landed squarely on her chest. Her friend threw profanities for my actions with the other three quickly approaching, wanting answers.

The answer was a cough…a retching throat that spewed small drops of blood.

*cough…cough…cough…

The sound was a miracle to their ears, and all drew near to take it in. Even Scootaloo. The resuscitated mare let out a few more coughs, dispelling anymore doubt that she was well among the living.

“Loyal Levy! You’re alive!” The griffon rejoiced, tears more apparent in the rain that began to subside.

Smiles were abound, but none more wide and relieved than the yellow mare who held up her friend back from the fade. “Loyal Levy, you idiot…the daftest idiot in the Edgelunds ya are, in all of Equestria! Don’t ever do something that daft again!”

Loyal Levy said nothing in response, only breathing softly in her arms. Though, the words were more of a comfort to those around her than anything else. Rainbow herself openly shed tears of joy, albeit quietly and reserved. Scootaloo had released the dam she had held back and cried into the prism mare’s chest. She only ever broke her sobs to glance at the mare whose near death experience butterflied from her recklessness.

“So that’s her name… Loyal Levy…” I stated in a blasé voice.

At my words, the yellow mare’s ears swiveled at my direction. Her eyes darted left and right, hues telling of her mind that buzzed with a disarray of questions. The others followed suit and they all turned to me.

“Just who are…you…”

I wasn’t there anymore. Not really. Out of the light and out of their sight. In between the curtain or corridor of sunbeams that broke through the grey, whichever way you would prefer. Though if one looked closer, the hoofmarks still leaving a clear impression on the ground would have been apparent to notice. But thankfully they didn’t have time to notice, as a crowd of ponies ambled carelessly from the front of the property. I simply and quietly stepped aside as they lumbered over the last evidence of my presence. What impeccable timing.

“Heavens to Betsy…” Applejack was beside herself, unable to grasp her relief for a second as she came up behind the prism mare. The fillies near her were more receptive and smiled in light of the turn of events.

“She’s alive!” The red stallion beside Applejack exclaimed to dispel any doubt. “She’s alive! Somepony call Ponyville General quick--!”

“What the hay just happened here? What's with this ruckus?” Another mare cut in, coming forward after she forced her way from the back. Her hair was a murky green while her coat was a sweetly faded tangerine. “I’m gone for the afternoon on an errand for Applejack, then you slackers up and let the bank barn collapse—“

Her eyes fell on the delicate scene before her. Crepe Vine vomited on sight, losing the hay fries and daisy sandwich she had partaken of while away. And then she fainted.

My, what impeccable timing indeed!

---

What followed was a surprising development. At least to me it was.

The ponies present rejoiced as the casualty count retracted to zero. An ambulance carriage came by the property to collect the critically injured mare. Invisible, I watched them as they wordlessly assessed her shortly before carrying her off to their infirmaries. They were all surprised at her apparent case, and they did their best not to show it, lest they cause further commotion. And then a few journalists arrived at the scene to interview witnesses for their respective papers. They went around, tallying groups as they interviewed them, most notably the proprietors of Sweet Apple Acres themselves, and the four who had been there when the mare of interest had defied all odds and first came to, three of which had also been at the scene of the freak dervish. It was close to a field day for them.

Afterwards, they were all attended to by other paramedics who saw to their wounds as well as their traumas. Arguably Applebloom and her unicorn friend were worse off than any pony else in the farm, yet any discomfort they felt was supplanted by the relief of knowing their savior had survived, a fact that greatly relieved every pony present that is. In any case they weren’t too injured enough to admit, so they were let go. Scootaloo on the other hand still bawled into Rainbow Dash, even as they both received attention from their attendants, further attention in Rainbow’s case. The griffon was a little roughed up, not deserving much attention other than for some aches beneath his plumage. Relatively unharmed herself, his marefriend shadowed him closely as they accompanied Loyal Levy into the carriage.

Most of all, they said nothing about me. Not a peep about having seen another Crepe Vine pop out at a totally different place after disappearing from just a stride away. The other ponies present were too caught up by the gloom in the first place to even notice that I had donned her visage as a disguise. No pony remembered aside from those four who had seen me cast the shiny red down over Loyal Levy and bring her back from the fade. I could tell they remembered. The tiny persisting turbulence on them was clear to see, even though they had forced their questions to the back of their minds. They were keeping mum on purpose... I didn't know why exactly. But for that I was… I was…

It was commendable of them, to omit the truth in my favor.

The crowds dissipated as the workers and weather team made their way home. The Apples had gone in to cleanse the grime of the day’s tribulations and invited Rainbow Dash and Scootaloo in. Shortly after, that pristine unicorn who had a hoof in thwarting my past plans came round as well. At this point, I might as well assume that those six were a tight-knit group and save myself the surprise! The unicorn, Rarity her name was, had come to collect her sister, Sweetie Belle, Applebloom’s unicorn friend. The three elements talked briefly and then adjourned, after which Rainbow went off to escort Scootaloo back home. The farm was a now a quiet expanse patiently awaiting the passing of the twilight.

I had done enough damage here already. I had better move along myself.

Skulking the pristine unicorn, Rarity, and her sister, Sweetie Belle as they left the farm, I lifted a few bits from her saddle bag without her noticing. Underhanded sleights of hoof were beneath me, and it left a weight in my gut to resort to such methods. I didn't want stoop any lower than I had recently, but this was to be the last of it. There was no going back for me, and no going forward either. Head held low as I stood there with bits in hoof, I resigned myself to a failure’s fate. The rest of my life to be spent exiled in a paradise whose residents reviled me. But at least I would live with dignity, no longer a mongrel queen at a dark voice’s beck and call…however lonesome that would come to mean.

I wandered the town in an aimless dolor well after the sun dipped beneath the horizon. There were fewer ponies on the streets now, given this hour of the night. Then my eyes settled upon a peculiar sight. It was a popular café, the Sugar Cube Corner, as its sign so gaudily advertised. Normally packed during the day, I was somewhat pleased that it was still open when all other businesses around it had already closed. My stomach had the gall to churn and growl at the temptation of stepping inside, even after I had already ate, even after I had been eating all week! This was ridiculous. Perhaps that spell had drained a lot more out of me than I thought. It was never intended for use on beings other than changelings. Or it was my injuries healing in record time from simply being in this Equestrian air?

Either way, there was no use thinking about it at this point. I could only obey my grumbling tummy, so I approached the café in hopes that a quick bite would be enough to stave my hunger for the night. The establishment had been exorbitantly embellished with loads of sweet-themed decor, that I had almost thought a Verdanniem confectioner had been commissioned and had his way with the construction. It was appalling at first glance and grating to linger on. The interior was decidedly more sedate and quaint than the exterior, and I was thankful I wouldn’t have to suffer such distasteful design choices while partaking of the services.

Having long donned a new disguise as a nondescript off grey earth pony with lush chartreuse hair and beige accents, I strode into the establishment and approached the counter. It was helmed by that insufferable Pink Menace, but she was asleep at the counter, obnoxiously snoring at that. Ugh, could I possibly not be confronted by those who had thwarted me in the past? Karma was a cruel watcher on high. Well, at least I was alone in the shop…or I had come in just as they were about to close. Quite rude of me to—the saloon doors creaked as it opened behind me. I spoke too soon again…Ooh, the timing was once again impeccable…impeccably against me, that is.

“Oww, watch it!” A familiar voice grumbled, her wing grazed by swinging door.

The prism pegasus, Rainbow Dash, hobbled her way into the café as a tint of blue aura held open the doors for her. Following suit was the pristine unicorn, Rarity, letting go of her hold as she walked in.

“Ah, I apologize, Rainbow. I let my mind wander off for a bit there…” Rarity apologized, walking beside her injured friend and keeping watch of her gait. “Oooh, do forgive me…if I come off as light-headed again. It's just…this is just a bit too much for a lady to take in one sitting.”

The sullen look on her face was enough for the pegasus to relent. “Never mind. Let’s just go get something to eat while we wait for Applejack.” The pegasus took a spot at a booth close to the entrance, while Rarity fell in line behind me, ever bearing a pensive look.

Not a scream nor cry for help, yet half the ensemble was already bearing down on me with another on her way! This was a cruel joke, watcher. Oh well, might as well get this over with.

“Um, excuse me?” I greeted the pink mare, manning the register. She didn’t budge, continuing to snore even as I rang the bell not five inches away from her ear. “Ermm, miss?”

Again, she remained unresponsive. That was when Rarity came up from behind me.

“Excuse me, dear. Allow me.” She prodded at the Pink Menace on her shoulder, and when that proved fruitless, Rarity gently placed a hoof on her withers and coaxed her to rise. “Pinkie Pie, dear. You have a customer, so would please kindly wake up?”

The sleeping mare didn’t even stir.

“Oh dear,” Rarity exclaimed, turning to regard me.

“I am aware that Pinkie occasionally closes the café at odd hours, but perhaps coming in at a time such as this was not the best of ideas.” Her eyes shifted between me and herself, partially addressing herself with those words as well.

“Here, let me have a go,” Rainbow hollered from her booth. She took in a lungful of breath and—

“SOMEPONY BROKE A PINKIE PROMISE!!”

My ears rung with her echo at her sudden scream as did Rarity’s, but none more so than the formerly sleeping Pink menace.

“WHO—WHAT—WHERE!?”

Rarity and I consoled our ears with a massage, Rainbow guffawed as much as her bruises allowed her, and the now wide awake cashier glared daggers at her…or in her case, candy cane stakes. “Dashie, that was mean! You know how seriously I take Pinkie Promises!”

Rarity shuffled coyly into her view to catch her attention. “Do forgive Rainbow’s crude methods, but Pinkie Pie, you have a customer,” she mentioned before returning to the booth the prism pegasus occupied.

“Oh—OH!” The confectioner’s drowsy gaze drifted over to me after rubbing the sand from her eyes, or at least I assumed she was a confectioner. Sugar simply emanated from her in waves and assaulted my nose. Her lips curved down in a miffed expression that somehow felt misplaced on her face as she onced me over and glanced to the wall clock.

“Oh… This is kinda cheating, you know. I know, I know, it’s a Tuesday, but we close in five minutes!” She told me off with a wag of her hoof. After turning around to comb her mane and regain some of its puffiness back, she readdressed me with a smile sort of still looking haggard. “So what will it be?”

My eyes hovered over the menu as an indistinct flicking sound registered in my ears. As if I didn’t already feel annoyed from that incessant ringing that had been pestering me all day. At the flicking sound’s queue, the lights showcasing the listed confections flickered on an off until only one remained on. I could tell the Pink Menace had a hoof in this, judging by her hoof subtly articulating beneath the counter, the smirk she held back and the mischievous pink hue about her. This was getting annoying.

“Ha…I’ll have a daffodil sandwich and a Pinkie Cake special, please,” I sighed, taking the hint and hoofing over some bits.

Quite full of herself that her ruse was a success, she turned around to prep the counter behind her.

“Will that be to-go or dine in?” She asked with a chuckle. But her ears swiveled up when she realized what she had asked me.

“Dine in, please.” Her mane deflated somewhat at my answer and we swapped expressions in a brief playful staredown. It was amusing to say the least, and she poked her own eye in unfazed and then pointed the hoof to me vigilantly… This mare was strange.

The confectioner opened a nearby fridge, took out the ingredients and began making my order. She buzzed around at a speed I thought impossible for ponies, not slipping once in her dizzying pace. I had to hand it to her though, because I didn’t have much longer to wait for. And at the very least in following her sly suggestion, I had my order in a matter of minutes.

“Here you go. One daffodil sandwich and Pinkie Cake special.”

I eyed my order as I clenched the tray with my teeth and brought it over to a booth. Steam that came off them wafted into my nose, and while any doubt over its taste and quality was dispelled, I still wondered if this was enough to sate me when two dozen baskets of apples could not.

Seeing Pink Menace now free, Rarity cantered over to make her and Rainbow’s order, both items the confectioner was able to prepare even quicker than she did mine. Did this mean she was going slow in making mine?

With food out of the way, Rarity levitated their meals and brought them over to Rainbow as Pink Menace joined them with a cupcake of her own plucked…ugh, out from her mane. I had better keep my eyes from wandering over her while I ate.

“So Pinkie, do you have the stuff ready?” Rainbow asked as I bit down my sandwich.

“I have them right in the back, though I really hope Levy and her gang are okay with them being not so warm.” She scarfed the cupcake down so loudly as she spoke, I heard her from across the floor. I could still hear them clearly over this distance, owing that to my skills as a master infiltrator, and my interest couldn’t help but be piqued at the mention of Levy’s recovery.

“Did she look that bad?” The confectioner went on to ask, her voiced weighed down.

“Honestly, Pinkie…” Rainbow briefly hesitated, causing me to catch a bite of my sandwich in my throat and hack a cough. In a few moments, she found her words and replied in a somber tone. “Worse than you can imagine. If the medic ponies came in any later…I don’t know if she could’ve made it.”

The abject lie echoed in my ears as I finished the sandwich and started on the cake. Why would she do such a thing on my behalf? I couldn’t ignore this conversation. Chancing a glance, I saw a pink mane deflate again somewhat from behind a booth divider. After a passing silence, she spoke again. “Applejack should be here soon. Why don’t you go and get the stuff, Pinkie?”

“Sure thing,” she answered with a half-forced smile before scooting off her seat. “Be right back.”

Passing me by and making her way to the back of the café, I chomped at the bit as the window to confront them began to close. With the Pink Menace out of the way, I hoped this would pan out easier in a way. She just plain creeped me out.

“You’re awfully quiet today,” Rainbow noted addressing Rarity as I hurried to finish my cake.

Rarity sighed, massaging her temples with a hoof before speaking.

"Dear Rainbow, it has been a trying time these last several hours…" Tears peaked and welled in her eyes as she spoke. "Receiving news that Sweetie Belle had nearly perished in an accident, an accident over at Sweet Apple Acres no less, I-I-I was fuming and quite ready to collapse at the same time!..." Her hooves landed on the table in frustration.

I had stopped chewing as I regarded the morose hues emanating from her. "Rainbow, my mind wandered to dark places... I was on the brink of unjustly placing all my anger and blame on Applejack enough to end our friendship. Our stations as Element Bearers aside, I just don’t know how to come to terms with these emotions that very well held a firm grasp on me…and the thought scares me to no end...” The unicorn sobbed, barely able to hold her emotions.

A tense moment passed before Rainbow patted her on the withers and Rarity stifled her sorrowed altogether. Seeing her friend calm down some, the prism mare took a spoon in hoof and clinked it to her bowl. “And awfully deep, too,” Rainbow jibbed in a playful tone, gulping on her order of hot soup.

I was only a few bites from finishing my cake, sensing Rarity flush a coy pink in hues. “Oh, shush you.”

“Oh no, I’m serious,” Rainbow quickly replied, not missing a beat. “You’re talking about it and that’s the first step to coming to terms with those bad vibes. So that’s good.”

“Hmmm...and you’re quite ponderous yourself today, aren’t you?” The unicorn chuckled. “The others would be surprised.”

“Can it, Rarity!… I’m just trying some offhoof advice, is all…from a new friend…” Rainbow flushed at her prodding as I set my plate and utensils neatly on the table.

“Oooooh. And pray tell who might this new friend be? Darling, do spill!” The unicorn giggled in her seat, eager to leave her melancholy for the familiar respite of gossip. Her reaction imparted a small warmth in my ears and a flutter in my chest as I stood up and approached them… Regardless of the circumstances, I have never heard myself being addressed in such a way. Bar the detail I had been in disguise at the time, hearing their words only made me more curious.

“Um…excuse me,” I meekly opened, ears flicking incessantly all the while.

“I’m holding you to that later, Rainbow,” Rarity ended with enthusiasm before turning to me. “Yes, dear, can we help you?”

“Forgive me for eavesdropping, I couldn’t help but overhear…you ponies were talking about a Loyal Levy?”

Their faces crumpled with worry in mention of that name. They looked to each other then back to me. “Oh, dear me…Is she a friend of yours?”

“No… But we did share the same caravan coming in from the far west, and I am indebted to her a great deal.” A white lie in any case but still, these words…this unease in my voice…I wasn’t going off a script I had written off the top of my head, nor was this the mindset of a master infiltrator. This was sincere concern… Sincerity...I thought I had lost it. There in the deep pit of my soul, I found that tiny precious thing and clutched it tightly.

“Tell me… is she all right?”

---

Ooh, my head. An unpleasant pounding blasted away in my skull, stealing me from a long restful sleep. There I laid barely awake on the floor of my quarters, and yet it was still dark out, not even a peep of gray light peeking through the filter of the eternally cloudy sky. I must have fallen off of bed, which in part explained the ache that not only wracked my head but also pervaded my entire body. No matter that, this was not the time to wallow on the ground. It was still dark out, but I knew they were there just like before. Specks of dust fluttering, scions to the dream. As they had so whispered before, they whispered again even in the dark. And they were right. I had to get up, pick up my quill and pen the dream to paper before it slipped from my memory in the routine of the doldrum days.

Only there was no quill. There was no stack of papers, no inkwell, no uneven rickety nightstand that scraped legs on the rough floor. In fact it wasn’t even my crummy quarters.

A rain of sparks flew out briefly, landing on the floor before fading as the short-lived memory of stars I had seen that night. The ground was a smooth finished marble that had been matted by layers of undisturbed dust, outlying the shape I had impressed on its musty surface. The faint pervasive stench of swill water was absent, and while change was refreshing, the stagnant air that replaced it was oppressively unfamiliar. Drawing a quiet gasp, the air rasped my throat. I tried reaching for my throat to massage it, but couldn't move. My arms had been bound tight behind me, as were my feet. What I wouldn't give for swill water even now. A scratching sound flicked into my ears more distinctly from nearby, followed the sputtering of a flame that lit up the immediate halls and fended off the dark. My eyes fluttered open at the brightness, but I quickly closed my eyelids to a peep of a crack, hoping he didn’t notice. Beneath the orange glow of torch light, tight leather greaves collared a pair of lithe and strong legs above the ankles, ending in two scaly cracked feet that stood with blunted claw nails before me. Bangaa feet to be exact...and they smelled.

The memory quickly came back to me. It had begun as a pretense of an invitation to an unassuming drink. A merry drink over a simple trinket that would ensure my future in Garriene, and the shifty promise of it had been noodled before me tantalizingly. I took the bait none the wiser. She led me to their snare disguised as a tearful reunion where they cornered me like a rat and wrangled me like some prized hunt. The way I had been bound certainly made it feel that way.

Piper, that bastard, she had planned all this from the start! Was everything she had shown me just a facade? An elaborate lie...no, it wasn't. It was telling of our little family of dolls, a trait that stuck no matter how far we roamed or whatever trials we faced. We could never be insincere to each other. It was how we survived as well as we did. But what was she capable now after not seeing each other for so long? What if she had crossed the line and was now using her sincerity as a ploy? Threads of betrayal lead away so into the dark, a sign that also meant how much I had been left in the dark myself.

A furious resolve sparked inside me with the intent to escape and track Piper down for answers among other things. As anyone would have felt after finding one's self on this end of treacherous deeds, vengeance clouded the forefront of my mind. The audacity! Her depravity! She had used her own family as pretense to ensure my capture! I was not going to let this treachery go without pursuit. I was going to escape, and one way or another I would end things between her and I, even if...if…Yet there was no helping my current predicament. I couldn’t escape, at least not now. I could only pray I would be free soon enough and that my feet would be fast beneath me when the time would come to run.

"Get up you, slacker doll!" A gruff voice bellowed with a swift kick to my gut. The act had knocked the wind out of me, and he continued his assault when I still offered no answer. "Can't you hear words anymore?"

Tanzan hunkered down on lanky legs and playfully held a callous hand to his ear.

'You're mother was a lizard!' I would have tossed the insult at him and spat at his feet to punctuate. But having been kicked too often that it was a struggle to breath, I could only retch and spill bile from my empty stomach. The smile I saw on his face told me he was enjoying this.

"Haha, I'll take that as a maybe. The lot of you dolls are expendable anyhow." His hearty laugh reverberated down the cramped empty halls and seemed to continue on and on in either direction. I briefly wondered how long the tunnels went on for and where exactly I had been taken to, but in my current bundled state, my odds at escape hovered at number near nil. Soon enough, the hovered even closer to nil.

His amusement subsiding, footsteps echoed heavy and broad from the direction I couldn't see. It pained me to turn my head as I tried, but the telltale sound of the meaty end of a tail dragging behind a trudging encroacher told me it was a bangaa, likely the bulking Sahmad. His reptilian head peeked over the corner of my eye as he held up another torch. "You've had your fun, Tanzan, now rein it in. Sandata said this doll is going to be our new runner. Can't have a proper runner without a healthy set of breathing pipes now, can she? You know this more than I."

Tanzan sneered, tensing a foot in Sahmad's direction. "Why would you care though? Slacker dolls have always been slackers! A proper beating is what they need to etch some discipline into their memory for good and all. Makes sure they don't fall out of line anymore!"

"That's your vendetta," Sahmad shook his head. "And I would care because this is a job and this doll is goods." That was the despicable thing about these smuggler types. Nothing was object in their trade, even if one had the wherewithal to speak up and ask for mercy. I was just another asset, hence their cruelty.

At his words, Tanzan harrumphed indignantly at the show of reason, growling as he headed us off a few paces.

"And people say I'm supposed to be the brutish one," Sahmad jested as he turned his attention over to me. That little quip from him was surprising enough, but the way he carried himself made me curious... I wondered.

"Hey," I called to him. "Where are you taking me?"

"Do you really want to know?" He looked sort of surprised, that I wasn't scared to speak up to a hulking bangaa like him. Pulling out a flask of water from his satchel, he returned the gesture by surprising me in kind as he held its open mouth to me. "The answer might scare you witless and seal away your courage when you need it most."

I stared down at his offer dumbfounded. "Is this joke? Why are you doing this?"

"What, so a bangaa can't be decent without getting shifty looks? I'm here for a living and that living right now hinges on your delivery to Sandata. Nothing personal." He cut my bonds and handed me the flask, which seemed like a jug as he held it up to my small stature. Touching the mouth of the flask with my own, a cool refreshing splash crashed onto my lips and I widened my mouth to gape at the thing. Oh my stars, fresh clean water! The clarity of the water was sublime, but I did my best no to show it on my face.

"Why cut me loose now?" I asked after a hearty swig quenched my parched throat. "Why not carry me the whole way, if only to ensure I don't run?"

"Because hauling you would be a hindrance on the way ahead. You’ve got good legs on you, so I’d see you use them," He answered while cutting the bonds round my feet as well. Stowing his knife, he continued, "And suppose you do make a run for it…well, we've come far down long enough anyway. What’s more, it is pitch black all the way through to either end." He pointed over to Tanzan with torchlight handy in one direction and then over to the other direction, where only a blackness stared back. "You'd be wandering these undergrounds for days til you starve. Not a peep of miserable graylight for comfort."

While I was keenly against those of Sandata’s thrall, there was no malice or sleight held up by his words, not ones I could readily tell anyway. Repeating them in my head, I saw fewer reasons to doubt him and would have to take his word for the moment.

"Why does Sandata need me anyway?"

Tanzan stomped up over to us looking upset. "Oi, no talking to the captive!" He called, diverting Sahmad from my query.

"What do you care anyhow? She'll probably die within her first handful of runs, aha!" This Sahmad was starting to turn out a real blunt character. His words churned quite a fear and some strangely misplaced hearty abandon within me at the same time. Mixed feelings indeed.

"Time to stop dawdling, dimwits. The way has drained, but not for long. So start walking!" Tanzan huffed and hollered in a stride ahead, causing Sahmad to groan.

"No rest for the wicked, as they say." He motioned with a push at my back.

Catching up with Tanzan down the dark hall, we eventually came upon a dead end that hid a rough stairway chiseled into the stone. Falling into line, Sahmad headed the vanguard as Tanzan took the rear, sandwiching me in the middle. It was a tense silence for me as we went further down and down, the air turning colder. I decided to break the silence with a question. A question that had been gnawing the back of my mind, that is.

"Where is Piper?" I spoke coldly.

The hulking bangaa before me turned his head back, regarding me with no surprise as if he knew the question was coming. “Ah, that. Well, you'll see it soon enough. Best not spoil the view with my meager words."

“Humor me…I’d rather much have you spoil whatever surprise—“

The more I talked, the more a low vicious growling made itself known as it snuck behind my ears. Not wanting to be the focus of Tanzan’s ire any longer, I elected to keep mum for now and focus on our surroundings. “Keh, that’s what I thought…”

At his partner’s words, Sahmad chuckled and we pressed on.

I had never been underground. Indeed before the decline, I had scavenged my share of abandoned baknamy holes and Yensa nests, but never had I done so alone, always in the company of trusted family to watch my back. During the decline of Garriene, my captivity rooted a riveting unease in me and after the harrowing ordeal had passed, I never ventured back underground even in all my years as a scraper. Needless to say, I wanted out of these blasted tunnels, long forgotten routes and passages that ran through the unknown underbelly of the former heart of the Aerie. Having a vigilantly cruel taskmaster like Tanzan nip at my heels gave me no comfort, but with Sahmad taking the helm, I strangely had no qualms. That bangaa was…okay in my books.

We went on further and further. At this point, churned concrete and natural rock had melded, having been pressed so despairingly into each other, it became hard to tell where one ended and the other started. Now everywhere torchlight shone, bizarre details were revealed as they came to light. Rotten wood, rusty pipes and all manner of jutting protrusions stuck out of every surface, as if parts of the underground had been pressed into each other. We passed through a hall where I thought I spied a long bone jutting from the wall. I stopped to double take but Tanzan impelled me to move on with the threat of a beating. The protrusions were hazards pointed in our direction as we made our way deeper into the bowels of the Aerie. Some unknown ooze dripped from some of the hazards above, while some on the ground were so long, they edged our necks menacingly, threatening to gouge, slice and impale the careless. Eventually the hazards gave way as the ground angled down into a slope.

A huge open chamber presented itself before us. Rivers of filth poured forth from their cracked surfaces and abandoned the dank confines of the corroded sewer channels that bled as ruptured veins in the walls. It was a cyst in the earth, a cascading marsh sloping deeper underground. The smell was so unbearable and the fumes noxious, that we had to don masks and cloaks. Not only that there was barely enough footing for the two bangaa to walk side by side. I guessed this was what Sahmad meant back then. But the more time we spent spelunking into the bowels of this cavernous cyst, the more I feared the impossibility of the place.

Again, the place was a cascading marsh, with barely enough footing for the two bangaa to walk side by side. If memory and sense of direction served right, these caverns should have been extending further below the ruins of the Easton Slums. But that would mean we were veering off shore into the deep seas. Deep waters were not wet like actual water at all. They burned and scalded as an actual fire or fetid poison would on the skin, and to even be grazed by its fumes was to jape at death’s maw. How much more underground could Garriene have had? It felt like we were walking circles in a pus-filled welt fit to burst at any moment. Surely by now we should have hit a cliff side opening into the deep abyss. The worse that could have happened was the whole of the Easton ruins collapsing on us, crushing us like skittering insects who sought refuge beneath a loose tile on the floor. But nothing came to pass, not even a tremble. The cavern held the cascading marsh in a belly, sturdy and withstanding beyond my understanding. We kept on walking, following the disagreeable and improbable swamp down into the ground.

Then Sahmad pulled up a hand telling us to stop. We had reached an island at the butt dead end of the sloping marsh in the cavern, where the filth ended its run down and pooled to seep into the ground. Tanzan took careful scope of our rear in case we had been followed, his sharp reptilian eyes and ears keen to pick up the slightest disturbance. Certain we were in the clear, the bangaa nodded to each other, and we waded to a wall. As we came before a tight nook in the wall, Sahmad doused his torch light and sidled into the tight space first which took some effort on his part. Tanzan egged me to follow suit from behind and soon we were all in a tiny nook in the dark.

When we came to a dead end in the nook, the heavy grinding of stone sliding on stone echoed in front of me. An entrance opened up into a tight corridor that wound us hopelessly with twists and turns in the darkness. Its charred walls were not keen to the cheery jaunts of light, stifling even the radiance of a blazing torch to a subdued glow as it sat waiting at the sharp hidden turn of the labyrinth’s end. Without their guidance, I would have surely gotten myself lost, doomed to wander the corridors till starvation take me, a fate that awaited me anyway had I chosen to escape the bangaa in the first place.

I was mesmerized. That at the end of that cavernous vesicle of defilement in the flesh of the Aerie was all of this clandestine architecture. There, also awaiting us was a spartan antechamber with a rickety ladder in the middle of its space, leading further underground. A gentle draft blew in from the opening.

The bangaa nodded to each other and we followed it down step for creaking step. Its sounds hammered into me the possibility of it breaking under our weight, giving me cause to fear for my life. The fears were proven unfound as we descended, dismissed by curiosity when the cloying air of the swamp behind us gave way to a topsy yet wholesome chilly breeze. Touching down we came upon another antechamber, a smaller one punctuated by another torch whose light was also stifled by the same charred walls. Tanzan approached the heavy stone door this time, sliding it away as before.

There I was met by an incredible sight, a land draped by soft curtains of moonlight.

"What is this place?" I whispered in abject amazement.

Sahmad himself sighed, taking in the air. “Praise the gorgeous view while you can, little doll. This maybe the last you see such a sight.” His words were a little more than distant echoes, and were he not right in front of me as he said it, I would have thought the wind was speaking to me.

To say I was mesmerized as I had been with the secret labyrinth now seemed like an understatement. Seeing all that was before me, I was enraptured, enchanted. Even as Sahmad bound my hands again, this time with a leash attached, I lost all thought and presumption to the sheer wonder that gripped me.

"Gawk all you want, but dawdle a single moment and I’ll see you tumble over the edge," Tanzan reminded me with a tug at the rope. I nearly tripped at his actions but I didn't care. Sahmad might have rebuked him for his actions but I didn’t hear over the wind picking up and the sheer feeling of wonder.

As they lead me down a very long flight of hastily cobbled stone steps, I was able to take stock of the new world I found myself in. Behind us, vestiges of Garriene and its Aerie curled a jagged oozing spout from a rocky underbelly, out of which we exited. It had funneled down from the middle of the blackened murky sky, landing a ginger touch on the face of the snow-capped mountain we now found ourselves on. Beside it was a small waterfall of marsh filth, filtered by earth and falling as tainted drizzle. Ignoring the gnawing cold and the fumes of the Aerie that wafted downwind along the path, it was a beautiful, a gloriously fresh change. I wished I had a pen and paper to get a sketch of this down. Around us was an expansive mountain range, their snow-capped peaks walling the mountain we descended in and keeping the shy horizons of this new land away from my eager view.

On and on we went down the steps. It had been several hours since they first brought me to this world. By now, my amazement had subsided as hypothermia began to gnaw. It was then I spied a dense cover of green beneath the thinning veil of cloud and mist. It expanded farther than my eye could see, ending at the distant feet of the mountain range. Again I was mesmerized.

The winds howled a bluster over the bangaa’s cries as I stopped to gawk. “I never knew there was so much green in the world…”

And so much purple…

...

Wait a second…

...Purple?

The cries of the bangaa only managed to break through the howling winds as I regarded the light that shone. A purple light so bright…a light headed my way.

It missed by several dozen feet above us. The shockwave that followed was jarring and shook me to my core. The mountain we stood on trembled and it let loose a shelf of snow for the sudden jolt of energy that gave it a fright as would a nightmare cause a child to wet the bed. I did not see where the two bangaa went. My eyes laid solely on the rush of snow and debris as it swallowed me whole.

…

…

…

…

…

…

…

…

…

Pain…it ran in my veins…hard to move…

...

My blood idle…and nearly stagnant…so numb…so cold.

...

Snow crunched in the distance…but…so dark…so sleepy…

...

Just…keep dreaming…

...

...

...

---

I had taken a seat as Rarity skootched over in the booth. Her eyes drifted left and right, looking for the words to explain the events as she understood them, events I was already privy to. Hearing them again from different perspectives was…interesting to say the least. No, it was more than that. I was staring into another palette of emotions, another individual’s grasp and recounting of the same event.

Not long into her retelling, the Pink Menace rejoined us and I was properly introduced to her, though her hues were quite telling of some emotional restraint. Wasn’t she a party planner who welcomed every new pony in town or something? The exact detail escaped me, but the vague and ludicrous description only made my opinion of her lean more strangely.

In any case, she held herself back to listen to Rarity with the rest of us.

Her recounting was heartfelt and concise yet somewhat partial and uneven, which was understandable because she hadn’t been there for any of it. When she ended, the unicorn deferred to Rainbow for a first-hand account. My ears had been flicking incessantly at some blasted ringing I couldn’t place, but they did so more nervously for what information the prism mare might go on to divulge.

Rainbow’s version was accurate to say the least, albeit slightly embellished by her blunt choice words as opposed to the unicorn, and through her own prism perspective of things. But it was also accented with cheerful tones that gradually fell to somber hues the closer she drew to the end. The climax came two fold in her story. The first round of gasps came when she told the group of…Applejack’s meltdown, a meltdown in which she intervened in my place according to her account. Following a short silence, she continued to recount how Everett Fandango, the yellow pegasus close to Levy, slammed a hoof on her dead friend’s chest in a fit of denial. And that the final act of desperation—as disclosed by the paramedics in a slip of tongue breach of patient confidentiality as Rainbow received further attention—had miraculously dislodged a nail that was pinching a major artery to a tight close. Her detailed recounting of this part elicited the second round of gasps, followed by sighs of relief. But behind my façade, I knew better than to buy into her fabricated lie. Yet in the end, I was also relieved she had lied. Nevertheless, her recounting was more…complete, an enlightening sketch of the events that unfolded as opposed to my own tunnel-vision reminiscence.

Right then and there, Applejack came upon us. She was a bit sweaty from her walk, yet bath scents and soaps wafted from her faintly. Though her friends bought into her façade, there was no hiding her true disposition from me, a dreary twilight indigo hanging over her. We collectively regarded her as she approached the booth, waving the heat off her with her stetson. Vaguely aware of the eyes on her, Applejack shook of the wariness by greeting her friends. Then turning her attention to me, I reiterated my intent to join them in their late night hospital visit.

“Oh, am sorry to hear. You’re an acquaintance of Levy, aren’t ya, Miss…um.”

“Eldena,” I answered, as I had introduced myself to her friends just now.

“Hmmm, well it’s a pleasure meetin’ ya, Miss Eldena,” she returned quite dryly and drained, but managed a tip of her hat. “And as much as I like meeting new ponies, I think it’s best we get well along over to Ponyville General to see Loyal Levy. Visiting hours are almost up, and I’ve my own…matters to sort in the morning. So I hope you don’t mind.”

“Not at all, Miss Apple,” I replied, the formality earning a chuckle from her and imparting a brief orange warmth in her hue.

Getting up and out the door, the five of us made our way to the hospital. Unsurprisingly, the pace was set by Rainbow Dash as she lagged behind us with Rarity assisting her from time to time. Applejack offered to help Pinkie Pie with her rather sizeable carry-on, but made no effort to hide the antsy and slightly exasperated look on her face. The walk was relatively silent most of the way, but that was until the hospital’s roof peaked over the cover of buildings.

“Come on, Dash!” Applejack cajoled, her sights quickly glancing between her hobbling friend and the hospital in the dark distance. “Never thought I’d see the day you’d be settin’ the slowest pace in the group. Sign o’ the times, I guess,” she scoffed in annoyance.

“Hey, don’t you start with me!” The remark caught Rainbow in an off-put mood, with her brow scrunching for it. Applejack merely harrumphed and walked on, hearing her words with half a mind. “You’d be bruised and limping too if you tried maintaining altitude in front a tornado that spun faster than the dizzitron at the Wonderbolts academy." Seeing the Apple pony continue walking and not even deign to give her a passing glance, the prism mare brought up more words, ones she was sure would get all heads turning. "I got these catching Scoots at breakneck speeds and crashed into some real stubborn hardwood trees to boot! And you nearly hit her back in the farm!”

Applejack halted and Rainbow Dash nearly tripped. The convoy stopped as Rarity and Pinkie Pie regarded the farmpony with apprehension, now that it had been brought out in the open. The tension was palpable.

“How’s the little rascal, anyway?” Applejack asked to break the silence, tilting her stetson to hide her eyes.

“Short version, she’s shaken,” the prism pony answered, with Rarity and Pinkie turning to her. “She has a few bruises and those will be gone in a week…but the scars, Applejack. Those will take time, a lot of time.”

Another tense spell of silence passed with Rarity, Pinkie and I regarding them in alternating glances. Then she answered back. “I see… I’ll be sure to set things straight by her soon enough.”

The weight in her voice was apparent, and Rainbow eased with a sigh. “You’d better…”

“You have my word,” Applejack ended, raising her hat and looking the prism mare straight in the eye.

After a short moment to let the tension diffuse and catch a breath, we continued walking over to Ponyville General, but stopped again when we realized another pony in our posse lagged behind. Turning around, the four of us spotted Pinkie Pie in the back a few strides away, dozing off. Applejack closed in on her while balancing the well-wishing cargo she carried for the confectioner on her back. For a moment she stood listless and unresponsive, only snapping out of her daze as the farmer drew very close in proximity.

“Sorry, sugarcube. Was it somethin’ I said?” The farmpony asked, not immediately realizing her friend had fallen asleep on her hooves.

One tense moment after another and the next one was already upon us, this time with tears welling in the confectioner’s eyes. She slowly rejoined the group with Applejack in tow. “I’m sorry, girls… It’s nothing, really.”

Rarity and Rainbow Dash’s hues melded in a pensive yellow as they resonated the same feeling. Rainbow was about to speak, but Rarity headed her off.

“Now, now, Pinkie Pie. Don’t be so quick as to dismiss your troubles to a thought,” she started, meeting her friend after shortly making sure that the prism mare could stand on her own. “We all have our feelings about this whole incident, but bottling them up is unhealthy. So please tell us, what’s bothering you, dear.”

Their eyes met in a sincere moment, and she nodded after wiping her nose and drying her tears… There it was again…sincerity. It was a bright hue, a momentary flash that staved off Pinkie Pie’s sorrow... momentarily.

“Alright…but can it wait till we get inside? I don’t want the cookies to get any colder in this air…”

“Yes, yes, of course, dear.”

A gloom hung over us all as we entered the hospital and settled in the lobby, drawing concerned looks from other hospital goers and some of the staff. Applejack left us briefly to address the receptionist and inquire of the room we were looking for. It wasn’t a big hospital, but in picking up on the telltale scent of furnish in the air and a glance at the floor plan described on the shiny new emergency map, it was a reasonable guess to say the building had seen recent renovation. Applejack then relayed the room number to us, and my eyes quickly scanned over the floor plan. It was on the second floor, a windowed room towards the back of the building. The hospital didn’t have many walled-in rooms.

“Well, then,” Rarity began after a cough to warm herself up and garner every ponies’ attention.

“While we sit here and wait patiently for their say so, Pinkie Pie, dear…would you be so kind as to open up now and speak your mind?”

The mare in question fidgeted in her seat.

“This incident has left its mark on us all, and these feelings will likely linger indelibly so for some time… So please, do share it with us. After all, we’re here to listen…”

Pinkie pursed her lips in an anxious moment and Rarity quickly corrected her words in consideration. “Oh, I’m so sorry, dear. Whatever matter is weighing on your mind, whether it be the recent incident or some other storm cloud looming over you. Please do share.”

She looked to each one of us as we gave her the floor before our half-circle audience. First to Rainbow who leaned on the wall with rapt attention, then Rarity beside the pegasus doing her best to look supportive, then over to me as I reigned in my fidgeting ears and met her gaze with a cordial nod, and then settling last on Applejack who offered her own short encouragement.

“Go on, sugarcube. We’re all ears.”

She let out a deep sigh and her mane fell. Then Pinkie Pie spoke.

“It’s really sad, hearing all of this from you girls… It all happened so fast and all in one day... Rainbow got injured in a freak tornado from out of the Everfree forest, you two nearly lost your sisters, Applejack got so mad that she almost hit a filly who didn't know any better,” she addressed the mares one by one, their gazes shying away slightly in hindsight of the recent tangle of serious events. Her attention then fell upon me. “And you, Denee,” she addressed me with a sudden familiarity. Her pronunciation of my supposed ekename nearly drew a misplaced grin out of me. “Your friend saved two terrified fillies from a collapsing building and she nearly…she nearly died.” Her voice hitched at the utterance of a word she thought she would never say in austerity.

Pinkie Pie’s eyes pooled with tears that ran down her face, and she held back sobs as she continued to share her troubles.

“But I’m just…I-I’m just a self-absorbed, hyperactive, doo-doo mare who can’t spare a second of thought for her friends…because…because…” Our collective attention on her grew even more rapt with each stutter, but none more so than mine. For the first time in a very, very long time, I was neither cold nor indifferent to the plight of others. Intently I listened to her pleas, and I did not shy away. “Because…none of those things are why I’m like this!”

I was confused. We all were, but we didn’t interrupt her. We let Pinkie weep there for a short while before she eventually picked herself up and continued. She wheezed and sniveled all the while. “I-it's all because…because…I’ve been having nightmares…”

“What were the nightmares about, dear?” Rarity said, asking the question on all of our minds.

“It’s about them… all the others… the other ME’s…” Pinkie managed to answer us through her hesitation.

“The other Pinkie Pies…from the Mirror Pool?” Rainbow Dash took a moment to recall the incident, an incident buried beneath more recent hubbub among the other things. As an outsider who had furtively snuck into Ponyville among the immigrants of the caravan from the far west, I honestly had no idea what they were talking about. But maybe that was why I was so curious to begin with. “But that was over a week ago, two weeks in a few days. We sent all their cloney flanks back to the Mirror Pool, and Twilight made sure of that…Why would you be having nightmares about them?”

“That’s just it, Rainbow… It’s just so hard having these nightmares every single night. Dreams without cake, no smiles, no family or friends aside from themselves…aside from myself. Sometimes it feels like I had been dreaming for weeks, even months in just a few hours. I haven’t had even half a good night’s rest since, and I’m running on fumes! But…but that’s not the worst part.”

“What is it, Pinkie? Tell us.”

“I don’t know…I just don’t know any more if these things I’m seeing are nightmares!”

The exhausted mare collapsed into her hooves, bawling. Her unicorn friend drew near to console her in an embrace and the other two shortly followed. The implication of what she said hadn’t sunk in yet, it was out of my realm to consider. I left that for her friends to ponder on and did the only thing I could really do at the moment. I simply laid a hoof on her back. It was the least I could do, but it was the most meager of efforts compared to the effect her friends had on her. Theirs was a somber palette that evolved more beautifully and wholesome the more she cried. The swirl of deep sorrow centered on them as a cloying mist, evolving through an assortment of dreary hues before settling into a bright azure patch not out of place in a clear pastel sky. My effect on her was but a small accent that had long been swallowed by their whorl of emotions.

The azure hue settled well among them and Pinkie Pie stopped crying for the most part. She still sobbed and hicked at times, but she listened well to her friends as they each offered their thoughts as best as they could. A hazy purple settled over each of them as they did. A haze of regret, I was certain.

“Whoa, Pinkie. I didn’t know you were going through so much.” Rainbow said nothing more. She looked away, having no words as she earnestly thought of putting herself in her friend’s hooves.

Applejack looked quite concerned herself, the revelation boggling her more than she could express with words. “Gosh darn it, Pinkie Pie. And here I thought you were the one pony in Ponyville who wore her heart on her sleeve day and night. It’s been nearly a fortnight since and given the fact we see each other the most often what with the market being just a short ways away from Sugar Cube Corner, I didn’t notice a thing, not even a peep!… I don’t know… I got nothing. Pardon me kindly, let me get back to you…”

I didn’t notice anything myself! Being the only changeling in Ponyville, that was not a thought perceived in idle passing. Only hair of frayed resolve kept my mouth from gaping open in disbelief as a landlocked fish gasping at air would. “Dear Pinkie, that must have been terrible,” I offered as she looked over to me. But that was all I could say.

Another silence settled for a good half-minute before it was broken. Rarity spoke up this time to offer her piece.

“I didn’t want to be the mare to start with this tone, but you should have said something, Pinkie.” Not breaking her embrace, she spoke over her as an elder would, almost as a mother would. “I know this is not our field of expertise, but dear, you have been suffering for a goodly week now! I’m surprised how you’ve kept your mane so poofy and your complexion fair that I hadn’t caught a trace of your plight just by the look of you! And you all know me, I'm a mare who can tell things at a glance. I'm as sharp as the scissors I shear cloth with every day!” Rainbow and Applejack rolled eyes at their friend's self-centered tangent, a tangent that they were thankful didn't last long. “Regardless, you have suffered so much already and done so alone! We are your friends, Pinkie Pie, and we are here to support you through whatever troubles come your way. And again while this is not our field of expertise, we do know one pony who specializes in a specific problem such as dreams.” She had ended her speech in such a knowing tone, but Rainbow Dash was quick to pick it up.

“Oh, right! Why didn’t I think of her before?” She aha’d with a hoof raised, and when Applejack met her gaze, the idea connected.

“Dear, Princess Luna. Why didn’t we think of her in the first place? The solution was as plain to see as the honest-to-goodness cutie mark on my flank. And Rainbow realized it before I did!... Now I just feel dumb,” the farmpony shared, reflecting the unicorn and pegasus’ thoughts.

Rainbow went on to scoff at the cowpony for the off-putting comment on her implied intelligence, but I didn't hear the exchange as another pony approached us, tapping a hoof on my shoulder in particular. He whispered words in my ear and I turned to them, eager to relay the message.

“Yes, yes, girls. Luna can definitely help, and she is but a written correspondence away. See, Pinkie Pie? You have no need to worry. We are here for you, come what may,” Rarity assured with the warmest of smiles that matched the greeting of a sunrise. They all did.

“Hear, hear!” She concluded and the other two concurred with hollers and a hoof pumped in the air.

Their joy bounded and leaped in arcing strokes and cascading hues as though it were an elated foal frolicking through a meadow at the first thaw of spring. I could only offer a smile silently as I watched on, a bystander...ultimately an outsider to their jubilation.

I was still alone.

The doleful hues that loomed over the confectioner receded as the night would give way to the day, and she took them in a warm hug. “I’m so sorry, everypony! I should have said something sooner!” She shed a few more tears of relief for the reminder of having such devoted and loving friends by her side. But none shed more tears than her friends themselves as they turned blue with the impending asphyxia. I shed a good amount of tears myself, having been caught in the improbable strength of her vicegrip.

“Pinkie...dear!” Rarity’s cries went unheard. “Pinkie Pie!”

With the only free forelimb among the four of us, I had no choice but to be so bold as to introduce my hoof to her face. The pair rendezvoused in urgency and parted without notice, but nonetheless they were fully met and had become fast friends in the blink of an eye.

*Ooof!

“Sorry, girls,” Pinkie offered as she rubbed the offended cheek, giving us a moment to take our breaths. “I got caught in the moment.”

“I apologize for…my forwardness as well, Pinkie Pie…” I managed to reply between inhalations. “But we can go now… The nurse pony just gave us the go-ahead.”

At my words, they hurried on over to the floorplan described on the map. Once again Applejack took hold of half the well-wishing confections Pinkie Pie had brought as a care package, and Rainbow Dash managed to amble surprisingly fast as her battered state would allow her, much to Rarity’s chagrin.

“Hurry up, Denee!” Rainbow Dash hollered in a look back.

At her pegasus friend's call, Rarity turned back to give her own lady-like shout out. "We'll be down the hall on the left, just up the stairs. You can't miss it, darling!"

“I’ll be along shortly!” The others were already ahead for me, and I made efforts to catch up, step for nervous step. But the flicking of my ears told me something was amiss. That incessant ringing… and something…someone, watching. That was the least of my worries now though. In another deep breath, I steeled myself as best I could for whatever scene awaited me. But with my extent of culpability weighing heavy in mind, that I had implicated Levy for a crime she did not commit and impelled her into the middle of careening disasters, my resolve tremble and turned brittle at the fringes. It was almost as if I were certain something would make it so…and me cede over.

Climbing up the flight of stairs it wasn’t long before we were met by two familiar characters. On a commons bench, the yellow pegasus, Everett Fandago, leaned damp spot on her griffon friend’s shoulder, having fallen asleep in her sobs.

Both looked as haggard as they had been on the farm, their fur and feathers matted in some patches and windswept in others. They had largely washed the blood off, but apart from that, I guessed they hadn’t gone home to freshen up, or even make use of the hospital’s amenities. The griffon roused up at the clattering of hooves drawing near, having nearly nodded to sleep himself. After a yawn and brief smacking of his beak, he regarded us in a whistle and whisper, so as not to awaken his sleeping friend.

“Well, fancy that,” he regarded us past a yawn, primming the disheveled plumage of his head at least. “Never thought fresh outsiders such as ourselves would be gettin’ an esteemed crowd o’ visitors at this hour.” His hue painted a merry blue around him, hinting to me the amicable sleight in his greeting.

“Howdy, Gary. Umm, how’s Loyal Levy holdin’ up?” Applejack addressed the griffon with a name, greeting him in taking off her hat.

“Better than anyone expected, Apple Mam.” With tired eyes he looked to the room where the mare in question rested, the door leading to in only a few paces away.

“The operation went by in a flash. Not even a half an hour on the table to get some stubborn bits of nail and splinter out o’ her. What Everett did was a shot in the dark bearin’ all the risks. The doctors’ are sayin’ it was a miracle that no further complication resulted from her recklessness.” He had delivered it well and quite convincingly even to me, but it remained a lie nonetheless. First Rainbow Dash, and now this griffon… Why were they doing this?

“Ngggeeh…buck off, ya daft mare…mmmm, that was my storm cloud and ya know it!…” The yellow mare under his talon grumbled and cooed in a fit of shifting hooves. The griffon stroked her mane and pecked her on the noggin to assuage her from out of slumber’s embrace. At the familiar touch, she was restless no more as a deep sigh escaped her.

“Hush now, mo stoirin. Wouldn’t want to make a scene a’ front o’ visitors.”

The sweet gesture drew smiles out of all of us, Rarity especially who audibly cooed. Pinkie Pie stepped forward and meekly asked, shuffling in her hooves. “Is it okay if we go inside? We just want to say thank you for being the bravest pony in Ponyville. She saved two fillies we love very much.”

The griffon named Gary seemed to doze off for second before Pinkie’s words register. “Oh, well sure, go on ahead.” We motioned to enter the room, but not before letting us off with a warning. “Uhh, but tread lightly will ya? Levy is sleepin’ and she already has a visitor. A touchy little prick at that.” Beak sneering, his choice of words colored Rarity a flustered pink, earning him an indignant and disbelieving glance from the prim and proper mare at his change of manner, while others and I only quirked eyebrows in curiosity.

Entering the room and closing the door behind us, the sleeping form of Loyal Levy came into view as she lay still on the hospital bed. It wasn’t a big room to begin with, sporting only an adjacent closet from across the relatively narrow room. Besides the lone chair and a bedside table, there was just barely enough room for the five of us, which explained the courtesy of her two friends as they hoofed it out in the lounge.

Nearly covered in wraps from top to bottom, the sandy areas of her coat free of gauze had been drawn across with a stitch or two. A vision of her likeness to a pincushion imparted a chuckle from my lips, as black as the passing fancy was. There were spots of blood that seeped and pooled in some areas but they had clotted up some time ago, telling us her body was fast on the road to recovery. Yet for good measure, a line leading from a bag of fluid fed into her arm, while a contraption that buzzed and beeped funneled air into a mask over her muzzle. Taking up the chart at the foot of her bed in hoof, it seemed she was scheduled for another dressing of gauze. But the curious thing that took the group’s attention was the apparent lack of presiding visitor the griffon named Gary had just spoken of. They might have gone off somewhere, likely to relieve themselves or avail of a snack, but it didn’t change the lateness of the hour.

And so, we moved to begin our well-wishing.

However, Rarity interjected with a gasp as she made a cursory yet closer inspection of the patient. “Oh my stars,” she exclaimed with a hoof over her mouth.

“What is it, Rarity?” Asked Rainbow Dash as she hobbled to the unicorn’s side.

“This is her…that crude mare I met earlier today.” Her revelation was lost on the prism mare and I, while it elicited Pinkie Pie and Applejack to follow with their own gasps of surprise.

“You mean that churlish outsider who done what told you off? Loyal Levy is that same varmint?... Are you serious?” Applejack scratched her head in wonder.

In short notice, Rarity’s legs trembled at the turn of events. She would have collapsed on the floor were it not for the farmpony and pegasus catching her. She sobbed and sniveled at the foot of the bed, chasing any doubt away with each tear that fell. Convinced of the coincidence, the two who held her close commenced with proper well-wishing.

“Hey there,” Rainbow Dash began casually, scratching the back of her head.

“We don’t know each other, but your friend out there saved a filly caught in that tornado a while ago. She’s a good filly too, so I appreciate it a lot…A-and you did my friends here a real solid back then, saving their sisters…oh, but not Pinkie Pie though. She doesn’t have a little sister in Ponyville...and her sisters aren't little anymore. Thanks for the solid. You were brave out there, today.” Pinkie Pie smiled as the prism mare booped Levy’s rear hoof when she finished.

Next came Rarity as she sucked up the tears that bore down on her make-up and ran black streams down her face. With a wipe of her hoof, she forgone her makeup entirely and made a statement as bare as her face. “I’m sorry I ever judged you by your cover. Merit and demerit...those should be reserved for the intent of actions, and never for presumption." She shakily placed a solemn hoof on her Levy's leg, hoping the fleeting sensation would go along with her words as Levy dreamt. "For saving my sister, I am in your debt. Thank you, Loyal Levy.”

She had kept it short and deferred to Applejack with a nod.

The farmpony hiccuped in a breath when she realized her turn was up, expecting Rarity to draw it out with spiel. She stepped up to the bedside, her stetson given to the prism mare behind her for the moment. Lips pursed, her hues receded into a tiny thing, a meek swirl of faded orange that fluttered over her heart. Were I to make something of this, hoofing over the stetson was a willful lowering of her guard. She was vulnerable and no one but I was the wiser. Not even her friends.

“Ah…i-it’s me, Apple boss,” she began with a whimper as she regarded the shambled visage of the volunteer’s face more vividly. “I came to say hi…a-and give you your stamp. In hindsight, it was just deserts I took away for no good reason. Y-you still deserve that pay dock though…”

Her whimpering grew louder beyond her control, and it called her friends to attention as she fell to her knees.

“O-oh, who am I kiddin’! I’m sorry!… I’m so sorry, I lost sight of them fillies and let my bull-headedness push you all into that crossfire… I’m sorry for everything!” She bawled her eyes out as her friends consoled her with hooves on her back, caressing her in 'there, there' motions. We gave Applejack time to let it out and collect herself.

It was Pinkie’s turn now. Though her mane remained deflated and the bags under eyes clearly showed, she put on off an air of cheer about her which showed in the rich reds, lively greens and festive blues. Though against the relative dolor of her friends behind her and her own revelation of troubles earlier, her palette felt a tad subdued however cheery she tried to be. Her mane was visual proof of that.

“Hey there, Loyal Levy. It’s me, the Pink Menace.” My eyes quirked, surprised she had referred to Pinkie Pie with exact same ekename.

“I know you didn’t like me being all up front and center. You didn’t like me from the start!” Pinkie chuckled at the circumstance, that in spite of their stark difference in character, they were here in the same room.

“But I’m happy you’re here. So many bad things happened today all at once, but because a brave pony like you stepped in, we Ponyvillians won’t moping around for long. Thanks for choosing Ponyville and for saving two very special fillies. If it weren’t for you, I’d be having one more nightmare lined up tonight. I’ll have the bestest, most awesomest party ready for you when you wake up. A party fit for Celestia and Luna!”

The party mare pulled out a party popper from her deflated mane, and the four of us cringed for the ruckus she was about to unleash. Instead what came was a sound as depressed as any of us were with only a handful of crumpled confetti. Collective tensions eased.

“Oh, rats. It’s the old one from the corner of the box…” Pinkie then set aside her well-wishing gift on the chair, leaving a plate of cookies and a cupcake out on the bedside table.

The gathering of friends then turned their gazes to me. Yet there it was again, that incessant ringing in my ear....

“The nurses will be up for a check-up,” Rainbow addressed with Levy’s chart in hoof. “You’d better say your piece soon enough, Denee.”

…

“Denee?”

...

---

…

“Denee, you there?”

…

“Eldena, darling. Are you alright?” The pristine unicorn’s hoof fell on her shoulder, giving her a bit of a startle.

The slight crack in the door only afforded me a view of the dull grey earth pony, one of many faces she had donned as a disguise. The pony named Eldena shifted were she stood, her palette remaining that stubborn and lulled hue it had been since she had snuck into town amidst the caravan’s arrival over a week ago. It had only ever shifted once into a radiant white when Levy had nearly bought the farm on an actual honest farm. I had felt it all the way from the schoolhouse, hence my running all over the place in search of the source. Oh, the trouble I had gone through and the circles she had made me walk. She was so gonna get it.

“O-oh, I’m sorry, every pony. I was…deep in thought, is all. Could you say that again, please?”

“The nurse will be upon us shortly,” the unicorn answered, as the rainbow mare’s words had gone in one ear and exited out the other. “Would you like to say something…or perhaps would you prefer some privacy? I understand you were the one who approached us, but we are only just acquainted. It would behoove us to respect whatever relationship you have with Loyal Levy…hence the privacy.”

She’d like that very much, I could tell she would bite. This way it would be easier for me as well.

“Oh, I…I’d appreciate that very much,” Eldena answered, a cue the other took well enough to slowly file out of the room. “Thank you all.” She was so stuck in her own gloom she didn’t even notice me standing across the hall when the door opened! The dullard.

The door closed behind the four mares, and with a tap of my hoof, their eyes fell upon me. The melancholy that hung over their heads all day sloughed off to an unexpected and baffling surprise, for which they took up the most ridiculous expressions upon their faces. It made me giggle!

“Uh…what’s with the mini-Twilight?” The rainbow mare asked, a befuddled haze having settled on the visiting posse. She limped in a step forward to address me. “Are you a fangirl or something? And what’s so funny?”

“Oh, sorry about that. I went to get a snack,” I clarified, pulling out a chocolate oat bar out of nowhere with my magick.

Even the color of my aura baffled them deeply. I honestly thought they’d be wondering why I needed to go off when I could just whisk a snack over to me on a whim. There was a perfectly good explanation for that, but I'll save that for later.

"She even sounds like what I'd reckon of a younger Twi, too," the cowpony noted, eliciting suspicious murmurs from her friends.

Munching on the treat, the quartet only stared at me more. The Pink Menace eyed me with the most curiosity out of them all, giving me such a discerning squint with her face not an inch away from mine. Her inspection finished, she craned her neck back and rejoined her friends.

“Are you from the Mirror Pool? Did Twilight make you?” She spoke her question with conviction.

Her friends exchanged a shared apprehension and they regarded me with increased caution. The cowpony brought her hat down tight around her head, the pegasus tensed her stance in spite of her bruised state, and the unicorn looked at me with disgust as if my very existence was an aberration out of place on any of the Moons.

I humored their austerity for a bit and onced myself over—oh god, I wasn’t decent! “Ehehehe, I see. Sorry about that… I was running all over town after school too. Ugh, I’m sooooo sweaty!” Horn alight I swiftly corrected the problem, turning my coat from a shade of light pink to reveal the proper full shade of my lavender coat, in addition to wringing out whatever stench, sweat or mud had clung to me.

“Tadaaaaa~…Better?” I asked in earnest, arms flung open to their reactions and opinions.

“Who are you, and what have you done with Twilight!?” The rainbow mare took a hard stomp forward with her plumage frayed and spread to appear bigger. Her façade didn’t faze me one bit. Then the orange cowpony took a shot at intimidating me, again to the same effect.

“Are you a changeling!? Were you the one stealing from my stocks!?” She virtually seethed as she spoke through her teeth. The two mares were fuming at me with hues and a radiance not out of place in a kiln. It was tempered and righteous as malleable molten steel. The only detail lacking to paint the picture complete was a trail of smoke.

“Pffffffffffffttt!! Ahahahahahahahahahhahaha!” As much as I tried to restrain my guffaws, the reaction offended them anyway. I didn’t blame them. They were so in the dark.

“No. No, no, no, I am not a changeling! Me, a changeling? Do I look like a changeling to you?” I shot back at them in a sarcastic tone.

“Well, you do very well resemble somepony very close to us. And you certainly did just change the color of your coat right in front of our eyes. How arrogant of you to reveal yourself without company! Only a changeling can do that and would be so blatant,” the unicorn countered. I could feel her aura attempting to grip me at the scruff, but dispelling it was child’s play. She winced at the slight feedback I sent her way. She had it coming. And I was glad no one else was around for the moment, not ever the nurses. They were making a scene.

“Color correction, darling! Do you know it?” I responded in a snobbish drawl. “As Ponyville’s premier tailor and dressmaker, that much is expected of you.” In finishing with a chuckle, the turnabout caused her to become flushed with embarrassment. "The pastel lights of the place are too bright for me anyways, but I wasn't the one insisting I blend."

“What did you do to Everett and Griff!?” The farmpony demanded, but I shoo’d her accusing hoof aside.

“Oh, please. I’m not their keeper, I don’t keep tabs on them.” I passed the quartet as they drilled holes into me with their vigilant stares. “Maybe they’re off for a snack, or some R&R after all they've been through. They could be plonking it up somewhere for all I care, let them do what they want!”

The unicorn flushed red even more at the lackadaisical fancy, and I giggled at her for that. “Why, I never! Changeling orunsupervised uncouth filly, it makes no difference to me! Give me one good reason why we shouldn’t bear down on you now and hand you over to the authorities in power!”

Her ultimatum made no difference. A bluff to call in the coming light of what I was about to show them. At this point it was a dare, one I was fortuitously set to meet. It had all fallen into place. Their faces said it plain, and their hues only assured me of it. They wanted an answer.

Their answer was about to speak her apology.

A momentary flash escaped from my horn, and they tensed while shielding their eyes. They had turned jumpy for the chance I had used the short diversion to escape, each one of them taking up a varied stance of own take at vigilance. They only stood there gawking and confounded even more when their fears proved to be unfounded.

“One good reason,” I spoke to dramatic effect, pushing the door open in a creaking arc. “Coming right up.”

As I walked back into the room, they exchanged glances, quite unsure of my meaning. So I motioned for them to follow with a cordial bow and a wave of my hoof, gestures they took to warily. Once again, they filed into the room. The lush-eyed grey earth pony with beige accents upon a chartreuse mane, the mare named Eldena, she had taken a closer spot to the injured Loyal Levy, right by the contraption. The stance she held was as stoic as a wall, but her gaze never left the bed, not even for the hushed cadre of ponies who had quietly reentered the ward.

“I’m so sorry, dear Eldena. But this…trickster here insisted we barge right back in. She has a point to prove, it seems. But
once her charade unravels —” The unicorn’s line of thought screeched to a halt when she realized something abruptly.

With a verifying hoof, I waved a limb in front of the grey earth pony, but she did not respond. Even as I tapped hooves to the tiled floor in a little jig, she did not budge. “What did you do to Eldena, you changeling!?” The farmpony’s rusted distrust dabbed a smear on the spring in my step, and I nearly fell into the grey mare and almost ruined everything!

“For the last time, I am not a changeling! Now keep to the windows and just watch,” I instructed them as I righted myself.

“She can’t hear us,” Pinkie Pie guessed. The others looked to her, hazarding her guess was close to the mark in a few glances. “She can’t see us either… She put a spell on Denee just now.”

I walked over to the confectioner, ceding a nod to her. “No quite on the mark, but I’m impressed! So with every pony in their places, let’s just enjoy the show, shall we?”

The audience pressed to the wall closely, going silent. It was about time too.

The mare named Eldena was starting to give, starting to slip. Around the grey pony hovered her stubborn and lulled grey haze. It was bland and uninteresting for the longest time, but when she snapped, a blot of dark indigo welled from the center and oozed over her as gaping hole. A lone tear escaped her eye and fell down to a gentle drop, the first of many. To those without the sight, the teardrop left a gentle ripple of a mark on the tiled floor. Only I could see the energy for what it was, and she herself likely did too. The emotion condensed in the tear bloomed as dark tendrils of smog before dissipating in an ethereal sizzle.

The four ponies didn’t see anything but they could feel it. Their hairs began to stand on ends.

“Why?” The grey pony began, the first thing she had uttered in a while.

Her voice was coarse and shaky.

“Why did you save me…why did you let me live?” Her friends were confused, and they exchanged glances again if only to ensure they were all mutually in the dark.

Eldena continued.

“It was a lovely forest. A landscape more amicable than all others I had found myself in all my many years combined. The leaves were turning an autumn brown, and the gradual transformation was a miracle to my eyes!” The sudden recounting took them for a surprise, and the nostalgia in her words crept into our minds. There it shaped visions of a shy hinterland hiding in the cool shade of a tall mountain. There on very rare occasions, common oak on the sheltered end regions during autumn would weep the lively greens off their leaves and take up a beautiful hue as pale as virgin snow, hence the name of the forest.

“In our failure, we fell into its wood unannounced and unwanted by this country’s people. There were so many craters, and so many changelings the ponies had managed to capture!” Her head craned up to the ceiling and she laughed.

“So many captured...” She managed between laughs.

The cackles that escaped her were raucous and maniacal, filling the room with its echoes and radiating pulses of indigo haze for every throw of laughter. The sounds echoed in the onlooking mares as a darkening shade of fear.

“So many captured! So many captured! So may captured! So many captured! So many captured! So many captured!”

Her laughing ceased, only to be replaced by hysterical shrieking.

“So many captured! So many captured! So many captured! So many captured!”

Head craning down low, she clutched her head in her hooves, leaning against the bed. Her tone eventually shrunk down to a soft and frail quality as her throat rasped in pain.

“So many captured…So many captured… So many captured… So many captured… So many captured...”

Her hues no longer pulsed. They weighed a heavy drop and fell to the ground as a cloying miasma.

The mare named Eldena wept.

“So many abandoned…so many lost …” Now the energies were crawling as a thick mist on the ground, and the emotions they carried crept up the hooves of the mares who watched on. Their attention had no choice but to be rapt and their gazes would not be torn away from the scene unfolding before them by anything, leastwise not by the tears that ran down their faces, tears that welled from invasive emotions.

“So many left without hope…left alone to insanity’s embrace in the cold gnawing of the dark…”

There she wept into the bed, wailing all the while beside the practical vegetable who didn’t even stir. The mares beside me cried with her unwittingly. The farmpony had drawn her hat down to shield her face and unsee the scene, but the act was moot. The confectioner hid behind her mane, her hooves pressed over her ears in a futile attempt to block all sound. The unicorn let loose a veritable river that washed away any remaining makeup while clutching her mouth shut with both hooves. And the prism weatherpony clenched her teeth in a sneer, feathers ruffling and wings flinching at the sheer melancholy even against her pain. Their curiosity was drowning in despair and they felt their heartstrings tug to breaking point for a mare they barely knew.

“No...stop...please, make it stop…” The pegasus pleaded, but to no avail. This had to happen, needed to happen sometime. I was only along for the show, a performance that left me in want of popcorn.

“One day, two days, three days, five days, a fortnight! It's been too long!” She angrily listed off, turning around and sweeping the gift stuffs off the table, sending them to the floor.

“It’s been too long…too long for any of them to survive alone! So why...” The grey pony’s face craned over Loyal Levy. To mundane eyes, a shower of tears fell on her face, but the mares beside me knew better. The sensation was too glaring for them to not notice, the cascade of indigo haze bearing down and washing over the infirm pony on the bed. “Why did you save me?... Why didn't you leave me to those ponies?”

The mare was silent, her body faintly cold and unmoving save for the rising and falling of her chest. The faint exhalations passing through her lips in deep slumber frustrated Eldena and she grit her teeth.

“Tell me why…”

Those last words were spoken in a whisper, but they echoed louder than anything else in the room. The mares beside me shivered. Even I myself was not immune to a slight tingle.

Here it came again…

Another slip, another snap. And boy, it was one hell of doozie.

The ponies beside me did not see, but they felt what I saw. A cold rush of darkness enveloped the room and surged out in every direction with no regard of barriers either material or magickal in nature. All of Ponyville trembled for a short spell that day, and it would come to be known in their long treasured history as the ‘Gray Day,’ the day everyone in town wept. Not much would be gleaned about the phenomenon and the only damage it would deal to the town worthy of a footnote was a jolt in the circuitry of one breathing contraption in Ponyville General.

The lone machine at the bedside went haywire, screaming and shuddering before its screens seized in a multitude of colors. Then it turned black. The wake of its demise was a burst of light that sent small forks of electricity skittering in a brief and localized array. Every pony in the room was taken for a surprise and took cover. All but me that is, seeing the opportunity it presented.

She was gonna get it so bad. I smiled with the apex of the radiance, my eyes warded against its brightness.

Concurrent with the surge, I let loose a flash from my horn. When the light faded and the smoke and crackle settled, every pony in the room was coughing and hacking. Every pony and changeling, that is.

The smoke slowly receded much like how a curtain would draw away from center stage. The mares gasped at the sight before them. A revelation, an epiphany.

The grey earth pony with chartreuse mane was gone, and in her place, a changeling queen propped herself up on the floor. She gathered her bearings in front them as she had just withstood the surge of electricity from the malfunctioning machine not a hoof away. Standing to her full height, the shapeshifter coughed and hacked with a bit of blood running down the side of her crownless head. Loyal Levy laid unmoving on the hospital bed, even through all that. Apart from the dust and flecks of debris that settled over her, she was unharmed.

Said bed she laid upon had been push away diagonally across the room, having been carted directly toward us, the audience. The cowpony had put herself between the oncoming furnishing and her friends, the pristine unicorn and the injured prism weatherpony. Her body made hardy from daily toil of farm life took the brunt of the force while pink confectioner was nowhere to be found. To everyone’s surprise—even my own I loath to admit—she emerged from the lone closet in the room, sliding its door open after having somehow hidden herself in it at some point.

All heads jerked to the closet door. Though to the wary changeling, it had ominously flown open for no apparent reason. However, she set thoughts of poltergeists aside as she had more pressing matters to worry about. The changeling looked inward and focused, but her magick ignored her call. She was mute of her abilities when she needed them the most.

A bell rung out. The hospital was in a state of alert and alarms were blaring all over. A shower of water sprinkled from the top of the room to the accompaniment of hooves racing outside in the halls, nurse ponies, no doubt, anxious over the well-being of their patients. The changeling queen was quick to respond, and as the four ponies still hacked and coughed and wiped their eyes, she threw herself out the window and disappeared into the night, none the wiser we had been there all along. Her landing rustled off as she fell into the bushes, well out of plain sight. Certain the changeling was long gone in a glance outside, I lowered the ward I had placed on myself and the four mares, causing it to thrum and dispel.

“Welp, that went well, didn’t it? Good riddance, I say!” I haughtily cheered with a snort and hoof pawing the floor.

At that moment, the doors to the room swung open. The sweet and lovable Nurse Redheart ran in from the hallway and surveyed the room. “Is any pony hurt?” She inquired, unheeding to the stream of tears running down her face.

“Alarum Abound!” The party pony responded nonsensically. She quickly took her big mouth in hoof and held it shut.

Were there any appropriate time for tumbleweed to comically roll across the scene, now would have been it. Alas, this was a hospital in an idyllic countryside far from such places where said object might be roaming. What’s more was that rain had been schedule by its weather team, so the chances were ever more so closer to nil.

Nurse Redheart picked things up from there hesitantly. “I’ll…take that as a maybe.” After that she closed in on Loyal Levy on the bed, focusing where her attention was needed the most.

Three friends turned their attention to the pink mare, keeping to hushed volumes. “Aside from what…Celestia knows exactly just happened…Pinkie, what in tarnation was that about?”

“Oh, sorry about that, girls,” she apologized with a sniveling smile, her straight mane fluffing up slightly in small curls. “I was doing a good friend a solid! Even capitalized my A’s too!”

The unicorn’s patience wore thin as she brought a hoof up to the base of her horn. “Bwuh—Pinkie dear, whatever are you talking about?”

As all three of her friends incredibly considered the events that had taken place and braced for coming headaches of their own, I approached her to relay a message. “Pinkie Pie?”

“Hmmm? Oh!” She turned full body to face me, her earlier apprehensions forgotten. “What is it, scary little filly?” Well, almost forgotten.

“Blankscape says 'thank you.'”

The words cut a toothy grin across her face and her mane regained its signature bounce. Turning to face empty space, she wiped her face of errant tears, took in a lung full of air and bid farewell with a waving hoof. The nonsense act bewildered her friends even more so, and they sighed and facehoofed altogether.

“No problem, Blanky! You’re welcome! And thanks for reading, everypony! See you next chapter!”

---

Author's Note:

AN[170815]
*Sooooooo... I accidentally wrote 10k more words... AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!!!

*I didn't plan for it to be so long, honest. But it just seemed right for the pacing, and I was really having fun writing. Also my BP went up twice. One on Thursday, the day I originally wanted to update, and again on Sunday. I need to watch myself.

*Anywho, there are likely A LOT of mistakes and slip ups in the editing, like some things needed italicization and stuff. I will get back to them in time. Also I might take a break for my health...and the cover art. That bit is long over due, and my story needs a face.

*On a last note, I know you guys have been silent for the most part, but I'm really happy about the 80% readership upkeep in the last chapter. It was a real confidence booster in the absence of actual feedback, and I hope more people drop by to read. Thanks again, and I hope you all enjoyed this one.

Comments

[Mirdalan]

8361158
Then the only other thing I have to say is: Go forward with confidence! You have shaped a new world in a deep and interesting way. It is time to stop doubting yourself and create. You seem to have a good handle on that, but still, its good to hear it from someone else.

Also...your like button is broken? I can't seem to find a way to put that thumbs up on there

[Blankscape]

8368289
Thanks for the vote of confidence! And I'm not so sure about the like button on your end. I'm on a tablet and I can press it to add/remove a like (or dislike) just fine, so it probably is fine for me on a desktop/laptop too.

[Mirdalan]

8368363
Guess I just suck then, it won't let me do what I want

[Truthseeker]

For some reason, you have my attention. That is not generally a good thing. Most authors hate seeing me around because, flatly, I'm an asshole. I am going to read your work and afterward I am going to provide my honest opinion about it. Take note that thile I appreciate the skill of the author and the general premise of the story, I HATE the ending of Through The Well Of Prine (or however the fuck it's spelled). There was less that no compensation or comfort for those who lost a family member or suffered at the hands of the main antagonist and I let the author know EXACTLY how I felt. So without further adieu, I will begin reading.

[Blankscape]

8387754
I've found that conversation and it's been deleted. I almost mistook another Truth_Seeker who made comments shortly after the deleted conversation for a dummy account of yours.

Well I will guess that the beef you had with Echoes was concerned with the revelation of Wire/Flash (I forget, it's been over a year since I read Pirene, and I fear for the off-chance that if I reread it while writing, it will not only distract me but also somehow make me lose confidence again) being AJ's childhood friend/relative who had been kidnapped, or that the CMC where pretty much spirited away by Amelia and nearly irreversibly turned into goblins. Also that even though RD and Celestia had been unequivocally broken into powerful beasts of burden, they nor the CMC and Wire/Flash never got any solid follow-up for their tribulations.

And yeah, now that I think about it, those are valid loose ends that Echoes has yet to tie up. In the bonus epilogue, I found it uncalled for that Amelia treated Celestia so nonchalantly from behind the safety of her sudden rise to power and spiritual relation to the alicorn. I haven't read the sequel to Pirene yet, but while the bonus epilogue ended with that scene between Morgan and Amelia, striking a sweet note, the sour note the chapter started regarding how Amelia treated Celestia was bothering and a loose end itself. But I guess the reason it didn't bother me then was that everyone and Echoes were so focused on Amelia/Daphne's story which is the main plotline, and that majority were all okay with those mentioned above being down played at the time.

Then again, all this spiel would be pointless if my guess about your beef is wrong

Anywho, I've been following a story called 'Reflections' which had gotten popular recently. I noted some flaws I spotted about later chapters, and the author agreed with me, and he pondered on the habitual stagnancies of writers which I couldn't have worded better.

You know, there's a reason why these types of comments are so valuable. Every so often, an author needs a slap in the face lest their writing become complacent.

That said, I do have a plan for my story which I have thought of carefully, and I doubt opinions will significantly affect them, but any feedback that aren't too nit-picky or unhinged will be taken into account. I welcome your honest criticisms, so long as they are well-founded in finding faults and such.

[Truthseeker]

8388405 Could you link the comments by this Truth_Seeker or the account itself? I hate people who try to pretend to be me. The fact that they have an underscore in the name is a direct insult to me.

[Blankscape]

8389286
I'm not on my desktop ATM, so it would be a hassle to sift through all those comments again. But IIRC it should be around page 55 of the Pirene's comments section. Also if you search for him under users, he comes up right beside your account, the one with the Pinkie avatar. But idk if he was trying to impersonate you at all. His comments seemed benign enough and I think you 2 just happened to have similar names

[WritingSpirit]

8391997
Glad I could be of help!

I'll definitely be continuing this story once I find the time, no worry about that! With the progressive way of how every chapter is being published on this site, I'm certain there will be a gradual improvement made in the next couple of chapters. Will let you know on how I feel about them as I go.

Just a few things I wanna point out that might be a little misconstrued. If not, ignore them, lol.

I'll admit you probably won't stop wading through words with an introductory feel to them until you get to chapter 3.

Haven't gotten into Chapter 2 yet, so I can't speak up for that, but for Chapter 1, I feel as though what bogged me down was the lack of an introduction instead. It's not a problem of an exposition dump so much as it is a problem of a lackluster exposition. In fact, I particularly don't mind having a longer introduction, especially for these kinds of stories where the conventions of the Equestria we know in general are nonexistent. I never got the feeling of being introduced to who these characters are or what this is all about, which is why my interest in them and in turn, the story, started to wane. So yeah, needs more of an introductory feel, imo.

I might be able to add a bit of telling somehow, but I can't do away with how obscure it is.

Ah, I wanted to elaborate on this exact point in my initial comment, but it was 3AM over here and I wasn't thinking right, so I'll just bring it up here.

What I mean when I say 'tell over show' does not mean tell us about the narrative (e.g. what they were doing before this scene, why this character was being so cheerful suddenly, etc.). All those can be kept obscure and be revealed to us as time goes on. It's more of the tiny little details in which having a little telling added to the mix would help out. I'd call it giving a sense of nuance, but it isn't exactly that either. Think the only way I could do that is by illustrating it.

Since Pirene has been mentioned somewhere, I'll use a passage from that to sorta say what I mean. I'll color red for showing and blue for telling.

An old park bench lay invitingly within reach, as well. Its worn surface was hard, yet inviting after the walk. I sat down and rubbed my ankles. The nearby hill caught my attention, and while considering the relative merits of a nap versus a hike up for a shot at better reception, I noticed Amelia had sprung up at my side. She held her hand up, and I recoiled at once when I saw the caterpillar nestled there. I made a face while the caterpillar lazily devoured the maple leaf it held and ignored us both.

Amelia only beamed harder. “Isn’t it beautiful, Daph?”

Of all the things in the world to have a childish fascination with, why did it have to be bugs? Even when I was her age, I had found them disgusting. They had too many legs, slimy skins, squirmy segments, and oozing ichor and soulless eyes and gross hairs and all the other horrible things bugs had. I had much preferred birds, and I could still pick out a few species among the trees around us. My amateur birding days had come to a right and proper end when I had put away my books and binoculars and other silly things. At the minimum, birds eat insects, which was a point for them in my book.

The last part of the whole paragraph was basically the narrator telling us the 'why' and the 'how' of her disgust of bugs. It doesn't contribute to the extent of the story in any way as of this chapter, but it gives a little interesting insight to who this character is, and with that gives us a sense of connection.

So yeah, what I mean by telling isn't revealing certain plot points that lead on your character's actions, but more of giving us your character's perspective on even the most mundane of things to help us connect with the character themselves. Think there were a couple of instances of it happening in Chapter 1, perhaps even so in later chapters, so it's something you're already doing, unwittingly or otherwise. Just need more of that.

One last thing I forgot to mention in my previous comment, I just want to say that it's impressive how much words you can put out in such a short period of time. You certainly seem to enjoy writing this, from what I could tell. Keep it up!

[Blankscape]

8392687
That's a great example! I'll keep it mind once I finish chapter 6 and sketch up a draft for the cover art. But yeah, there definitely is room for nuanced introspection in chapters 1 & 2. Though in that case those chapters will become longer for it, but I'll try and keep it short. Thanks again!