The goodest boy
"That is not a dog." Somehow, perhaps through some inexplicable miracle, Sundance maintained his outward calm in the face of dangerous absurdity. He was beyond serene, he was Celestial, and were his distant grandmother present, she would see a reflection of herself. His face? Placid. Eyes? Focused. His heart? Pounding.
The 'dog' in question was a massive two-headed creature larger than a pony. It lay on the ground at the moment, whining and writhing as Hoppy scratched his tummy-tum. Black and grey, the great beast was an immensely shaggy creature made mostly of bristling hairs and slobber. There were a few brown spots here and there, and one head—the right head—had a white spot over the left eye.
"Romulus! Remus! You've got so big! Who's a good boy!" Hoppy said in a sing-song voice as she scratched at the exposed stomach of the fallen giant with her front hooves.
"That is not a dog," Sundance said once more.
"It's the only thing that Sulky's ever been responsible about." Bucklebad drew up alongside Sundance, leaned in close, and then said in a low voice, "She rescued the runt of the litter. His mama rejected him for some reason. Probably on account of how small he was. We here in Jersey City breed 'em here to watch over and to wrangle the cows. Bred to be gentle and protective. Sulky bottle fed this one and she somehow kept him alive. I consider it an accomplishment."
Sundance swallowed; but nothing was said.
"When he wants outside, you'd best take him outside," Bucklebad warned in a slow, drawled whisper. "If he pees indoors…"
"He's my puppy." Sulky, proud in posture, grinned as she turned around to face Sundance.
The most immediate problem that Sundance saw was that his sky truck was meant to haul two adult ponies in armor. More than that could be crammed in there, but it would be crowded. But now, there was Hoppy, a filly with a rotund middle, and whatever this two-headed monster-dog was. What if it lept out? Or shoved out Hoppy or Sulky? Accidents could happen. Getting the massive slobbery beast home posed a challenge.
Sulky was leaving everything behind. Everything. Family. Everything familiar. This endless sprawl of brick buildings and canals. There were no houses to be seen from the lofty vantage point of the sky, and Sundance realised after lunch that the ponies that lived here did so in the industrial fortresses that stretched as far as the eye could see. This was all that Sulky knew—and Sundance understood that she was one of the many who would end up in his care.
First impressions were fickle things.
"I wish Rubberband was here," Sulky said rather sulkily.
"I don't know where he went," Bucklebad said to his niece. "He's off working. We barely keep our heads above water, Sulky, and we—"
"I know," the filly huffed in a foalish manner. "And you took me in. I wanted to thank him. Say goodbye. Both of ya have been so good to me after I was so stupid."
"We love ya, Sulky. And your mom does too. She'll come around… maybe. Look, Stinky Jar, she got Pa's stubbornness. And she had you at about the same age that you are now. She wanted better for you. Stinky never was no good at dealing with upset. We're immigrants, Sulky. We were born in Equestria, sure, but we came here… to this place. To this city. It's unlike anything we've ever known. A strange land. Well, this is all I've ever known. Uh… what I'm trying to say is, we're starting to establish ourselves. A foal is supposed to grow up and do better than their parents.
"Ma and Pa gave up a lot so we could have a life here. And Stinky, well, she done messed up, and Ma and Pa came down hard on her. She was supposed to do better than her parents. But she had you. And you, you went and repeated her mistake. Well, I don't think of you as a mistake, Sulky. I don't know what I'm trying to say or what I'm getting at. But things will work out, Sulky Goldshoe. You'll go off to this place, and you'll be an immigrant too… in a way… I reckon. But you're returning to our roots, Sulky. Go be a hick in the woods, Sulky. Be a bit of dandelion fluff that goes off in the wind to find new pasture. I don't think the concrete and brick suits you, Niece."
"You're a sentimental softie, Goldshoe—"
"Shut up, Hop-Hop!"
"She's right, you know—"
"You shut up too, Sulky!"
"Goodbye, Uncle. I don't know if I'll ever be back."
"Hoppy will bring you back." There was an audible, painful swallow from Bucklebad. "And if she don't, then I'll come to you. We were nomads, once. Went to where the work was. From farm to farm, place to place. I figure I have it in me to travel, if I get a mind to."
"If you don't mind me asking"—it felt as though he was intruding upon a private moment and Sundance had to rein in his awkwardness so that his curiousity might be satisfied—"what brought your parents here?"
"The work was here," Bucklebad replied right away. "Well, they was told that. A better life in the city. One generation of hardship, followed by an endless parade of prosperity. I'm still waiting on that parade. This here scrapyard is filled with old dead dreams. Old dead airships. Old machines that gave up and quit and took their owner's dreams with them. These are bodies, and this is a morgue." The earth pony made an expansive sweeping gesture at everything around him.
Suddenly solemn, Sundance nodded.
The dog rolled over, got his paws beneath himself, and sat up.
"The city is like this scrapyard," Bucklebad said in a near whisper. "A place where trash is thrown away and forgotten. We all came here and got discarded. Dumped. Some of us made a life for ourselves, but most of us… most of us, we didn't. And just like this here old scrapyard, if you go and have a look around, you'll still see the bodies left to rot away. My brother and I, we'll stick it out, even if it means making a life with the bones of the dead."
For every pony that found success in the city, how many met with failure?
There was success to be found here. Equestria was a nation of success stories. Either by luck, or hard work, a combination of the two. While everypony celebrated these successes, not much was done about the failures. Twilight, the compassionate pony that she was, dared to look in the scrapyard to see what might be salvaged. For a brief, profound moment, Sundance understood his place in the world, his part in things, and this flash of insight left him both humbled and inspired.
He was saving Sulky before she rusted and rotted away, while she was still young and full of promise.
"We should be going," he said, his throat tight. "Might already be too late. We'll be racing the sun as it heads west. Goodbye, Bucklebad Goldshoe… it really was great to meet you. We'll meet again soon, and I am proud to consider you my friend…"
Distorted shadows stretched eastwards, like long, tenebrous fingers that grasped at the dying light. It wasn't quite time to panic, not yet, but panic, very much like the fading sun, was on the horizon. An uncooperative headwind threw everything it had against him, and Sundance feared that he would not make it home before darkness blanketed the land and put it to bed. If the darkness failed to be his undoing, exhaustion certainly would.
He faced a tough choice; put down now while there was still light enough to see, and then spend a night in the wilds, or keep going towards what he believed was the direction home. Whatever decision he made, he'd have to do it soon, because few things moved at the speed of dark. Behind him were the first twinkling stars of the night, ahead of him was a blazing sunset that was rapidly fading, and below him were mountains, trees, and no-doubt dangerous wilderness filled with nighttime predators.
Surveying the terrain below him, he doubted that he had a proper place to land. There were canyons, valleys, crags, vast woods, all of it inhospitable in the fading light. He'd lingered too long in Jersey City. Were he a more responsible pony, he might have hurried himself and his passengers along. Or maybe left the dog behind. Now, as he raced towards the retreating light, he thought of all the things he might have or should have done differently.
Such was the way of things.
A landing was not possible, he determined.
But making it home seemed impossible.
As a pegasus of the day, he needed his eyes to navigate. He needed landmarks and familiar territory. His own lands were not yet familiar to him, mostly because there was so much land to become acquainted with. Home was somewhere ahead—maybe. Was it leftward, or rightward? With the headwind battering him, how far had he veered off course? Gritting his teeth, he demanded more from his sweaty body that was drenched in a foamy lather.
And then, he saw it. Off in the distance, somewhat to his right. A fiery orange glow. It was light. Something blazed. Light was hope. As he veered towards the light, he squinted, and though it strained his eyes terribly, he could just make out the silhouette of a tower, and atop of that, there was the hopeful inferno. When he realised where he was, and what he was looking at, he half-laughed, half-sobbed with relief. Somepony had thought to light a beacon to guide him home. The tower was the immense structure that the changelings had constructed.
It was a long ways away, but he would make it.
Like a moth beckoned to a flame, Sundance was drawn to the beacon, and with it, safety. The runway was lit on both sides with torches and mere seconds before he touched down he worried about setting his wings on fire. As with so many other landings, this one too, was exciting. Exhaustion attempted to cripple him, and sapped his wings of strength. The sky truck came down hard with a bouncy bump that caused the metal to creak and all four passengers cried out.
Romulus and Remus counted for two.
When the second bump happened, and was far, far worse than the first, somepony screamed. It might've been Sulky, or the terror might have been such that Hoppy's voice cracked and she sounded like a frightened filly. Sundance reversed his wings—he put the bottom sides forwards and began to flap like a mad pony—and he braced his legs for their reunion with the ground. The impact was such that all of his hooves stung as though they were assaulted by bees. His frogs would be bruised, no doubt. When he began to veer left, into the flaming torches, he made every effort to flap himself rightward.
Then, he saw Corduroy.
There she was, a beacon unto herself. Tall. Majestic. Though not on fire—he felt this was important. She was right ahead of him, fearless, her face kind, her eyes glittering with dogged determination. As he went skidding and bouncing past, she reached out with one paw, flexed her paw-fingers, and then grabbed the sky truck with a firm grip. Sundance's spine threatened to go shooting out of his mouth from the sudden stop, it felt as though each of his ribs accordioned against one another, and his kidneys danced a ferocious fandango with his lungs. It felt as though his harness would cut him in half, or maybe quarters, and an involuntary whinny caused by the strain escaped.
He might have had a harsh physics poot at some point…
"That's quite some landing," Corduroy remarked with casual nonchalance.
"Anything you can walk away from," Sundance gasped in return as his sides began to heave.
Then, without warning, came chaos.
A high pitched voice cried out, "Sulky!"
The sky truck shivered and creaked as its passengers bailed. Sulky was barely even out of the cart when a small colt cannonballed into her and took her down to the grass. She laughed, not a funny ha-ha laugh, but the relieved laugh that comes after intense bowel-liquidising terror. Hoppy jumped out of the cart, landed, wobbled, swayed from side to side, and then fell over into the cool grass, where she lay, also laughing. Romulus and Remus jumped out with a stereophonic woof, and then began to run zig-zag as the two heads tried to sniff everything all at once.
"It was Pluck who had us light a fire on top of the new tower," Corduroy said. "He got the idea from a Daring Do book. The kid wasn't in charge, but he told us what to do, and we listened. Smart kid. Good head on his shoulders."
Sundance wanted to respond, there was so much that he wanted to say, but all he could do was pant. His innards ached, his tender frogs begged for relief, and his parched throat wanted water or some other soothing, quenching liquid. Terrible side-stitches wracked his body as his kidneys crawled home after their night on the town and the back alleys of his intestines rumbled as if the trash wagon rolled by.
"You brought home a two-fer," Corduroy said knowingly.
He managed a faint nod of agreement.
Then, he felt a heavy paw upon his head. First, his mane got tousled, and then came the heavy pat, which bounced his brain around inside his skull. There was something reassuring, wholesome, and good about this. It was meaningful when your best dog friend petted you. There was no more satisfying reminder that one had done right than a good dog letting you know that you were a good pony. It caused Sundance's limp, sodden tail to wag from side to side.
More than anything else though, it felt good to be home…
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Ain't that the truth.
By the sheer power of the belief that Sundance has in her.
Nah. She just wanted to hold her horses.
She's performed at the gunshow, lol
Does Cerberus exist in your continuum? I’m just wondering if he ever had pups with a border collie, because those two things averaged out is what you seem to be describing in the form of Romulus and Remus. If so, the logistics of it boggle the mind. the nearest thing I can think of is a house cat and a tiger somehow having kittens.
10164659
Orthus is canon. Two headed dog. Trade Ya.
10164659
I think it is an Orthros like the one in the episode "trade ya", although I can't tell what breed(s) it is
Orthros was Cerberus brother in Greek mythology.
Also I like the names, even if it is mixing Greek and Roman myths.
think about the straight Corduroy really has to stop this much mass..
10164667
There's a deleted section that reveals that she got the names from a movie about the two pegasus brothers that founded the nation of Roan. But it got cut.
10164659
I'd say Bearded Collie, not Border Collie. :D
10164549
Thank you for that
10164666
10164667
I’d forgotten about that. I still like my Winona-Cerberus crossbreed mental image more though (and frankly I found that episode trite).
If Sulkie starts a city do yah know what it’ll be called?
Reme
10164739
If you're a fan of Cerberus's spawn, read "Starlight Over Detrot". You'll love Goofball's origin story.
I wonder if Corduroy used some form of Diamond Dog magic to anchor herself to the ground. Or maybe she's just that much of an absolute (gentle) beast.
In Pony Equestria, dogs pet YOU.
That was the thing that came to mind when I read that description. That's a lot of unwieldy mass.
Yes. Yes, they do.
10164675
Is the city of Roan still be considered canon in your story though? Like in terms of ancient history or whenever you put it.
10166910
Roan is mentioned.
10166910
I would fucking love a dog bigger than me