Viral

by AnchorsAway

Chapter 11: The Zebra

Zahara’s hooves echoed on the rough cobblestone of the Canterlot Orphanage as she trotted through the dewy morning air. The sweet scent of the new dawn alighted on her nose, the smells and sounds of Canterlot awakening all around her. Her cotton headpiece draped over her silk-like mane, covered in the glow of the rising rays. Birds chirped and sang in the courtyard garden, and the gentle rustle of pigeons stirring could be heard in the tall stone archways overhead.

Such a beautiful morning, she though. It filled Zahara's heart with joy at the beauty of the world and its intricate and complex design, from the towering oak at the center of the courtyard, down to the smallest stalks of grass sprouting through the cracked stonework. She would have liked to sit and admire it all and watch the daybreak, but today was a busy day.

Zahara had received the file from Foal Services two days ago, nearly a week after the tragedy in Ponyville. Every orphaned foal she took in had some sad beginning, an everyday reality in her line of work. But this one, for whatever reason, struck a chord within the zebra’s heart. Little Rose Point: only six years old and not a soul in the world to call the filly their own. Her mother, the only connection to Rose, had died in Ponyville in the accident.

For Zahara could only do what she could to ease the hardship for each little pony who entered through the orphanage's doors. It was hard to fathom what the filly must be going through, nopony to claim her as their own. Such was the time the Zahara would be called to step up to the task. The Canterlot Ophanage's doors were always open to those little ones forgotten. Zahara had learned it for herself years ago.

Even now, with the buzz of the bustling capital all round her overwhelming the senses, Zahara could still picture her home. Her real home, set against the high mountain of her homeland far away. She remembered it all so clearly: her fate that had lead her to this strange land of Equestria in her adolescent.

The fires had rained down from the sky in the early hours of the morning all those many years ago. She was asleep in her bed when it happened. Even now, separated by the years and distance, she could still recall the warmth of the straw beneath her in the family’s hut on the edge of the tribal village. Memories too - the ragdoll Father had made from scraps at the textile mill clutched under her hooves.

Little Zahara had heard the voice just before the sun rose over the distant mountains, sleepily stumbling out the adobe hut and into the muted light.

“Wake up. Wake up little Zahara,” the voice had told her, pulling her from the depths of her slumber.

She had looked about her, searching for the voice, but all she found were the fields of grain that were her family's. She couldn’t see who or where the sound was coming from. To her, it almost had seemed to be coming from all around her, carried on the breeze that weaved through the fields of grain.

“Lay down little one. Lay down and cover your head,” it would come again.

And though she did not know who the voice was, or why she could not see where it was coming from, she did what it said. Zahara had calmly laid down in the dust and dirt and covered her head.

And the rumble came as if from within the heart of the world itself, a great boom, the ground trembling and rolling like the waves of the endless oceans. She looked up just in time to see the top of the mountain behind their hut shoot into the heavens, a world-rending explosion of fire and ash flying down the slopes toward her.

“Stay down Zahara. Stay down and don’t look. Don't look now”

The wave of ash was already upon her and she did just like the voice said. She stayed down and did not look. She did not look when the flow hit their hut. She did not look when the walls collapsed, her parents and dog (poor Clebber) still inside.

She did not look as her world was covered in a flood of ash and darkness, never to return.

When she finally saw sunlight again, she was not sure how long it had been gone, but she had not been afraid. The voice had been with her the entire time, that stranger that had grown so familiar, as if an old friend.

The first thing Zahara saw as she was pulled from the ash and debris that fateful day, was the face of a mare, head and mane covered in a grey stained cowl. The mare was sweaty and tired, but the look on her face when she pulled the little zebra foal from the rubble, black and white stripes hidden beneath the gray ash, it was the happiest face Zahara had ever seen.

"Sisters! Sisters, I found somepony!" the mare called in ecstatic joy.

From that day, the "Sisters" had taken in her in. Not sisters like those she had grown up with, though Zahara could hardly remember their faces.

Sister Sprig had explained to her later that the half-dozen mares were not really sisters. No, these were sisters of a different order Zahara had come to learn. Sisters in spirit servicing those in need, those who could not help themselves. The sick, the poor, the wretched, the orphaned, all were worthy of help in their eyes. Which was how she had come to be with the sisters, and as she too would one day become a sister herself.

In the relief camp, she would later ask that same mare that had pulled her from the rubble, Sister Rosary, about the voice, the voice she had heard. The voice that had called her that day the mountain erupted.

“Why little Zahara, you surprise me,” the Sister had said with a smile, leaning down close until their faces almost touched. She was an older mare, her face a circle of soft wrinkles encircled by her head robe which all the Sisters sported. Sister Rosary's voice was like the most delicate of flowers, a warm blanket that calmed even the most scared filly with its natural warmth. “Can’t you hear it now, little one?” the mare asked, cocking a floppy ear. "It's there if you listen close."

And as Zahara stopped and listened, she could. She could hear that voice on the wind still choked with the ash that would rain on the continent for years after her departure. It sang on the swaying leaves of the palm trees, and bubbled in the stream nearby, whispering its secrets. Zahara could hear the voice all around her this entire time.

“What is it,” she asked the mare in the cowl in amazement. All this time, it had been there, like a secret friend only she could hear.

“Little Zahara,” Sister Rosary had leaned down and whispered close. “Why that is the voice of the Earth, of the universe herself.”

Zahara would later follow that voice with the Rosary and the other Sisters to Equestria, a place she had only heard but had never dreamed she would visit. It might not be her homeland, but for Zahara, it was her home.

The Sisters had raised that little orphaned zebra as their own, giving her her own room at the orphanage, taking her to tend to the needy in the streets, and cultivating the garden together. For a zebra, the sad reality that there was little interest in adopting a little striped black and white filly, was quickly quelched by the Sisters. For through all her time at the orphanage, it would be the Sisters who had adopted her, taking her in as one of their own and teaching her of their ways. A lifetime of fellowship with sisters not of blood, but of spirit: Sister Hemlock's own words.

So it would be that Zahara had spent afternoons of her early years with Sister Sprig in her herb garden, baked loaves of hot bread on rainy twilights in the kitchens with Sister Tart, and meditated on life’s wonder every morning in the courtyard with Sister Rosary.

She would never tell another Sister, but Rosary was her favorite. Sister Rosary had been the one who taught her to listen to the voice, to follow it.

As the years had passed the voice had faded, but it had never left her. It was only quieter. Maybe a little harder to hear, but never far away. That is what Sister Rosary reminded her as the old mare was breathing her last, tucked warm and comfortable in her bed at the far end of the orphanage dormitories.

She had been weak, but the fire still burned strong within. Zahara could never forget the look on Rosary’s face, present even as the old mare lay at the gates of the After. A type a blissful peace.

The Sister’s uncovered mane had spilled over the pillows like streams of gold and blonde, undressed of their orders cowl. Zahara had only seen Rosary once before without her headdress. While still a foal, shortly after arriving in this foreign place, there had been a ferocious thunderstorm, the thunder booming through the stone passages of the orphanage like cannon fire. But Sister Rosary had been there for her as she trembled outside her door. Sister Rosary had been in a nightgown, and her long golden mane hung over her neck. Rosary had held her, gently shushing her crying as she held on tight, quelling the visions of the angry mountain rending itself upon the land.

“Come, child. There is nothing to be afraid of. It’s just the rain,” she cooed, brushing her floppy striped mane back. “But you can sleep here tonight if you want.”

That same bed Zahara had shared so many moons ago as a foal had been before her, the pony she had considered a second mother, the one who had pulled her from the rubble as a foal, tucked beneath a warm blanket to make her final days comfortable.

“Never lose your strength, Zahara,” Rosary had said, clutching the zebra’s foreleg with her wrinkled hooves. She tucked her ever-present string of rosaries between her striped hooves, a necklace of wooden beads that had never left her side until now. Her thinking beads, she had called them. “As long as you have your strength, you are never alone. Even if you are down, there will always be someone to pick you from the rubble.”

Things around the orphanage had quickly changed after Rosary. Saddle Arabia had fallen to Maretonia, and Equestria’s forces had been caught in the crossfire trying to defend her allies. Many were lost, many more injured. And not just the physical wounds, but those injuries that we’re inside, the pains that ran deep. Pains that woke you in the dead of night in a cold sweat.

And the toll in the lands home as well: children, foals whose mothers of fathers never returned from overseas. Many of the other Sisters would leave Canterlot to seek the weak and weary across the nation in overflowing orphanages of places like Phillydelphia, San Anponio, Applewood. Now it was only Zahara.

She had thought about leaving many nights while alone in the kitchen, baking bread for the food pantry as she had always done with Sister Tart, who was now at the Baltimare orphanage. Canterlot, with its money and affluent citizens, had not experienced what other small towns had. The orphanage, though it provided for the less fortunate in Canterlot, had not had a foal in over three months.

Zahara had never considered herself stoic like Rosary, or even the other Sisters - a title she had seen as reserved for only the most selfless. But with the Sisters gone, and the orphanage without a guiding hoof, Zahara had come to realize her purpose in this strange land. A way to honor Sister Rosary’s memory, or whatever After the mare resided in.

Or maybe it had been the voice guiding her along all this time. Either way, she had come to realize that her place was here at the orphanage, ready to take in those with nopony else, much like she had once been. Much like this new filly from Foal Services.

So as the dawn finally broke, Zahara stood up from her morning meditation and reflection in the courtyard. Exited the wrought iron gates of the Canterlot Orphanage, she stepped briskly along the sidewalk toward Canterlot General Hospital. The file on the filly was tucked neatly in her modest saddlebag, Zahara’s headdress pulled tight over her head, the loose end fluttering in the spring breeze around her neck. Wearing a happy face, the zebra said her good mornings and how do you do's to the passersby going about their day.

No, she couldn’t leave Canterlot. There we’re still ponies that needed her. That was what the familiar voice was telling her.

“She is a special filly, Zahara. Take care of her. Protect her, this little one I am sending you.”

---

Dr. Solar Haze worked quickly in the level four biolab of the CED.

The lab was bone cold, and even with a sweater on under her protective suit, Solar's hooves shook, whether due to the temperature or her anticipation. She knew Trotter would be back soon, but she needed to use the analyzer in the central lab. The lanky brown stallion had been acting strange over the past few days. She had found him poking and prodding around the various labs, always seeming to bump into her throughout the day as if he was following her.

And he had been quiet too, even for Trotter. Could he have found out about her side project?

No, she told herself piping a light blue and viscous formula into a glass vial. She worked as fast as she could under the protective suit, air lines leading to the ceiling whipping feverishly as she moved. Trotter couldn’t have known. She had read his report herself, seen the similarities between the contagion recovered off the Wonderbolt and the Caballo sample. She had forwarded her information via an encrypted channel to her contact at the Defense Coalition. From there, they would handle the rest.

Situation is under control. Team is being sent to recover Ponyville sample. Continue trials.

That was the only word she had received from her contact. They were going to handle the situation. Trotter might get more suspicious of her strange activities: the comings and goings, the late nights at work, the quick excuses to call off lunch or a meeting when she had another attack. But Trotter would never find out the whole truth Solar told herself. The DC was good at keeping things under tight wraps.

Setting down her latest sample, the unicorn capped it off before placing it in an analyzer and closing the lid. The analyzer clicked on, the device chirping and beeping. Dr. Haze pulled a stool up to a nearby computer, the terminal analyzing the sample and calculating several thousand data theories. A moment later, a screen flashed across the computer monitor.

Dr. Haze leaned forward in eager anticipation as she read down the list of statistics and data points. Further, as she read, the more the eagerness evaporated, replaced with an unsettling warmth that bubbled to the surface.

“Damn it all to Tartarus!” she suddenly snapped, flinging a tray of test tubes across the lab. They cracked against the bulkhead, showering the lab floor with thousands of tiny shards. Enraged, the scientist jumped off of her stool and kicked it as hard as she could, it crashing into a cabinet before clattering on the ground. Solar stood over the screen hyperventilating, staring at the final result at the bottom of the report.

Viral Trial 21 Result: Incorporation Unsuccessful - MISMATCH

She read the report over and over, the result burning into her head. She had failed. Again. What was she missing? Why wouldn’t the virus accept the new gene?

Her breaths grew deeper and deeper. She was sucking deep gulps of air, her nostrils flaring with her latest result. But this was quickly replaced. Solar grabbed at her throat through the suit, gasping for air. Instinctively checking her airlines, she found nothing wrong. She realized the problem was not her air supply.

Medication - she had to get to her satchel, and fast. She was already in the thick of another attack.

The unicorn bounded to the lab's airlock, struggling to breathe with each step. She popped off her air hoses as moved, the door to the airlock opening as she approached, leaving the lines whipping in her wake. Behind her, the door closed with a hydraulic hiss and heavy thunk of seals engaging.

Solar shed the suit from her body as fast as her trembling limbs would allow. Her legs felt weak and they shook as she stepped from her suit. Stumbling toward the exit, she fumbled for the release panel.

It took several tries to activate the door, her limbs failing to respond to the most straightforward command. A foggy mist washed over her from nozzles, stinging her eyes and nose before the door finally opened. Droplets of the strong disinfectant clung to her coat, glistening under the bright fluorescent lighting and making her constricting airway burn even more.

The mare collapsed onto the floor, her face blue from lack of oxygen, mouth agape, gulping for air. If only anypony could see her now, she would resemble more fish out of water than pony.

Solar tried to stand, but her legs could not support her, her nerve ending firing wildly in short spasms. She slumped onto the ground her vision going cloudy and blackness creeping in from the corners of her eyes. Using all her strength and willpower, she pushed herself across the floor of the lab toward her desk. Her limbs were almost nonresponsive and they reacted like thick syrup.

Satchel. She had to get to her satchel.

Solar’s horn bumped the canvas bag laying against the side of her desk just before she no longer had the power even to crawl. She knocked it open with her hoof, spilling the contents across the linoleum floor. A syringe of clear liquid skittered in front of her, just within her reach.

Solar scrabbled to get the syringe, her magic useless, finally gripping the tube in her teeth and flicking the cover off the needle. She rolled onto her back, her sight all but gone, her thoughts fuzzy and muddled.

Well, this might be it. It was quite a ride. Nice knowing you, world, but I think I'll just die now

Unconsciousness was washing over the unicorn, asphyxiation bringing a sweet burning that seeped to lull her oxygen-deprived brain toward a final sleep. She plunged the needle into her neck, depressing the plunger with the last of her will. So close.

She gasped and choked. Atmosphere flooded her lungs, the syringe still hanging from her neck. Slowly her vision cleared and she gasped in huge gulps of air.

The attacks were growing in frequency and intensity, Solar could tell, as she propped her back against her desk and sat there wondering how much longer she had. The ashen-maned mare sat and waited, wondering how her life had taken such a turn. Did fate have something against her? Her family torn asunder, husband unable to bear their shared sorrow, disappearing into the night without saying goodbye.

Solar remembered in the weeks after the funeral her finally working up the courage to test herself and her husband. “A simple test,” she had assured him with tears still in her eyes. “It had to be genetic. This is the only way to find out who–,” but she didn’t need to explain

They had discovered when the results came back that she, Solar, had been the one to pass the genetic abnormality to Ember. A reality that had driven his father to disappear, merely walking out the front door as she cried at the table. And now it had finally manifested to claim her, a cruel twist that she now bore. Too cruel a fate that she had witnessed what it would do and its final outcome. All the while, helpless to stop it. The worst feeling a mother could have.

Solar lay against the cold metal of the desk and softly cried. She did not want to die alone, but here she was, alone, her family and life fading into oblivion.

She did not want it all to have been for nothing. That would be a bigger loss now, for it all to be for nothing.

She had to keep on trying. Her crying stopped, and she wiped the tears away with her hoof before finally regaining the strength to stand.

I have to keep trying; for Ember. My little Ember...

---

“Got any eights?”

Whiplash looked over the cards in his hooves, a sly grin creeping across his face. “Go fish.”

“Drat,” the little filly sitting in the chair by his bedside huffed. Rose Point reach for the deck on the table pulled between them, drawing another card to add to her growing fan.

It had only been five days, but Whiplash was already about to lose it. The pack of cards he had picked up from the hospital convenience and care store had been one of the few saving graces. He would have called up Clipper to swing by his townhouse in the Canterlot garden district, maybe grab a few movies or even some books. But he figured the stallion was probably laying low on base. Which meant it was cards, for now, stuck with the kid.

Not that he actually minded. It was an excellent way to pass the time. She had been moved to the children’s ward now that the hospital was catching up with the mass influx of patients. The nurses were stretched thin, always trotting back and forth, but they didn’t seem to mind Rose visiting him for a game of cards or just to watch some television.

Rose would sit by his bedside while they picked out something to watch; she always picked. He would quickly flick through the news stations, avoiding all the rampant speculation and the images of Ponyville plastered on the screen with the newsponies drawing out every horrible little detail as they distributed their latest hot product. And everypony gobbled up, the airship story and all.

No, he didn’t want her to see any of that. She was just a filly. A kid shouldn’t have to worry about all the harsh realities befaced by the older generations. And at the moment, he didn’t want to see any of it either. So he lied there content with watching the nature channel, or cartoons, or that animation Rose really like with the bright colors and suspense and action, the ponies with superpowers. That one was her favorite, always sitting on the edge of her seat, caught up in the fight against that week’s villainous menace the powerful ponies faced.

“Any two’s,” Rose ventured, continuing their third round that morning. Whiplash forked them over to the filly who triumphant added the cards to what he admitted was a growing pile. She was a fast learner and fiercely competitive. Another game or two, and she might even win. But he wouldn’t concede defeat just yet.

He was about to ask for any seven’s, which he knew based on his own hooful of cards, she did not have, when they were interrupted by a soft tapping on the open door.

“Helllooo, knock-knock” a chippery mare in a tight fit blazer chortled, standing in the doorway with a cup of what looked like coffee. Sunbucks.

“Starberry Dew, Foal Services. Anypony know where I can find little Miss Rose Point,” the pony asked looking around the hospital room of ponies in various levels of discomfort, the eyes of a stallion in a neckbrace down on the end practically rolling back into his head at the thought of having such an energetically cheery pony even close to him in his condition.

“Um, are you looking for Rose,” Whiplash offered to the uncomfortably high-spirited mare, nodding to the only pony in the room probably under forty.

Starberry’s face practically lit up at the sight of her sitting by his bedside with a hooful of cards, Rose’s eyes darting quickly back and forth between him and this mare from Foal Services.

“Well, there she is! Isn’t she just a darling like I said in her file. Come on in, Zahara. Gosh, you are just about as shy as she is,” Starberry rattled ecstatically, trotting up to the filly with somepony else in tow hanging quietly back.

It was a Zebra, and a mare at that, too. Not a usual sight in Canterlot.

But this one was young, her vibrant stripes both deep black and silvery white like polished marble. Her face was soft, round, a peaceful smile displaying a warm, welcoming greeting contrary to the caffeinated jitteriness of Starberry Dew

“Rose Point, this is Zahara the head of the Canterlot Orphanage,” Starberry said, sliding the stiff filly toward the zebra with a gentle push. Rose Point was still as a rock looking up at the big zebra with wide eyes. “You're going to be staying with her while Foal Services finds you a new home. Doesn’t that sound lovely?” she asked exuberantly, oblivious to the withdrawn expression radiating from the girl.

Rose made no indication of returning her excitement.

“Well I’ll let you and her get acquainted and packed while I go get these discharge forms filed,” Starberry winked, trotting out the room to relieved sighs from the other patients wanting only peace.

Rose fiddled with the playing cards still clutched in her hoof, avoiding eye contact with the zebra as if she were a two-headed orthros. The filly that had just found her voice again around the Wonderbolt, had sealed her lips.

Zahara looked about the patients, her heart going out to all of those in pain or sick. Why would a shy young filly be keeping company with these ponies in such grief she wondered. Zahara noticed the card game, Rose returning to her chair by the pegasus, stepping around the zebra without a word. She hopped up on the chair, continuing to play with the cards in her hoof absently.

“Hello there, Rose. Can I call you that? Rose?” Zahara asked the shy filly, receiving cold silence in response. Not that she could blame the child, one who had lost everything and was caught in a stranger's world.

She instead turned her attention to the pegasus Rose was sitting by. He was sporting several plastered stitches and a casted wing wrapped in heavy dressings but otherwise looked in healthy spirits despite the gloomy atmosphere. A friend of the girl’s perhaps?

“Hello,” she offered, shaking the pony’s hoof. “How nice of you to keep the girl company.”

“Whiplash,” he told her, accepting her hoof with a smile and a nod. “But I think she has been the one keeping me from bouncing off the walls. Isn’t that right, kid,” he asked, looking over at the filly. She didn’t reply, didn’t even let her eyes venture from the cards.

“She’s a little shy,” he explained with a forced grin. “But she’s good company,” he sighed. “She’s been through a lot.” His eyes were locked on Zahara’s, the motherly mare reading them like a book. She saw it inside him, that he had been throught his own ordeals, faced demons of his own. His words she could tell were true, and that a bond had been formed with the filly - a pony of comfort in her darkest time.

“The Orphanage is just across the district,” Zahara noted. “Perhaps if you would like, Rose, Mr. Whiplash could visit you when he gets better? Would you like that, Rose?”

For once, the girl looked up, wide blue eyes looking at her. She gave a sharp nod, the filly copper mane bobbing up and down.

“That is, if Mr. Whiplash would be interested.” Zahara looked to the battered pegasus, a bright smile stretching across his split lips.

“I’d like that very much,” he told her. "You hear that kid? I won't be far. Why not go with Miss Zahara here - she'll watch over you in the meantime. Be good now, and do what Miss Zahara says."

With a quick huff that was her only retorn, the two of them left, the zebra leading the filly by a hoof out the door and back down the bustling corridor. A short while they returned, Rose’s few belongings bundled into the Zebra’s saddlebags.

The little filly unexpectedly threw her arms around him, Whiplash tensing involuntarily.

"Promise me you will see me again, Mr. Whiplash? Please?" she spoke, her words barely above a whisper that held back fresh tears that welled in her averting eyes.

"Woah, hey kid, watch the wing," he blurted before quickly finding the right words. "I mean - yeah - sure. I'll swing by sometime when I get out. Just be good for Miss Zahara. Deal?"

It was without question. "Deal."

Whiplash watched as they headed for the sliding doors of the ward, a familiar-looking backpack slung over the filly’s back. And clutched in one foreleg, something white and worn. A stuffed animal?

Whiplash knew as they left, Rose and Zahara, that the filly would be quiet but would keep up a strong appearance. He could tell she was strong, much more than other foals her age. And he almost hated to admit it, though he had never had kids of his own or had ever wanted them.

He would miss having that kid around.