Together Alone

by scifipony

Alone Together

A mare must do what a mare must do.

I hadn't thought a one-night job transporting an old unicorn across Baltimare from The Woodberry to Dockside might be any big deal. I should have known better when the white-maned puce gentlecolt's bodyguards let him stumble up to my pony cart—then didn't help him when a coughing fit brought him to his knees, or when he could barely jump into the cart. His breath formed thin little clouds in the late autumn cold.

I had trained one of his bodyguards myself in the months before Carne Asada had become too stupid to live. There were five, total: three pegasi with slingshots, an earth pony as big and as red as a brick wall, and Citron. Citron had filled into a stout stallion. His healed burns showed as pink criss-crosses against his yellow fur. His scars were from the years-past gang war we'd fought with Force spells against the Hooflyn constabulary and a portal heist we'd blundered into and foiled.

The streets two hours before dawn were dark, but for occasional street lamps. Very quiet. Our hoof falls on the cobbles echoed back from the warehouses and factory fronts. It felt spooky, but that was a given. I'd picked our route for the least possible traffic and the fewest incidental witnesses.

I preferred being together alone.

"BCF!" shouted a voice from the shadows. Baltimare Constable Force. "Rumps down! You're under arrest!"

I'd hit full gallop before she'd finished her "rumps down!", the steel rims of the wheels throwing sparks as I pulled the pony cart sharply around a corner at risk of breaking the traces. I cast the Shield spell I had at the top of my quick draw queue—and a blue-green nebulous bell jar flared around me and the cart, deflecting a force bolt meant to set my tail afire.

Citron shot back, his amber aura and the bolt illuminating the brick buildings and reflecting in shop windows. Our pegasus air cover slung bits of cement that whistled through the air. The missiles banged and shattered, scattering debris that skittered across the street, forcing me to hop over them.

More yells, more bolts.

I spun up a queued Teleport, but the weight of the full pony cart together with having to maintain Shield at the same time prevented the spell math from balancing. I braked. The old fellow slid into the dashboard with a grunt. I pulled the harness release with my teeth, dropped Shield because I had to, and magically heaved my passenger across my back like a sack of beans. He wheezed as my knees bent under double my weight. He seemed unconscious.

Running again, I teleported.

We passed in-between. In...

...then out of total darkness and absolute cold.

Appearing mid-gallop at the next corner, I reused the same spell vectors, rotated them 90º, then teleported again.

Appearing before Black Rock's Coaling Station, skidding to a halt. I noticed the empty cash register lit by a flickering blue-white lamp in the window. My out-teleport pop echoed back to me. I looked swiftly the other direction. Yes! Red Sauce's red-painted House of Spaghetti sign wasn't illuminated, but I remembered it correctly from when I lived near-by. The "romantic hideaway" restaurant that sold garlic-y pasta leased the terrace atop the five story building and I saw the yellow awnings flapping lazily in a breeze silhouetted by a gibbous moon.

The old fellow groaned and whispered, "Don't use magic. Please don't."

"As if I had a choice," I shot back, calculating with my horn as I prepped the spell. When I glanced back, I saw him struggling to breathe. Frost from in-between steamed off both our hides. I realigned him so he didn't have pressure on his belly and lay from my flank to my head. His forehooves clacked together as grasped my neck.

His crystal blue eyes implored me as he wheezed, "Don't."

I failed to realize that he requested it for my own sake, not his.

A constable's whistle went twee!

"No choice!"

I teleported up to the restaurant. Hours after close, I still smelled the garlic. From there, I spotted a chimney sweep platform four blocks away. I shivered as the in-between cold bit at my bones. I took a deep breath as magic over-exertion weighed my body down more than the stallion did. It took seconds to firm up the vectors and I was away...

#

An hour and a half later, the night sky blushed deep purple, showing glimmers of orange to the east. I heard the squawks of early-waking gulls and the lap of river water against the docks. I spun down my Don't Look, Don't See, Don't Hear spell as I rapped out the special knock I'd been instructed on the tin door of the shipping company. The door had been open, and two goons had stood just inside, but I didn't want to startle them more than was inevitable as I became visible.

"I've got your delivery."

Both the blue and the puce earth pony whinnied and jumped, but then their eyes alit on my burden. They rapidly backed away with wide eyes. Despite the stacks of crates, thanks to the light reflected from the end of the large room, I could see the blue stallion's eyes were magenta. They had gone very wide.

I huffed as I trotted in. The high-level lieutenants, or whomever ran the syndicate with their founder was gone, stood from their seats beside a rusty green table as half a dozen bodyguards drew together to block my view and any attack I might launch.

I said, "And here I thought you'd be glad to see me—considering the BCF came down on the team like a Crystal Mountains avalanche!"

I couldn't recognize any of the VIPs from the glance afforded me beyond the wall of muscle, though I did recognize the style of the dark business suits and white frilly cravats the CA Syndicate upper echelon typically wore. The muscle all wore typical gangland bouffants, so I deduced I dealt with the right ponies.

One quavering voice stated, "You're... carrying the Boss?"

"When the shooting started, I had to teleport out, repeatedly. Which reminds me: my delivery fee just went up by the price of one pony cart, my personal pony cart, that I had to abandon. You understand, don't you?"

They did understand. I'd gone by many names, Gelding being one of them—and it was a verb, not a noun. Grimoire, Princess Grim, and Princess Glitter were others; they may have heard of Starlight Glimmer, and what she had done to save Sunset Shimmer. All my names came with the reputation for getting the job done...

And for having no good sense of humor. Oh, right— And everypony knew I was the highest level unicorn in the room, probably in the city. I'd even outwitted (probably, likely, by luck) Princess Celestia, though I'd told only my diary that.

One dun earth pony moved off to the right as I watched, then pushed a velvet fainting couch into the middle of the room. As he stepped rapidly back, he said, "P-please put the boss here."

Maybe I had too much of a reputation! I smiled.

At least two ponies gasped as I levitated the old fellow from my back to gently rest on the sofa.

"Okay," I said, "What's going on here? The dramatic gasps, the standoffishness—"

"Gelding," said a mare from behind the wall of muscle.

Ponies stepped aside enough that I could view a middle-aged roan earth pony with a short powder-blue mane. Her amber eyes caught my attention. "You really are the pony for the job."

She reached down and cinched a coin purse with her teeth, then, with a flex of her neck, sent it arcing over her guards right into my magic, where it made a satisfying jangling sound.

Never shy, I drew out the coins into a vertically spinning ring of gold and silver bits. The spell math let me count them. I could still only carry twelve discreet items, but juggling I could lift plenty more. Had the count been odd, I might have dropped one.

She said, "I added three gold for your expenses."

"So I see," I said. Siphoning the clinking metal into the purse, I tucked it away. "Because I lost my cart, and my clothing, I'd really appreciate a cloak so the BCF doesn't ID me while I do my shopping on my way out of—"

Before I could say town, a pony stepped forward and threw me his taupe mackintosh. I knew I could be intimidating, but really? I knew they knew my actions with Carne Asada (the late CA who had founded the CA Syndicate) had saved the gangs of Manehatten, Fillydelphia, and Baltimare from a massacre, but it wasn't like I'd carried on any of the fight myself. I didn't hurt ponies unless they tried to hurt me or mine first. These ponies' actions demonstrated that I had made the right decision to leave the profession at the right time. I was no leader. I'd become caught up in the gangs having already run away from being trained as another sort of leader. I'd been drafted then. I wasn't going to be drafted again. What I did now was to make it so ponies could deal with their life. If I'd stayed, ponies might have seen me as the syndicate's new strong mare...

Don't go down that route of thinking!

I spun my mane into a braid. I'd had to hide the green stripe enough times that the motions had become reflex. With the floor-length coat, I had a perfectly spy-style winter giddy-up that hid my tail and made a great contextual disguise. I waved as I left.

Outside, I found a rubbish bin in an alley with a discarded hay burger wrapper. Ketchup side out, I scrubbed away my makeup cutie mark then with a blip of Force, ignited the evidence, keeping it aloft until black cinders drifted away on the dawn breeze.

The blue magenta-eyed earth pony door guard slid to a halt at the end of the alley in which I stood. He had let down his gang-uniform bouffant and that left him with a somewhat feminine long limp black mane. That gave him a late-teen tomboy aspect that his smaller-than-average stallion frame accentuated. You could glance toward his rear and see you were mistaken, but it worked for a passing impression.

Rather than being exhilarated from all the magic and adventure of the morning, I felt too tired to cast another long range teleport. I prepped a Levitate Push, and queued other Levitates. I'd learned how to fight one-on-one, and had been most devastating against earth ponies; it provided me the moxie to step up to him.

I asked, "You want, what exactly?"

He backed away, keeping his distance while displaying a friendly smile.

As if I could judge friendly! I was transactional with everypony, even those I helped. Sunburst had taught me I had to protect myself from frail emotional instincts, which, with the evil influence of cutie marks, lead ponies astray from true happiness.

I judged what I saw as not-a-threat and let him trail behind. He picked a safe distance, like a trained hoof-pony. That brought up bad associations from my aristocratic preteens and tweens, causing my mood to sour further.

I asked, "Do you plan to answer me?"

"I don't want anything. Or to help you, for that matter, but I've been ordered to do so—"

"A good soldier. Great! I'm not trying to be patronizing, but I don't need protecting."

"I'm not here to protect you."

I stopped and looked back down the still empty industrial street near the docks. Far down, a fore-pony unlocked a factory door and further, I saw workers unload a lorry. His big white teeth sparkled in the first rays of sunlight as he grinned from where he had stopped five pony-lengths behind me. I jerked up the collar on my mack and headed east along the quay.

"Where are you going?" he asked.

I sighed. "Low Cost Wagon at Light and E. Baltimare. Still there?"

"I think so. May I suggest Three Mares Used Wagons instead. They serve the trade and open early."

"Are they closer?"

"'bout the same."

"Does Used mean possibly stolen at some point?"

"No. The syndicate has mostly transitioned to legit businesses these days!" He sounded legitimately put off by the question.

Which, of course, explained why the Baltimare Constabulary Force ambushed us? Legit? Riiight.

"And you would know this— how?"

"I saw your last fight where you shot out the lights and tricked Shadow Strike into smashing into a pole. K.O.'d, for the championship. I joined up about a year later."

I felt perspiration condense under my coat, so I stopped and looked at him. "Did you fight in the war?"

"No. My boss told me I was too young. Seventeen. I lost Sea Bream in it, a good friend. You're some kind of a hero—"

"I was fifteen." I thought, Stop, now! When he gasped, I added, "I made myself look older."

"Yeah. And. Wow."

"Did I influence you to join?"

"When I heard rumors of you being Carne Asada's bodyguard, yeah. But—my point is—after the war, things changed. New management worked to conflict less with the coppers. Princess Celestia found her sister Luna and law enforcement became all about friendship, about ponies being able to reform, about forming herds and getting along—"

Princesses again! I really hated royalty. The nobility were worse than cutie marks. "And all that mumbo-jumbo?"

"Working ponies started to quote Herd unquote together to speak up for better wages and working conditions. The syndicate realized they could get in on the Herds thing and get 10% dues from everypony for providing needed organization and necessary muscle—our forte—when the factory owners and guildsman started intimidating ponies and locking them out. The top started investing in legit businesses. With the legit flow of bits, things got a whole lot safer."

"With an infamous name like boss Carne Asada on it, ponies still joined your 'Herd?'"

He laughed. "Boss Shea Butter named a division of it the Teamsters, a drovers reference, appropriate because the wagon-pullers were first to herd together. It's on the up and up."

"Mostly?"

"Mostly. Where it counts. Wages and working conditions improved for the stevedores, shipwrights, wagon-pullers, and retail clerks. A few greased hooves, for sure, to convince overzealous coppers and to get the city aldermares to recognize how we'd reformed and promoted friendship like the princesses want, but that's as much as I know."

I looked right and left, then said, "Okay. Which way to Three Mares?"

As we walked, he had me describe my old pony cart. "—Hip-height wheels with metal rims that won't get stuck in small mud puddles. Good for overland travel. I'm going to buy a four wheeler trailer, also. I've got a lot of supplies to buy and haul home this time, and I've got the bits. We use the pony cart a lot and don't need the extra weight when we use it, thus the trailer."

"I see," he said as we stopped in front of another brick building. There was a black cabriolet parked by the red barn-sized garage doors. The silhouette of two nose-to-nose mares in black graced a pine sign. "Wait here while I get that."

"I don't—"

He stepped back, still skittish. "It would be better if you let me do this."

I frowned and glanced at his cutie mark. Two hooves touching frog to frog. Was he named Helping Hoof? My studies of cutie mark iconography led me to often guess pony's names correctly. "Okay. Fine."

"Thank you." He bowed his head and trotted inside.

I sat. In my mackintosh, nopony thought to approach and be friendly. I felt my exhaustion creeping in as I waited long minutes.

He pushed the garage door farther and trotted out pulling almost exactly what I'd specified. The wheels looked recently wire-brushed to remove rust. Other than a few scratches and discoloration in the pine wood, which really only meant it was well broken in, the rig fit my needs. I was pleased enough to smile and to refrain from approaching the harness with him in to inspect it more closely. It was good enough and he was skittish.

"How much do I owe you?"

"CAS paid for it."

I held my bit purse up for a surprised instant, then swept it away. "A bonus?"

"Maybe? You look dead tired."

I involuntarily yawned.

"Get in the trailer and give me a list of what you need. I'll pull you." Sotto Voce, he added. "Laying in the lathe bed, nopony will recognize you."

The crisscross wood slats acted as camouflage; I could keep watch and not be seen. Once in, I gave him my list and refined it...

Until I fell asleep. So much for being watchful.

"...Princess?"

I startled and rolled into a canister, which went shish like an infant rattle. I blinked at the blue and red label and the white-manned pony with the tricorn hat. Oats. As I periscoped my neck, my mackintosh slipped off in between the bags of bran and lentils. I spotted a blue pony face with a limp black mane.

Right! I knew where I was. Rude of him to use the P-word with me, but I guessed he'd figured something out about me. Glancing at the prodigious supplies piled around me and on a pushcart next to him, I asked, "Your name wouldn't be Helping Hoof, would it?"

"It's Hoof Bump."

"Your parents really named you that?"

"Did yours really name you Gelding?"

"That would be grim." I snorted. "As would have been Princess Grim, my fight name, for that matter." Or Grimoire to name another.

"Great name and so obviously fabricated. Princess Grim must have a great origin story associated with it."

"Not so much. Very few ponies that could cause me harm know my real name." Princess Celestia did and probably held a grudge, but so far hasn't hunted me down. Sunburst could hurt me only emotionally. At least my father, only recently back from the presumed dead, kept my obligations from harming me. "I understand if you'd rather not say where you got your name..."

"Mom named me that. Even as an infant, I always seemed to want to help out."

"And you earned that cutie mark?" I tried not to sneer. He was being nice. Other than calling me the P-word.

"Yes, I did."

Did personality choose the mark? Or did the evil seeds of the magical organ manipulate the eventual bearer? Empirically, so far, it seemed that no pony missed their mark once removed. Of course, my tests had all been on ponies who had been ailing because of their mark.

A cleared throat made me pay attention. Pegasi had gathered copious clouds above, but the sun still poked through here and there.

"Just past noon," Hoof Bump said helpfully. "And there's your lunch." A red-checker cloth tied into a stuffed picnic sack lay by my rear hoof. "And Rolling Rock here has the last items on your list. The only space left is under you."

As I jumped out, he stepped back. The other pony, a palomino with grey whiskers and a red pork-pie hat, kept his distance by his push cart. The unicorn didn't wait. He stacked muslin bags of dried corn, flour, and cans of vegetable stock, beside a load of dried apples.

Before I could open my mouth, Hoof Bump added, "It's all paid for."

We were off to one side of the parking lot of a warehouse store where plenty of other ponies shopped. Some looked. Feeling naked, my true cutie mark exposed—twin anonymous auroras above one big magical star—I whisked back on my mackintosh. "It's chilly out," I added.

The store clerk left the moment I grabbed the coat.

As I stepped toward the harness, Hoof Bump said, "Nah-uh. I'm helping you up to the provincial line."

I looked at him. He blinked his friendly magenta eyes at me, waiting.

I sighed and shrugged, then trotted ahead of him.

#

I left Hoof Bump behind two hours later, where the turnpike changed to an uneven country road, just beyond the provincial line. The trot out of town had been mostly an uphill grade, and even though I had only had to walk, I felt increasingly tired and increasingly grateful. I hypothesized his helping cutie mark left him content cause he only nodded to my thank you and trotted away.

I quickly left civilization behind, passing through unclaimed royal lands, where the road abruptly ended in knee-high grass. I pulled through mixed woodland and badlands that nopony had wanted for lack of streams or too many rocks in the soil or hostile wild neighbors. I could hear an occasional screech of a hawk or the skittering of a rabbit, but nothing more than the wind. Nopony ever saw deer or moose, or had lived to report it. I'd seen only their distinctive cloven hoof marks in trampled fields.

Eventually, I tried using my magic to help me pull. Motivate was simple transform of levitate that most unicorns in the retail and carriage trades learned. It was a reciprocating spell that applied radial motion to an object. For whatever reason, maybe my snooty upbringing, it generally broke me.

This time, I couldn't even get it to work for even a few seconds. My magic just kept sputtering out.

Ahead I saw the white peaks of the snowy Lesser Andiron Mountains, and just before them lay a gray haze floating over a hidden flat bottom valley. Mostly a miles-wide sink with a seasonal lake in early spring, it provided dry farming the rest of the year with the aid of wells and carted-in barrels of artesian water.

I'd founded Our Town there. Hot in summer and cold in winter—being isolated really counted as its only redeeming quality, though free homesteading was its other. I stopped at a high cliff. The sun had set an hour ago and the sky looked dark blue. I saw the silhouette of the four cottages and the main house I lived in. Nopony waited outside and no light shone from any window. We were a poor little village; candles were too much of a luxury to use frivolously.

"Let's be about it!" I told myself, and lit up my horn to unbuckle myself from the harness. Surprisingly, I found myself fumbling with the release. The buckle came apart with a clatter just as I reached in exasperation with my lips to pull it open.

I sat down hard on the dry grass in between the traces, huffing. My head felt stuffed with cotton. I reached for my canteen and dropped it at my hooves. It splashed inside.

I stared at it.

I'd dropped it?

Why did my head feel so thick? Was that a headache coming on? I reflexively touched the back of a fetlock to my forehead. It felt warm, but not as hot as my horn felt—like I'd held steel in a forge.

That made no sense! I reached for the canteen, and as I swung it to my mouth it slipped again out of my magic. Annoyingly, it bounded toward the cliff. I lunged for it and my hoof clunked atop it, pinning it before it could roll over the side.

I sat, this time hard on bare granite. Holding the magically shaped gourd between my hooves, I twisted off the cap with my teeth and drank like an earth pony. The weird thought that I was losing my magic made me drop the gourd and try to levitate a barrel from the pony cart. I had planned to magically ferry parcels down to the base of the cliff, followed by the empty wagons. The vehicles were just within my lift limit.

My magic sputtered, crackling like a hot coal snapping sparks in a fireplace. My aura splashed the barrel of molasses, grew holes like bubble cheese before the the bubbles popped and the magic dissipated in a swirl of sparkles.

I blinked and noticed my nose itched. My sneeze broke the evening silence.

If I couldn't ferry the load, I'd have to take the trail to the upper side of the valley, then circle around and pull all the way back to the village. It would take hours.

I felt so tired.

I got up, tried my magic again and failed. I had no choice, and I couldn't think what else to do. After a half-dozen tries, I got hitched up.

And went the wrong direction before berating myself and turning around.

I trudged for about an hour before the mush between my ears thought to re-examine the events of the day. Going backwards: Hoof Bump insisted on pulling for me so I could leave town quicker. He helped me shop, even paying for me, so I could leave town quicker. I delivered my passenger safely and everypony looked surprised I'd physically brought him, keeping their distance. Everypony kept their distance, from me. Kept their distance from whom I presumed was their boss, maybe Shea Butter himself. The mackintosh I still wore... immediately hoofed over when I asked.

My cargo... My passenger... He had asked me not to use magic.

Had begged me, actually, when I really took a moment to replay the events in my head.

Horn Reaper.

The boss, a unicorn, had the Horn Reaper.

Nothing else could explain it better. They had needed to get him to a physician, probably by a boat, and had hired a patsy to ensure he got there. Yes, they had arranged it so I had needn't have touched him. The BCF had bolluxed that.

I'd touched him. Had no choice.

And I'd used magic to do so.

Horn Reaper was another of those magical monsters that afflicted Equestria more and more often these days. This "flu" had a magical component that allowed it to be transmitted by magic use. Improperly treated, it could spread through a population. Unicorns were most at risk. They could lose their horn, and that killed a high percentage. Pegasi occasionally lost the ability to fly, and earth ponies could go lame or even become paralyzed, if the flu symptoms didn't kill them.

All the pony tribes had magic. I'd discovered that myself, after I'd been inadvertently tutored by Celestia's Royal physician and had figured out how to look for magic flows. I'd watched a pegasus as she flew, pulling me in her pony cart through the sky. Then I had really looked. Pegasus and earth pony magic just manifested differently, through their wings and muscles.

If I didn't get the village their supplies— As soon as the winter set in, they'd be stuck in the valley. Everypony would starve.

My hoof slipped. Reflex sent me flat on my chest, pushed through the dirt on my belly as the inertia of the pony cart shoved my fore quarters off the side of the cliff. I grunted and dug in my rear hooves, scrabbling back until I pushed myself back onto the sketchy road. I spat out a mouthful of acrid grit and cleaned my tongue on my foreleg.

"Pay attention!" I yelled at myself, then coughed.

Away from city, in the wilderness, the evening gloom sucked my voice away without an echo. I tried to cast Illuminate, but each time my horn only flashed momentarily. It lit a few bushes and scrub. I moved on, having to try again and again so I didn't go astray. Once or twice I saw reflective eyes appraising me in the dark. Probably deer, which from our experience was worse than wolves.

I couldn't bring the disease to the village, but I had to bring the supplies!

No choice. No choice. Couldn't abandon the food or the deer and moose we shared the land with would surely eat it.

If I arrived early enough, before dawn, before anypony awoke... I could lock myself in my house, quarantine myself, ride out the illness.

No contact meant no contagion.

I trudged on...

#

I tripped and slid face-first through cold dew-wettened soil, burrowing in nose-first thanks the inertia of my cart. I lay there for a while. So tired. Time had lost meaning between one hoof step and the next. It seemed like another pony had walked and I had looked on. Now, I saw the dinner plate-sized frost-wilted leaves of late season squash wave above my head. It surprised me that I could see. I looked up. The spray of nebulae across the center of the sky, that I'd stared at time to time through the night, had faded to just the bright stars. The sky looked deep blue, not black. Ahead, I made out the silhouette rooftops of the village.

I'd walked all night.

Wretched Celestia, who sometimes slept in and sometimes woke early, could raise her sun any moment! I pushed up, but then found I shook and shuddered. My nose dripped. It wasn't dew.

I sneezed.

I was breathing in hard, in gusts—almost as if I'd run the Baltimare Celestial Race once again—not as if I just stood up. I aimed my body for the main house, my house, then more precisely, toward the cart shed behind it. The harness dug into my ribs. The trailer jerked me back when the hitch clanked and connected between the wagons. I gasped, then grunted and dug in.

One hoof. Next hoof. Then the next.

I had to use my mouth and hooves to pull open the door. I backed the rig into the narrow space because I would never have had the energy to climb over had I pulled it in. The gravel floor crunched under the wheels and slid, repeatedly, making the wheels lock. I had to push. I sweat buckets—only part of that was due to my fever. Even with a dual hitch trailer, it refused to backup straight. It clacked and creaked and kept jamming into the wall. Until...

It fit in, totally. I collapsed to the floor and cracked my chin on the stones. My hoof came back red. My eyes began to burn.

The princess took pity on me. No sunrise, yet, but the morning twilight brightened. I forced myself to fight out of the harness, to drag my tired bones outside. My luck would not last, not if it depended on anything royal or noble.

The shed door.

I shut it despite the bottom dragging in the dirt and now the whitewashed wood glistened. The twilight lightened until the sky was starting to look blue. I glanced back. Nopony outside. I would have heard a shout of greetings.

The shed door.

I'd left lines of slime, like giant snail tracks, where I'd pushed holding my face and nose against the wood. Snot—let me use that word because it looked gross—dripped from a wooden handle that now bore my tooth marks.

Was Horn Reaper contagious by touch? I'd had to study animal husbandry and the basics of veterinary science as, in my former life, I'd been expected to eventually oversee farms—yes, plural. I'd run away during an intern journey through the western part of the earldom. What I hadn't learned was pony medicine. Not proper for a young lady. All I knew was you quarantined the sick livestock and consulted the vet for the correct medicine.

I looked at the dripping mucus, which became easier to see by the moment. Heat sterilization of veterinary instruments came to mind.

My magic. Could I?

I had to do something. Somepony might touch and I'd fail protecting everypony.

I sat and stirred the slush inside my head, fighting to calculate a Force spell. I kept on getting to the end of the number chain to address the wish predicate only to have the first numbers fade and I'd have to start over.

I'd ended up teaching a student once. Sunset had insisted on shapes instead of maths to cast a spell. I didn't know the "shape" of Force, but I imagined a marquise-cut diamond as a placeholder anyway.

That got magic flowing to my horn! Ponderously, though. Like molasses in winter. I kept focused on the diamond shape, but feared a congestion analogous to the one stuffing up my nose might affect my horn.

If I could only sneeze...

Could I?

I snuffled and inhaled, scrunching my nose, trying to get a tickle, keeping the diamond in my mind's eye, trying...

I sneezed.

The spell triggered simultaneously. Force is a cylindrical cyclonic levitation of air that causes friction creating a plasma. A gout of blue-green magic-boosted steam erupted against the door with a whoosh before rolling upward in a vaguely mushroom-shaped cloud.

A pulse of wet heat scooted me back in the dirt, singing my nose, and causing the hairs on my muzzle to curl.

Bits of peeling white paint on the door burned briefly, while the rest of the whitewash turned yellow and bubbled. A few green sparks spontaneously fizzled like a sorry firework from my horn in a downward arc.

"Well then," I whispered. When I tried to stand, I vomited.

At least I had no worries anypony would touch that bilious green sick in the dirt. I buried it anyway, then scrubbed my hooves in clean soil to be safe before I stumbled to the house. The quadrangle between the cottages remained empty and I saw no lights in the windows.

My door opened to my touch. I kept it unlocked as we knew each other well, but I did have a turn bolt and I glanced at it, before looking for paper. It took me seconds to understand that I looked at the piece of brass. Blinking in dismay, I did find my yellow pad. A spark from my horn burnt pinholes in the paper as I thoughtlessly tried to levitate a quill—before the feather burst into a stinking cloud of smoke and ashes.

A minute later, I wrote with a pencil in my mouth.

Because I had last mouth-written as foal, and had had no cause to practice beyond the age of five, I was forced to print in blocky foalish letters.

I am ill with HORN REAPER and contagious.

Do not enter.

Supplies in shed.

Do not touch for three days.

"That should do it," I mumbled, then nearly skewered myself as I momentarily blanked out and my head dropped forward. I spat the pencil out, the pain in the back of my throat having focused my awareness.

Now to attach the note.

How?

I glared at my useless hammer that required magic to wield, then swept it off my workbench.

My hoof skidded against edge of my masking tape, unable to free the stuck end.

When my teeth and hooves couldn't open it, I smashed the bottle of paste on the floor. I tore off the note (hopefully intact because my eyes were now blurring), and pushed it into the white glop mixed with bits of glass.

I crawled to the door.

Now all I had to do was...

I pushed the sign, trailing a line of paste up the door. The stuff worked as a lubricant, which was good because the paper weighed a Celestial ton at this point.

"There!"

It wobbled in the breeze as if attached with elastic, but stuck at half a pony height.

Just get inside, turn the latch...