Walk Alone

by AsheBlaster

Dust on our Hooves

As the sky's blue faded to a deep purple, more and more ponies from all walks of life walked through the doors of the tavern. Fireball expected this, as most people came away from their jobs to relax, or were making long journeys to Ponyville, only to arrive at night fall. It was rare for the latter to happen, so she would usually see a few regulars or other Ponyville citizens coming by for a drink or meal. There were a few ponies that Fireball hadn't seen before; namely a light purple bat pony with a faded pink mane, wearing a black suit with a green tie. She seemed to be deep in conversation with a grey griffon, who was gesturing his talons with every word he spoke. Though she couldn't hear it, Fireball could tell that both of them were passionate about the subject matter.

Other than that, the night was business as usual, with nothing all that interesting. Even as the red sunset faded to the black night, the commotion of the tavern was just enough to keep Fireball's mind occupied, even if it was just long enough to make it between each order she took. The familiar chaos kept her at ease, as she knew it was something that would distract her while still being manageable enough that she wouldn't get overwhelmed. This was where she was in her element.

As the night began to calm down, Fireball began to lament the idea that she'd have to close up soon. She tried to stay open as long as possible, in case anypony traveled in late at night and needed somewhere to rest for a bit, but she had to take care of herself before she worried about that. But worrying about herself also meant that she needed to distract herself from the rushing river of thoughts in her head, which she could avoid with the hustle and bustle of the tavern, and yet that would deprive her of sleep, making the issues even worse.

Fireball's heart was pounding so hard it was practically echoing throughout the tavern. At least, she thought it was, until she realized it was rapid hoofsteps coming towards the tavern. Just as she registered this information, a maroon Pegasus with a curly, pastel blue mane burst through the door, a wide smile slapped across his muzzle. Below said smile was a tan bandana around his neck and a palette covered in paint for his cutie mark.

The sound of the doors being slammed open were drowned out by the patrons talking, so the pegasus happily trotted over to an empty booth. Fireball scanned the horse over and over and over again, but she couldn't seem to recognize him. She had seen countless ponies come through those doors from all over Equestria, even meeting princesses (other than twilight), and yet she had no idea who this pegasus was. But, then again, it had been a while since a new face came in here, so she might as well familiarize herself.

As Fireball approached, the pegasus noticeably changed how he sat; going from slumping in the booth to sitting straight up, seemingly to not seem disrespectful. Fireball smiled softly to herself and pulled out her notepad. "Hey, are you new around here?"

The pegasus nodded and scanned the menu. "Yeah," his shockingly high voice practically squealed, "I just moved in recently, finally got settled in today. The name's Color, Color Palette!" He stuck out his hoof in a friendly gesture, which Fireball happily connected to her own in a hoofbump.

"Fireball," she returned the greeting, "Fireball Liquor. Now, what can I get you started off with?"

Color glanced back at the menu and smiled back at Fireball. "I'll just take a cider for now, thank you!"

Fireball closed the notebook once she wrote that down and trotted back to the bar, taking out a glass and putting it to the cider keg. She glanced back as she pushed down on the spout, and noticed Color balancing a fork on his nose, which brought a little smile to Fireball's muzzle. Somepony like this would fit in perfectly, maybe he'd even be a regular, another friendly face coming in every so often would be nice, and not just for the business he'd bring. Fireball loved memorizing ponies' orders and making them feel like they belong, so somepony new to bring that same smile to is like a blessing to Ms. Liquor.

As the sun shone through her window, Fireball winced in her sleep, turning over so that her back was to the wall from which that damned light was coming from. The only thing bothering her more than her rude awakening was the parched throat she almost always woke up with. She knew she would have to get up soon, not just to deal with her dehydration, but also she was a full grown pony, and had things to do today. She tried to rationalize that if she sat and rested for a bit to help her wake up, she would be able to help more effectively. This never worked before, but it'll work this time, right?

Groaning in indignation, she forced herself to get out of bed and walk down stairs to the kitchen. As she poured her glass of water, she mentally went over what she had to do today; help Trim deal with some critters that are over-eating her garden. It was nice to help out, but working so early in the morning after her late night shifts made it a bit difficult to get proper rest. But she valued her friend's happiness, so she would do it either way.

After a few minutes of stretching, Fireball slipped her scarf on and started making her way to the other side of Ponyville. Despite being up for nearly 30 minutes, she still wasn't quite ready to deal with the bright sun, but it didn't matter, she would just have to adjust. She'd also have to adjust to the noise of ponies trotting by and talking amongst themselves, but that didn't bother her nearly as much.

As she got closer and closer to the edge of Ponyville, she felt so much more awake, and the sun wasn't nearly as bad as when it woke her up, so Fireball decided to forgive that transgression. Another upside to being more awake was that she could deal with all the sounds of different pony conversations, and even return greetings sent her way, something very common for the sweet rural town. Despite the hundreds of ponies living there, everypony pretty much knew everypony, and everypony was unnaturally nice to everypony!

Right as Fireball was basking in the warmth of how this town made her feel, she suddenly felt her head collide with somepony else's, falling back into a sitting position and using her hoof to rub the spot of the hit. Looking up at what she had run into, she noticed a familiar dark red pegasus rubbing his curly maned head with his wing, the two making eye contact shortly after.

"Fireball! Long time no see!" the pegasus called out, much to Fireball's confusion. They had literally seen eachother last night.

"Hey, Color." Fireball replied, stifling her own pain with the conversation, "Where are you headed in such a rush?"

Color got up and started to flap lightly, keeping himself airborne. "I'm on my way to the part of ponyville that borders the Everfree forest, what about you?"

"Interesting, I'm headed the same way." she got back up and started trotting forth. "Maybe we can trot and talk?"

Color nodded and happily flapped along, following Fireball close to her side and keeping up and idle conversation. The questions were the usual things you ask somepony, asking how eachother's day was, if they were doing anything interesting today, and the like. Just anything to pass the time as they made their pretty short trek to the forest. Though the idea of asking slipped her mind, Fireball couldn't help but wonder what the pegasus would do once he got to his location.

As they approached the border and the sand green hat atop Trim's mane came into view, Fireball expected Color to head his own way. That wasn't the case, however, as he quickly rushed over to Trim and the two began talking. Fireball approached to figure out what the hay was going on.

Trim beamed at Fireball, though the nervousness in her eyes never left. "Oh thank Celestia you're here," she didn't even hesitate before rushing her sentence out, "I need all hooves on deck, think you're up for it?"

Fireball nodded and opened her muzzle to ask for more context, but was interrupted by a whimper coming from the garden, drawing the attention of everypony. Out in the garden, surrounded by flowers that all had nibbles taken out of them, stood a golden coated pegasus, frantically trying to talk to something. She occasionally reached down her hoof, but something in the ground grabbed her long, pink mane, startling her and making her jump back, rushing back to the group.

"I take it that didn't go quite so well, Fluttershy?" Trim asked almost rhetorically, but still trying to keep her tone gentle.

"Oh, I'm sorry," Fluttershy responded softly, almost embarrassed, "I tried to talk to them, but they wouldn't listen to anything!" She took a moment to check her hair, noticing the tip was frayed and torn. "I would've gotten more stern, but they got rough and I had to come back. Sorry, everypony"

Fireball trotted up to the distressed mare and gently wrapped one forehoof around her, a comforting gesture which Fluttershy leaned into, taking a bit of time to calm down. "You did your best, Flutters," Fireball consoled her friend,"we've got the rest covered. We all appreciate your help." The sentence was met with agreement from Trim and Color. "Now," the earth pony started as she let go of the pegasus, "let's take another crack at this. What's the plan, Trim?"

Trim's horn let off a slight pastel pink aura as she pulled a book out of her saddlebag. After rapidly flipping through it, she landed on a page depicting a small navy blue creature with a pattern like a starry night, large purple eyes, big pincers, and tiny little legs. The word above the illustration read "Nightmarab", and beside it was several paragraphs of text explaining them, but it was too far for Fireball or Color to make out any of the words. Setting the book down, Trim used her magic to pull up a pair of glasses, which she affixed to the end of her muzzle and began to read from the page. "Distant relatives to Parasprites, the nightmarab is a pest from the Everfree Forest. It usually resides in damp caves, but can sometimes tunnel through wet dirt into occupied areas. Usually presenting a problem for farmers." She looked up from the page to stare at the tormented garden, laugh to herself, then went back to the book. "They can't live more than 2 meters from a water source, but will travel far distances to find food."

Before Trim could carry on, she was cut off by Color exclaiming in pain, drawing everypony's attention. Attached on his backhoof was a navy blue set of pincers, and the starry body of one of the critters. Color began flapping around, trying to shake off the creature as frantically as possible, shakily shouting "get it off! get it off! get it off!" so fast that it was hard to really understand him.

As he flew around frantically, Fireball and Fluttershy chasing to try and help, Trim skimmed as quick as she could, looking for anything that could help out in this situation. Then again, two panicked ponies prying pincers from a perturbed pegasus wasn't particularly plausible. Still, it was a beastiary, it had to have something about how to control these pests in there somewhere.

"Their bite force is- no. They're herbivo- no, not that. Eureka!" she slammed the book with her exclamation, and ran over to the group, which was shockingly still. Well, Color was trying to fly away still, but Fireball and Fluttershy were holding him in place. Trim walked to the nightmarab and used her hoof to gently stroke behind it's eyes down to it's back. As she stroked, it's eyes started to flutter, and it let go, falling to the ground and snoring softly. Fireball stared in awe, Fluttershy in admiration of the cute critter, and Color in absolute terror of the thing that just latched onto him.

"We have to lure these things back to the forest," Trim began explaining, practically ignoring what she just did, "the best thing we can do is make them sleepy and they'll all go back! Then we can set up something to stop them from coming back!" The group looked at eachother, and back at Trim, trusting in her judgement. Trim nodded and turned to the group, pulling a sheet of paper from her saddlebag alongside a pencil, and she started to sketch out her plan. Once she explained it, each pony nodded and got into formation, ready to do their part.

As quickly as his wings could carry him, Color dragged as many clouds as he could over to the garden and the surrounding area, casting a large shadow over the whole area. Then, producing a brush from his saddlebag, he raced across each and every one, painting dark blue and black across the undersides. Adorning each and every one with unique patterns of little white freckles and beautiful splashes of greens and blues, forming the image of a night sky. Once he was done, he took off to the side and began flapping his wings as gently as he could, sending a gentle and cool breeze over the garden.

Once he was done, Fluttershy took to trotting through the center of the garden, singing a gentle lullaby to the critters below. In response to her singing, a few dozen nightmarabs poked their heads out of the ground to look at the noise, a few even yawning, before they all started to retreat to the ground. Fireball and Trim were already a few meters into the everfree forest, each one with a watering can to moisten the ground and lead them back to a cave, one which was thankfully a ways away from ponyville. When the two got done, they hoofbumped and began galloping back to Ponyville.

When they got back, they could see little lumps of dirt moving along their moistened path, and could even hear chittering and yawns coming from the creatures below. Trim started running in place, so ecstatic that her plan was working so well, but she quickly calmed down and used her magic to open a small pocket on the front of her saddle bag, from which she brought out a hoof-full of small, pink seeds. She tossed them haphazardly onto the ground they had just watered, and sat, satisfied at how well things had gone. "Hell yeah." she whispered to herself while looking up at the faux night sky.

It was at that moment that Fireball finally noticed that painting above, and she sat in awe. It was so well done; each color flowed effortlessly into eachother, and it looked almost like the real night sky, even constellations were in place where they would have been at that time at night, it was nothing short of phenomenal in her eyes. But, it was not to last, as Color dashed through each of the clouds, having them disperse into nothing, and letting the sun flow through again, much to the strain of the two ponies' eyes. While rubbing her eyes with her hoof, something finally clicked for Fireball, and she turned to her unicorn friend. "I forgot to ask you," she started out, rubbing one hoof on the back of her head, "how exactly do you and Color know eachother?"

Trim returned the glance when she finished rubbing her eyes, and her eyes lit up with revelation. "Oh! Well, a few ponies here in Ponyville went to his housewarming party. We hit it off pretty well, and he even agreed to help out with this." She punctuated that sentence by standing up and arching her back to stretch. "I would've invited you, but I found out, like, ten minutes beforehand when Fluttershy brought me along."

Fireball felt her stomach drop in a twinge of jealousy, but she tried her best to push it down as best as she could. She knew it was unhealthy to feel bad about something so little, but she still couldn't help but feeling that ache. Either way, she made sure not to show it at all, something she figured she was pretty good at. She was not. Trim could easily see her wince, but chose to ignore it and try to change the subject. "But," she took a second to stretch her back hooves in the way she stretched her forehooves as she spoke, "we can all head to the tavern if everypony's free. It'll be my treat."

Color Palette flew by and landed next to the two. "I'd love to come along!" he exclaimed, his eyes lighting up in excitement. Trim returned the excitement, turning back to Fireball to gauge her opinion. After a second, she sighed and trotted to the group, agreeing to bring them over. As they excitedly trotted along, Fireball glanced back at Fluttershy, who was staring at the ground, idly poking at it with one of her forehooves.

Fireball hung back and slowly went up to Fluttershy, who met Fireball's gaze with her own ocean colored eyes. "Wanna come with us to the tavern?" Fireball inquired, keeping her tone as soft as she could. "It'll just be the four of us, it'll be quiet. I'll even make something for angel if you bring him."

Fluttershy smiled softly at that comment. "I'd love to!" she quietly coo'd, before turning towards the road to her cabin. "I'll just go grab angel, I know he just loves the way you make his snack plates! See you soon!" and with that, she trotted off to her cabin, and Fireball ran to join the group.

Comments

[GreyTheGriffon]

That little action sequence at Trim's garden was really well written, and the alliteration made me laugh. Fireball, Trim, Color and Fluttershy work really well as a group, and Fluttershy was written pretty accurately. Excited for the next Chapter!