• Published 3rd Apr 2013
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The Night is Passing - Cynewulf



Celestia disappears, Equestria falls apart, and Twilight goes West to recover her lost teacher.

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XII. Troja Fuit.

XII. Troja Fuit.



RARITY





The snow had several qualities. Firstly, it was draining—its cold sank down past the skin and clung to the bones and let go only after much difficulty. Secondly, it was heavy, for it never stopped and buried everything slowly, slowly. Lastly, it was eternal. The snow that coated everything seemed to go on and on as far as the eye could see and farther, seemed to stretch unto the edges of the world.


To Rarity, it was obscene. The blizzard raged for the third day, and she had come to accept their peril.


It wasn’t hard to understand, really. That it had taken her three days was a testimony less to her great stores of hope and more to stubbornness. No unicorn likes to admit that the natural elements are the master over her, but even Rarity eventually had to concede that she was exhausted and frozen over.


Her hooves crunched through the snow, and with every step, they sunk in a little more. She wondered, as they trudged, if it had ever been anything but snowing, if there had been any other state and if her memories of summer were strange, feverish dreams, if she wouldn’t eventually sink to her chest and then be gone into the snow.


Even the pegasi suffered. Though they resisted the cold better than any pony or Zebra, Fluttershy and Rainbow Dash shivered and huddled close to Rarity and one another when night came in full force. Flying had become less and less of a viable option for them. Their cold and exhausted estate aside, visibility was beyond poor. Rarity feared, with every hour, that they would become separated. Any moment, she imagined that one of them might slow, might stumble, and not be noticed until they were lost. The buffeting of the wind, like the fists of some lumbering beast, would push them farther and farther from their friends.


The snow fell. No, Rarity thought numbly, placing one hoof in front of another, it did not simply fall as much as it pressed.


They were not lost. She thanked any stars that still shone out beyond the thick clouds for that. There was a compass and a map, though she had little light to read them by, and these things did wonders. She knew exactly where they were going and what way to go.


Beyond that, questions of time plagued her. It meant nothing to know where to go if the time it would take was more than they had. The blizzard was not ending. She doubted that it would end in time. They had left the city in the worst of seasons on a fool’s errand to find an empire that was probably frozen and dead.


She groaned. The sound was lost in the howling wind, but she didn’t care. It was for herself alone. In private, Rarity would despair. She would whine and cry, contort her face and cover her eyes in pure, childish frustration. But she would never do this where Fluttershy or Rainbow Dash could see her. Her grief was for herself, not for others. It was anathema to be a burden on those who trusted her to know where to go.


Snow necessitates many things and forces on the mind others. Rarity began to accept slowly that she was suffering and that she was going to suffer.


She looked around at her friends. Rainbow Dash grimaced, her mouth a hard line against the wind and all it brought. She was unbowed, undominated. The wind could come down as fists or claws or bricks and Rainbow Dash would look no different. Rarity would not disassemble, even with herself; she envied that demeanor. In a strange way, it made her angry. In a distant way, at least. Anger and envy required energy. Even to envy warmth, which none of them had.


But one of us is less suited for this vile weather, she thought sourly to herself for perhaps the thousandth time. Her thoughts came slower as well. Slow, slow like watching paint dry or molasses run down an incline.


Rainbow did not bother to shake the snow from her soaked mane, and it gave her the countenance of a ghost. Rarity could not help but watch. Was there another pony beside Rainbow? A third? No, it was not Fluttershy. Where was Fluttershy?


Lazily, her eyes rolled almost as if they resented her instruction. Fluttershy also did not shiver as Rarity did. She knew her own legs shook like leaves below her without needing to look to know the truth of it. She had lost the feeling in them beyond the numb sensation of marching.


When she looked again, she counted two. Only two ponies. No, no, were there not three?


Looking over her shoulder was no way to walk. Rarity stumbled in the thick snowfall and lay there.


The pegasi were there instantly, trying to pull her up, but she waved them off. No, now was not the time for that.


“Who is that? The third one there beside you?” she rasped.


“Rares, what are you talking about?” Rainbow yelled back at her over the constant howl.


“There are three of you! Oh… Oh, who are you…?” Rarity groaned. “When I count,” she continued, raising her head up slowly and waving a hoof in their direction, “I count three ponies! Three beside myself… But then then there are only two until I… I look back…”


“Rares… Rares, look at me, will you?” Rainbow pleaded.


“I’m so cold,” Rarity replied, her eyes staring not at her friends now but above them and beside. “When I look… down the white road—”


“Rarity, are you okay?” Fluttershy asked softly. “You are talking so strangely…”


“I… I am unwell.”


“I’d say. Geeze…” Rainbow groaned. The mask was broken. “Flutters, she’s gonna get worse. We need to get out of the snow.”


“But… but the snow is everywhere.”


“Yeah, don’t I know it.”


“Rainbow, my legs feel odd,” Rarity said. Even to her own ears, her voice sounded lilting.


“Yeah, yeah… gods, hold on. Don’t die on me yet.”


“I’m alive,” Rarity said, frowning. How rude.


“Yeah, I’m glad about that,” Rainbow said and smiled at Rarity with as much warmth as she could muster. “Really glad. I think I know what to do.”


“Oh, alright… I’m very sleepy, you know. I would have told you earlier, but… I didn’t think it… it was…” She made a very unladylike noise. “Bah. I don’t remember the words.”


Before Rainbow could reply, she writhed on the ground, trying to remove the saddlebags. They were vile! They were far too heavy, and she was starting to feel strangely warm.


“Should have… look, nevermind,” Rainbow said, closing her eyes for a moment and taking a breath. “Uh…. ah, right. Flutters, I’m gonna need your help here… Rarity, please stop doing that… hey!” she snapped, and Rarity finally wriggled free of her bonds. “Damn, Rares, can you calm down? The pack…”


Rarity stared up at the sky.


How wonderful it was, how uniform, how orderly! Oh, she appreciated order and uniformity. No. One of those things. Order. That sounded nice. All things in decency and order do, Rarity, that you might be happy in the land the sun your benefactor is giving thee, yea. She tried to roll over.


Vaguely, faintly, she heard her friends talking and grimaced. What were they talking about? It bothered her. Noise and noise and noise, no words, just mumbles and the occasional crunch of snow. Then lots of crunches of snow. Is that how she was going to describe it? Words came hard.


Time passed, but Rarity could not hold onto it.


Her thoughts did more than just freeze. They rotted. At once, she began to think how much better it would have been to die in Ponyville. She decided, with absolute certainty, that those who died before the faces of their mothers and fathers in the streets of in a dozen Equestrian cities—they had all been twice—no!—thrice blessed. They were done. They were finished. They no longer moved. No one made those sleeping ponies walk or march or run or talk. Noyepony asked them to do things. Nopony forced them into vain hope. And as her thoughts festered, she saw them, herself and her friends, as in a great darkness. They appeared thinly scattered and paddling in the yawning deep. They tread water. She saw herself, up in the sky, head bobbing below and above and below again, and she struggled even now, and—


Rarity felt hooves press upon her, caress her cheeks and chest and shoulders, and then she imagined that perhaps something pulled her towards some goal.










Twilight





More tunnels. Twilight had come to hate tunnels more than anything in the universe. How many ways could they possibly vary? How many kinds of corridors and tunnels could there possibly be? Honestly, she reflected, there were lots, but there was no way to tell them apart or describe them as anything but “long” or “dark” or whatever else. The labyrinth defied her. It laughed at her and kept her confused and turned around, and she hated the whole city.


Axiom hummed to himself, smiling. He sat across from her, his hooves kept carefully out of the rancid water below. The ridiculous pose he kept seemed not to bother him at all. Twilight figured it was a part of living here, in the Underground, that you began to lose the norms of the surface.


Applejack sat beside him, her hat pulled over her face. Twilight wished that she could push that hat up if only to read Applejack’s expression. She hated not knowing things.


Pinkie’s hooded head on Applejack’s shoulder stirred. “Twilight? It’s boring here. Can’t we go?”


Twilight raised an eyebrow at Axiom. “I’m not sure.”


Their only source of light was the three orbs of arcane light that Twilight juggled over the filthy waters that trickled by. She was glad for the movement. Still water was far worse.


“Not quite,” Axiom said. “Oh, don’t look at me like that, Twilight. It is quite unbecoming! I assure you, you will know when it is time.”


“How reassuring,” Twilight growled.


Axiom sighed. “Honestly. I’m not trying to be… obtuse? Tiresome?”


“Difficult?”


“Right! Difficult. I’m not trying to be difficult, Twilight. You’ll know because the sounds of battle will reach even us.” He fidgeted. In the low light, she could not see all that he did, and so she wondered. “Yes,” he went on listlessly, “we’ll notice. You know, part of me is excited.”


“For violence?” Twilight whispered back.


“Yes, of course, violence. Do you drink, Twilight?”


“Yes,” Twilight answered and glared at Applejack when she snorted.


“Twi tries, but she can’t handle much,” Applejack said far too cheerfully for their current surroundings, in Twilight’s opinion. “But I think I know where you’re going.”


“Oh?”


“Yeah. It’s an acquired taste. Once you get a bit of it, you’re okay with more until you start kinda likin’ it. Pa let me try a bit of hard cider—the really good stuff—when I was still a young’un, every harvest he was alive, and by the time I was a full-grown mare, I loved the stuff.”


Axiom smiled—Twilight could see his smile shine. “Why yes, that’s exactly it. Yes, you begin to develop a taste for it.”


They were quiet again for a time. Twilight’s eyes wandered over the worn brick passageway, tracked a bit of film over the dark waters, traced the the outline of her companions. Time passed in pockets without light or a wide world to give it proper context.


Twilight started to think over the plan again. They would ascend in the chaos and find some place above ground to hide or even make it all the way to the ship if they could. Twilight hoped but did not count on making it in one go. If—no, when, she reminded herself—when they recovered the vessel, they could point it south and Main Sail would be waiting with a few ponies who had volunteered to come along. They were strays, but they were still willing. They were still ponies.


But her mind wandered away from plans—for a moment.


“You know,” Twilight said softly, “I do remember you in classes, back at the university.”


“Ah, happy day! I’d thought your eyes blinded by delight.”


“I’m going to assume you’re making a dig at Celestia, so I’ll just keep going.”


“Aw.”


“But,” Twilight continued, “I do remember you. I remember you being a lot different. A little quieter, but mostly you were… well, a lot more normal, back then.”


“You wound me! To the heart, Twilight,” he replied but without heat.


“Where did all of this come from? You went to her school once, though you didn’t study in the magic courses, obviously. So why all of this antagonism?”


“Well, a lot of time has passed between then and now. Ponies do change, you know. Nothing is constant. What happened? A farm not chosen, a sea of fine and not so fine whiskey, a sojourn to opportunity and dropping out of school, and a lot of blackouts.”


Twilight frowned. “Seems like you’ve not done well since I knew you.”


“Not at all!” he replied.


“You’re pretty darned happy ‘bout it,” Applejack noted.


Twilight saw the outline of Axiom shift and his head turn. “No, it’s just not really worth it to be morose, don’t you agree? One must move on. A stallion I loathe once wrote that. I think. But it’s true, regardless, that you have to move, or you’ll die. You know, I was thinking about that when the Duke found me.”


“And how did he find you?” Twilight asked.


Axiom was grinning. She knew that he was.


“Well, the Duke found me after the first riots. The Grays were coming into their own, then. I was sordid and wet and in a hole, keeping my head above water and hoping that none of the firebombs hit me. When you’re waiting for the world to end, you try to keep in good supply of a few things, the chief among them being hard liquor. Predictably, because we live in a terrible world, in the initial rush of revolution, my nest in the wharf went up in flames. It was quite a sight. Me, fleeing into the streets—one of many—with little flecks of fire in my coat and mane, my supplies and the supplies of the other squatters up in blue flame wrapped in crimson flame, wrapped in smoke, wrapped in terror—”


“Got a way with words there, pal,” Applejack said in a stage whisper, and Pinkie shushed her. Twilight was surprised. She’d not heard her pink friend make a sound in so long that she’d almost forgotten what it was like.


“—yes, well. So I was there in the dark. You know, you think a lot in the dark. I called my new home the Hole. Felt deeper than it really was. I’d set my watch and warrant—god, these northewesternisms gall me—but all the while, I think to myself… ‘Axiom, you know, it would be easy to die here.’ Not even that I wanted to, you understand. You do, don’t you?” Here, he paused as if he was truly unsure. Mechanically, Twilight nodded, and he continued. “Good. Well, there I was, in the Hole. And I was just sort of ruminating on the ease with which death comes. Suddenly, there he was, like some sort of hero out of the worst kind of novel.” Axiom sighed wistfully. “I hated him immediately.”


Twilight blinked.


“Wait, that’s not how the story goes…” Pinkie said softly.


“Well. I mean, I suppose there was a small bit of time where I didn’t react in an instinctive, taste-fueled and righteous fury, but that lackluster response was quite made up for.”


“How, exactly?” Twilight asked.


“Well, you see, I hated him because he was above me. It was a marvelous moment. I was wet, miserable, and tenuous. He was dry, warm, secure… In short, it was all unfair. The whole situation, the whole world. I think that was the moment it all made sense to me—in a flash. Probably not! You know, the more I think about it, the less true it seems. Maybe I’m lying.”


“I…”


“But it’s a good idea, isn’t it? It’s something out of a book. Anyhow, I was hating him in a most just manner when I sneezed.”


“You sneezed,” Twilight repeated dully.


“Yes! Good, you’re listening! You can be taught, even with a bit of that stupid sunglow in those beautiful eyes of yours. No, no you see I was very cold, and so that is why I sneezed, and when you realize I was balancing to keep above water… Needless to say, I slipped and began to drown. I cannot swim, by the way. Not at all.”


“I… I didn’t expect that,” Twilight said. “I’m assuming he saved you?”


“Oh, hell no!” Axiom said, shaking with mirth. “No, he laughed at me, that ass. I mean, yes, he saved me eventually, but only after he’d laughed first.”


Twilight couldn’t help herself. She chuckled. “You almost make me like this stallion, Axiom. I almost think you like him.”


“Do I? I suppose I do. What is our relationship, anyhow?” the jester mused. “I suppose we are friends, after a fashion. It was I that drug him out of the Ducal estate on the edge of town when it burned down. Blues planted a bomb in the wine cellar that fizzed out, but the failed explosive still started a fire. Guess it wasn’t a failure after all…” He cleared his throat. “But I’m wandering. Twilight, Pinkie, Applejack—yes, I remember your names even though I have been focused on one of you—I will let my own convictions rest a moment. Something else is on my mind.”


“Your friends up there?” Applejack asked.


But Axiom shook his head. “No, though I wonder about them. But we are all committed now, live or die, and so perhaps I am not concerned as much as I am already resigned. I have done my mourning. No, I think you might have an idea. Let me ask you a question—you first, in fact, my good rustic. What happened?”


“Pardon?”


“What happened? To us. To all of us.” He swept his hoof wide as if gesturing to a grand stage. “And I don’t mean just us, here, in this mausoleum. I’m talking about everything. Applejack, does it not strike you as odd, how the end of the world played out?”


“Ain’t sure what you mean, still,” Applejack replied, but then she stopped. She hummed. “No, I take it back. I have started wonderin’, and I wanted to chew on it a bit more, but here goes. Ponies fell apart. We all know that; it’s understood.” She looked around, and they all nodded back. Axiom seemed patient to Twilight’s eyes, genuinely curious. “But why’d they go to pieces so darn fast? Half a year later and we went from happy, smilin’ ponyfolk to maruadin’ and seriously thinkin’ ‘bout eatin’ critters. I mean, you’re right, I asked that question. It was too fast. Far too fast. I don’t know why, but there’s something we’re all missin’, some other thing that helped bridge the gap between good folk and what they are now.”


“Were they ever as good as we thought?” Twilight asked sourly. They all looked at her, and she sighed. “Applejack, I know you want to say yes right away, but think about it.”


“Don’t put words in my mouth. Just tell me what you’re thinkin’.”


Twilight looked down at her hooves or where she knew them to be. In the dark, she saw nothing but varieties of shadow, the suggestion of brick, the monotony of straight lines and grids.


“Maybe ponies were never as good as we thought they were. I mean, if you think about it, they kind of had to be good. Weren’t we all keeping each other from being bad? Being guardians, thousands of us, with the guards and our neighbors and the law to back us up, going up… up to the Princess. She is good,” she said, and she grit her teeth. “Very, very good. Very… but we aren’t. We’re bad. We are mean-spirited and selfish, and why shouldn’t we be when she leaves? What’s to stop us? If you take out the top stone of the arch, it falls apart. Ponies weren’t good one moment and bad the next. They were always bad.”


“Now, hold on—” Applejack began, but Twilight cut her off with a shake of her head.


“Can you really say most ponies wouldn’t take from you, even then, if they thought they could get away with it?”


“Yeah,” Applejack said. “I think most of ‘em would’ve left me and mine alone. Ponies ain’t monsters.”


“They’re not angels,” Twilight insisted.


“Twilight… you think all of the ponies in town were bad?” Pinkie asked.


Twilight looked up, then, and found herself looking at Pinkie.


And something changed, for Pinkie stirred with energy at last. She crossed over the water with a great and careless step, graceful, as if she could fly and feared no death or sepsis. She shook herself, and Twilight heard her shoulders crack as she did, like a wall beat in by magic. Twilight knew the sound.


“Twilight, do you really think that?” Pinkie asked again. Her voice was even. Twilight would think it strangely even, but Pinkie had been not much like her old self in weeks.


“What?” Twilight asked dully. She took a step back.


“Do you think they were bad? That it was just because of where they were that they smiled and helped each other and said good morning?” Pinkie asked, and her hood came down, and now Twilight beheld her eyes like blue fire burning bright with need, with a nameless sort of need. No, need was the wrong word. Accusation.


And Twilight realized, as she stared into Pinkie’s eyes, that she couldn’t say it. It didn’t matter if it were true or not—and she still thought it might yet be true—but there was no way to say it now. Because as Pinkie advanced, she advanced with an earnest heart, and she was convinced. And didn’t Twilight also think about Ponyville, now? She had not considered her own neighbors. It was easy to say of those she had not met or those from when she forsook ponies in general, but now she thought about Carrot Top and Lyra who stopped by for tea and to talk about music. She remembered Time Turner, the stallion from the Mayor’s office who always made sure to ask after Feathermay that summer when she hurt her wings.


“I… Axiom, back me up here. Aren’t you with me?” Twilight asked. She could not tear her eyes away. She wilted.


Axiom chuckled. “You should fight your own battles, Miss Sparkle.”


“Okay, okay, fine! I can’t say that for sure, Pinkie, I’m sorry!”


Pinkie took a deep breath, turned around, and laid her head on Twilight’s shoulder. The voluminous pink mane filled her vision for a moment, and she had to nuzzle through it to see again.


“That’s it?” Twilight asked incredulously.


“For now,” Pinkie said quietly. “That’s okay.”


“To answer your question, Twilight,” Axiom said after a moment, “I’m unsure myself. I’m inclined to agree with you, yet at the same time, I am also tempted to say that evil and bad are words that depend on one’s point of view and what is convenient for the individual speaking. That being said… I think there is, perhaps, a middle road.” Axiom waited until they looked at him, and then he began. “I have wondered through the questions we’ve brought up. Were ponies ever that good? Why did the world fall apart so fast? Was the sun the factor that made the difference? Did Manehattan tip the balance and the horrors there? What was it? But then I began to think about the rest of the world.


“The Zebras fell into civil war a few years ago, do you remember? The Mad God, that crazy shaman. Blood mage with an appetite for despair, it was a terrible business. The way you nod shows you remember. The Griffons finally unite—about the most improbable thing since the beginning of the world—and immediately become a scourge in the sides of every living thing on the planet. Wars and rumors of wars and famines and strange signs out of the west, Changelings in the north… it’s all a bit too close together, you know? A bit too perfect.”


“So what are you suggesting?” Twilight asked. “I mean, you’re right; it is weird that all of that happened at one time. I mean, I know about all of those… okay, not the last bit, but otherwise…”


“We never put any of it together, because there wasn’t any reason to,” Applejack said, a bit sourly. “Now, I think I know where you’re goin’.”


“It’s a bit too perfect, a bit too concentrated. And just as it begins to circulate, our beloved leader leaves. Now, why would she do that? Oh, don’t glare at me, Twilight,” Axiom said, waving a hoof. “What do you expect me to say, she was on the run? I’m not an idiot. She’s practically immortal; why would she be afraid? It would be out of character. I do think she knows things, though. She knows something we don’t know about what or who is behind all of this… this shit we’re in, pardon the language and the pun. I’ve been… researching,” he said, and Twilight thought she caught a grimace in the light. “Keeping an ear to the ground, talking to anypony wandering into town. Even exchanged rumors with the ponies in Tall Tale before that big bastard shut me down and kicked me out. There’s a Shadow hanging over us, Twilight, and it’s—”


And even as his voice rose in volume and pitch, as his excitement seemed to rise towards some sort of climactic revelation, Twilight heard movement above. The tunnel shook. Dust knocked free sprinkled down on top of the gathered ponies, and Axiom froze in mid-proclamation.


“Oh, damn they would come now… Right! Hoods up!”


They obeyed. “How are these supposed to help?” Applejack asked again.


“The Blues ‘adopted’ a new brood of squatters by force, mostly for use as sexual chattel and to make use of their unicorns. Luckily, we have three mares and a unicorn here, so we can fit the description. We’ll be told to go sit with others or take cover at most. This will open up behind a garage that’s usually open from our observations, and… well. We’ll see. Ready?”


They nodded as one. There was another explosion and a shower of dust.


“Stars, but they are trying, aren't they? Brave, stupid… right. Count to ten, and then I’ll go first up the stair.”


Twilight was sure he counted, but two more explosions deafened her, and she followed him up into the chaos.










APPLEJACK





The world had gone mad, and the skies were filled with the cries of the frightened and the blind.


Applejack experienced the camp outside of the storehouse in flashes and sensations. The ramshackle wall that towered over them was crowned in crimson flames, and ponies ran along the unstable ramparts, crying to one another, some firing weapons of various types and qualities at unseen targets. An earth pony fell from the defenses and rolled weakly on the concrete below. Above, pegasi poured over the wall and out into the city proper, only to be met head on by an opposing wave of gray-clad ponies colliding with them, and they fell to fighting and chaos. Two dogfighting pegasi entangled, and the momentum of their struggle hurtled them onto the roof of the storehouse as Twilight and her companions sprinted away. Applejack heard the sound of that fall and thought that it would never leave her, how wet it was and how dull it was.


Obviously makeshift hovels crowded the concrete peers as well as run-down warehouses, some ruined by fire or threatened now by the same. An explosion made her right ear drum pop. Blue-clad pegasi flew low past them, dragging something squirming and moving and tearing and gnashing. Ponies with wide eyes and open mouths clad in rags fled from the rage out of the skies, jumping into open doors and turning over crude carts as if it would shield them from the fire.


She stumbled in a divot that some shell had torn out of the waterfront, and her cheek rubbed raw on the hard surface. In her left ear—the one not blown out—she heard Twilight yelling, and Axiom was beneath her, propping Applejack up until she had shaken herself back to clarity.


Flashes of Twilight and Axiom side by side. Pinkie keeping up as best she could, now leaning on Applejack, now leaning on Twilight, now with Axiom propelling her firmly but as carefully as he could as the world broke up around them.


A Blue stood in their path. Her barding was torn, her face bloody, her wings ruffled, one at an awkward angle, and instantly, Applejack knew that it was broken. She was stumbling away from the breached walls, and her wide eyes caught the four infiltrators, and as she opened her mouth to speak, Applejack was already ready to end her. It would be two kicks. One to down her before she could set herself, and one to finish her. It would take only two. That was five seconds at most.

“Are any of you hurt? Oh stars, oh Luna, my eyes…” She stumbled, and Twilight summoned up her magic to buoy the weary warrior.


Applejack blinked, unsure of what to do. She met the young Blue’s eyes and found herself feeling sick. Little golden spheres, bright with life like apples still on the tree before autumn, like bonfires from a distance. Mint green. Like kicking her friends. Applejack was awash with fragmented images of home and a musician from Ponyville she’d known, the one with the lyre on her flank. It was a coincidence, nothing more, but she wanted to scream at the unfairness of it.


The Blue began to speak through wet coughs. “You… you need to get out of here. Wall is breached, and there are fires in the wall armory area. The… ch-chyort, blood in my eyes…”


Pinkie was at the young mare’s side and wiping her forehead. Applejack looked on in dismay, and Axiom’s gaze locked with her own, and they shared what she thought was a moment of uncertainty. But neither moved to stop it.


“W-warehouses… take me with you, please…”


“We got you, alright?” Pinkie said soothingly. “We’ll take you with us, okay?”


The mare nodded weakly.


“Right, Tw—Star? We’ll take her with us.”


“I… y-yeah,” Twilight said. “Yeah, help her up, um, Gabby.”


Pinkie helped the soldier to her hooves, and Applejack unfroze to help. Pinkie was replaced by Axiom, and the two shared another look.


The Grays had delivered.


She saw how well they had done, as she grew accustomed to the smells and sights of battle all over again as they drew away from it, seeking refuge in the warehouses on the opposite side of the docks where they could see the ships still moored.


Crude gunpowder charges, if she had to guess. Probably brought by hoof and back, probably at great cost, or somehow launched from afar. She could almost imagine catapults, but knew however it was done, it was done recklessly. The soldiers of the nobles who’d left and died did not exactly fight with grace. She’d seen only a few gray figures in the sky and now saw even fewer.


So they were losing. The fires seemed to be raging yet, but there were no new ones. Either the Duke was spent or he figured that he had done his work. He was right as far as Applejack could tell.


They found themselves on a deserted street on the north side of the harbor, hooves striking the cobblestone streets and casting echoes. Applejack swore that her heart had detached itself and taken up permanent lodging in her throat.


The mare had passed out. Applejack wasn’t sure when and only realized when Twilight asked them to wait as she looked inside of a warehouse and the young warrior fell to the ground, limp and silent.


Applejack was on her, then, turning her over with a push from her muzzle and pressing her ear to the mare’s chest, fervently wishing for a pulse. She had no reason to hope for one. It would be easier for this stranger to be dead. If she died now…


No. There was no way in any and all of the pits of Tartarus that Applejack would finish that thought, for it made her feel filthy. Beyond that, she heard the heartbeat of a living, breathing mare and straightened.


“Twilight, she’s down for the count. We need to find shelter.”


Axiom groaned. “It’s ending too soon… Damn! Damn. And now we have a stray.”


“Well, what was I supposed to do? She’s trying to make sure we’re safe, and I was supposed to kill her, is that it?” Twilight spat and peered into a warehouse. She cursed. “Full.”


“Yes,” Axiom said sharply. “You should have. It’s hard, but it was the better choice.”


“Screw your choices,” Applejack said, shooting him a glare.


“You weren’t exactly ready to help her, either, so don’t start that,” Axiom said, even as he helped Applejack lay the frail and fallen form on her back. “Though…” he sighed. “I don’t know.”


“I was ready to fight, but I ain’t ready to kill in cold blood. And,” Applejack began before Axiom could start his rebuttal. “I don’t give a single cold fuck what you think about it, because you’re a fast talkin’ sumbitch sometimes, I think, and you don’t really mean it. And if you do, well, oughta be ashamed of yourself. I know I am.”


Axiom grimaced but said nothing.


Twilight had moved on already. She set her shoulders, sighed, and her purplish aura appeared around the door. It was locked, barred with heavy chain and padlocks. The lock shook, and the sound of metal clanging on metal made Applejack wince even as she hoped it meant there would be nopony inside.


The sounds of battle were beginning to die down, and Applejack found herself missing them. Without any sound to keep her company, she had something worse than memories of Manehattan to contend with: paranoia. They were strangers in a strange land. Any second now, a soldier no longer needed on the wall could be sent to make sure nopony had slipped inside—a pony just like the four of them. And wouldn’t four “conscripted” civilians dragging a wounded pegasus look suspicious? I hate problems I can’t beat with my hooves. I’ve got the mind, but the patience… She spat.


“Twi! Twi, hurry, would ya?” Applejack asked.


Pinkie was nuzzling the pegasus, trying to get her to wake up. “Twilight, what do I do?”


“How in the nine hells should I know? Applejack, give… AGH!” Twilight backed up, and her whole body glowed with an intense, eldritch purple light, and there was a flash as she tore the door from existence, burned it to a crisp.


“Twilight! What in—?”


“Warded!” Twilight said and collapsed. She rolled back and forth as if on fire, and Axiom left Applejack and was at her side, trying to keep her from rolling too far or hurting herself.


Applejack pushed through, into the dusty, dark warehouse and laid the pegasus against the wall. Axiom brought Twilight in, who only shivered, and when Pinkie was inside, they all rested in a panting, sweating, bleeding heap. Applejack didn’t want to know if the blood on her coat was the pegasus’s or her own. She hated it. She hated it.


When Twilight had recovered from the shock of grabbing the warded chains, she barred the entranceway with crates, and they sat saying nothing. It was time to wait.










Rainbow Dash





Their makeshift cave was deep enough, but not by much.


To say that Rainbow Dash was frustrated was a magnificent understatement. She was furious. The world was like a pot set to boil, capped tight, and she was the scalding steam ready to break out, screaming as she did.


The situation was dire, but not as dire as it could be, and only for one of their party. Pegasi could withstand the cold and brave intense heat and come out the other side more or less the same. Millennia had prepared Rainbow for this moment and this terrain, ten dozen generations of weathermakers and weatherforgers, a dozen more of warriors and campaigners. It was the pegasi who had long been the natural-built warriors of the pony tribes. They lived for the rush of the aerial dive, the way the lightning sang in their blood and on their coats, the dampness of snow and driving gales. The magic she had was not the same as Twilight’s. Rainbow could not call it up and channel it into fire or shields. She could carve no runes nor knew any lore of magecraft, and yet there was magic in her, same as any other pony. It hummed quietly in her feathers. It thrummed louder now, in the deep snow, as it kept her body in relative comfort.


Rainbow sighed and stood, stooping so as not to hit the roof of their hoof-built shelter. The thrumming magic intensified, like a pony humming against her throat, against her sides and flanks. She liked the feeling. It came when she flew or when she was out in the cold for too long. So she smiled, if only briefly, and stretched her legs.


“Still with me, Flutters?” she asked softly.


There was a moment of silence in the dark and then an equally quiet answer. “I’m awake.”


“Good. Do we have any more of those little light things that Rarity made?”


Fluttershy hummed, and after another moment, she had dug out the artifact in question and tapped it. The rock that Rarity had enchanted glowed with a low blue light that illuminated her surroundings.


The ceiling was low, of course, and the area itself was not wide. She could see the divots where her own hooves and dug into the snow and torn it up. It was a sort of round hovel, with the newly placed light roughly at the center, and the three ponies like rays radiating out from it. It was all uneven but still useful.


“How’re you holding up?” Rainbow asked.


“I’m okay, Rainbow.”


Rainbow frowned. “You sure? Mom used to say that empty mouths don’t get fed. If you’re falling behind…”


“Rainbow, I really am fine,” Fluttershy said firmly. “I really am. It’s not me that you should be worried about. I’m a pegasus, you know.”


“Yeah, I know. It’s hard remembering, I mean,” she added, her tone changing from solemnity to a lame joking, “with how you fly, sometimes I forget…” Rainbow sighed. “Sorry, Flutters. I’m on edge. Obvious, huh?”


A little titter drifted out of the shadows across the light. “Yeah, a little.”


“Just… I don’t know. I feel like a jerk.”


“Why?” Fluttershy asked.


“Look at her,” Rainbow said, and now she moved to Rarity’s side.


Rarity, as if on cue, groaned and shifter on her bedding. Rainbow and Fluttershy had put all three of their sets of blankets together and set their friend upon it carefully, trying to keep her sedate and calm.


Dash continued. “I mean, she’s not prepared for this kind of weather. She’s not… like, built for it like you and I are. We’re pegasi. I just… I forgot, I guess. I was so wrapped up in making progress that I forgot about my friends again.”


“Dash…”


“Yeah, yeah, I’m being too hard on myself. Maybe. She kept saying she was alright, that she was fine, that she was ready and able and whatever, but like… of course she said that. Because I would just bitch at her if she didn’t. I would’ve, probably. I would have apologized later, but I’d still have bitched at her. Now she’s freezing.” At that, Rainbow hunched her shoulders and lay down beside Rarity, scooting until she was touching, her belly to Rarity’s back.


“Hey, Flutters, get over here, would you? I have an idea.”


“Hm?”


“We should be together for warmth anyhow, but I wonder if our magic couldn’t help insulate her? Like, we could be a buffer.”


“How would we do that?” Fluttershy asked.


“Simple,” Rainbow replied and shifted as she unfurled a wing and laid it over Rarity like an azure canopy. “See? We wrap her up and get her warm again.”


Fluttershy nodded, and lay down on the other side of their friend, her nose almost touching with Rarity’s, as the unicorn shifted in her sleep slightly.


They were quiet awhile, and Rainbow’s mind emptied of everything but the sound of three heartbeats and the rhythms of quiet breathing. Gradually, she began to regard her company again. How odd it was to think that the idea of spending this much time with Rarity had been strange to her before. Weeks on the road had changed her perspective. Rarity was a constant, just as Fluttershy was a constant, both of them keeping her pointed North and towards her goal.


“You know,” she said quietly, “it’s crazy how Rares and I and you ended up together. Rarity and I were always friends, but… like, we weren’t super close, you know? No… I mean, we were close, but…”


“It wasn’t like you and I.”


“Yeah! Right,” Rainbow agreed. “And I mean, we still don’t.” She sighed. It was warm here, curled up around Rarity. Pleasant, even. It reminded her in some ways of Ponyville, some stupid Pinkie Pie party or lame Twilight-needs-to-manufacture-missed-childhood-opportunities sleepover, and how wonderful it had been to sleep with others all around and the feel of another’s body.


“But you’re getting there,” Fluttershy finished for her.


“Yeah, I guess we are. I mean, I’m pretty worried about her.”


Fluttershy shifted in the dark, and Dash wished that she could see her friend’s face instead of just Rarity’s long and still beautiful mane. How had it retained its glory? Rainbow’s wasn’t the most well-groomed even in peacetime, but it had still been decent before this journey, and now it was matted, and if she didn’t do something about it, she was sure it would start curling in on itself soon in filthy knots. Fluttershy’s was ragged. Rarity’s still remained wonderful. It smelled of… stars, was that roses? It was ridiculous. Roses! In a damn blizzard!


And yet, it didn’t make her angry or frustrated. If anything, Rainbow Dash was impressed. Roses. A month ago, back in Canterlot, she would have furiously assumed it was Rarity being weak or unfocused, but now it just seemed like taunting the world to come and make her change. Like a huge raspberry right in the face of death.


She liked it.


Rainbow grimaced. “Can I say something weird?”


“Of course,” Fluttershy responded quickly. “You can always say what you like, Rainbow. No matter what. That’s what friends are for!”


“If you say so,” Rainbow said. Gods, but she felt like a creep. “I guess… This is weird. I mean, you know I… I like…”


“Hm?”


“Geeze. I don’t know. I like mares.”


“Yes, I think we established that in high school, Rainbow.”


“Har-de-har-har. No, I just… I guess I never really noticed Rarity before, not like that. I mean… I knew she was pretty. Don’t get me wrong, if she weren’t my friend she’d be occasional late ni—”


“Oh, please don’t continue,” Fluttershy squeaked.


Rainbow laughed. “I won’t. But I guess I’m starting to see her in new ways. She’s tougher than I ever thought she was. Gorgeous. Hell, she can read maps. Did you know she had any kind of sense of direction? I sure didn’t.”


Fluttershy peered over Rarity’s voluminous, wavy mane to smile.


“I’m gushing, aren’t I?” Rainbow asked, feeling embarrassed.


Fluttershy nodded, still smiling.


“Yeah, well… don’t count on this all the time. I’m tired, you see.” And now Rainbow sighed more deeply than before, and now she laid her head back against the thick blankets. “I just miss being together, all of us. The six of us… we had something great, Flutters.”


“We still do,” Fluttershy insisted, still peering over the sleeping form of their friend.


“Yeah. Yeah, we do. But what happens now? We have different journeys, and what if one of us dies? I’m just bad at all this what happens after stuff. My whole family’s bad at being survivors, Flutters; we’re great at going out in a blaze of glory. Being left over is hard. You have to like, think about it.”


“You’re not dumb, silly.”


“Not sayin’ I am,” Rainbow shot back. “I’m just saying that I miss Twilight and Pinkie and Applejack. I miss Twilight being a nerd and Applejack being obviously inferior to my masterful physique—” she paused for the inevitable giggle “— and I’m tired of missing parties and get togethers and wondering if Twilight is ever going to get laid.”


“Rainbow!”


“Hey, you were in on that running conversation. I distinctly remember you being in on the betting when she went out with that… oh, Celestia, what was his name?”


“He was a doctor,” Fluttershy offered sheepishly.


“See? You remember,” Rainbow said triumphantly and then yawned. “I’m just saying, I miss all that. I’m just stuck here in this stupid snow cave realizing that I see everything and everybody different, and it’s just kind of too late to do anything about it.”


“Why?”


“Because I’m just not sure we’re all gonna live through this, Flutters. I’m just thinking about how those three could die. They might be dying right now—don’t look at me like that, please don’t, I’m not saying I think they are. It’s just that they could be, and there’s nothing I can do about it and it just bothers me.”


“I don’t think they will. Twilight will keep them safe.”


“Yeah,” Rainbow said, but she thought about Ponyville. “Yeah, she will.”










TWILIGHT





The rain beat against the window. Twilight tried to ignore the all too familiar sound as she sat in the office on the top floor of the warehouse and instead watched the activity below.


It is simple to make contingencies, sometimes. Twilight knew this. All it was was a matter of patterns and adherence to patterns, and Twilight knew far too much about both. She had marked the movements of the few and far between dock guards and had their routes down to a thin margin of error, a paper thin margin.


Their cause was hampered but not crippled. Still, the odds were no longer as in her favor as she had hoped.


First, it was not as straight a shot as she had hope, from warehouse to dock. There was a second wall, this one much flimsier and much shorter, surrounding the part of the facilities actually housing ships. It had only one gate, and that gate was fairly well guarded. Two watchtowers, constructed hastily but still very functional, surveyed the encampment—no, she corrected herself—the town. For it was a town, indeed, and not merely the refugee camp she’d imagined. Refugees didn’t scrounge up barbed wire and have orderly patrols.


The Blues were organized. As soon as the danger had gone, they had reorganized and put up fairly serviceable barricades in the gaps in their walls. The fires were dealt with efficiently, and from her vantage point in the office on the top floor, Twilight saw even now how the Blues waited out the rain patiently. They were like bees, she thought for not the first time. A colony of productive bees, everypony with their assignments.


Not for the first time, she had the feeling that it was the Blues she would rather have sided with. They were rebuilding. Whoever had been in the right at first, it was these ponies who would and could rebuild.


But the past was past. The past never really died, the rain said in solemn measure, beating spondees on the window pane, drum beats on the glass—not! done! not! done!—but Twilight refused to give her own morbidity the time of day. No, she was done with reminiscing about rain. The present was precarious enough as it was, and she needed to focus.


Their main ally in this endeavor was, ironically, the rain. If it kept up, and it looked like it would, they could easily use it to mask their progress until they were over the walls into the dock proper.


Once there, it would all be running and dodging. There was no subtlety to her plan. The Blues had prepared for that and adjusted accordingly. There was nowhere out there to hide, no shacks or boxes to dodge behind and evade vigilant eyes. Her hopes lay in violence and speed.


It wasn’t very Twilight of her, but perhaps that was why she liked it. It had been Twilight of her to insist on understanding all of this when she was hidden in Canterlot nursing a Celestia-shaped hole in her heart, wasn’t it?


And shouldn’t she be truthful to herself? She was angry about that, after all.


It all came down to the rain.


Well, no, she corrected herself. It all came down to the rain and to their newcomer. The pegasus had not woken up yet, but she would. Any time now. She was a liability. She would look for them if they were gone when she woke up, and the last thing they needed was—


She heard hoofsteps on the grated catwalk outside the office door and sighed. Grasping the door in her magic, she pulled it open to reveal Axiom, who was clenching his teeth.


“Woke up?” Twilight asked.


“Of course she did!” he said, like a cat confronted with his neighbor. “Damn right she did, just like we all knew she would. Damn… bleeding hearts.”


“I’m not happy either.”


“You could have said no,” he shot back.


“Would they have listened to me?”


Axiom growled at nothing in particular and looked out the window.


“Look,” Twilight continued. “Just tell me how she is. Lucid? Asking questions?”


“Grateful,” he spat.


“Well, that’s a start,” Twilight said.


“Yeah, a start to a brutal execution. We can overpower her. Let’s tie her up—”


“Do you have any rope?” Twilight asked patiently.


“No. Luna’s starry ass don’t tell me you went on a damn adventure to the stars only know where and you didn’t bring rope,” he said, his voice cracking. “There’s just no way.”


“We have rope,” Twilight replied evenly and shifted her weight. She was ready to talk to this pegasus herself. “But I would rather not waste it here. Not if I don’t have to. I have need of it in the west.”


“Twilight,” Axiom said, and his demeanor soured even further. “You know there isn’t anything out there. It’s all gone or dead or whatever it is. This is a stupid quest.”


Twilight stared at him.


He looked away. “You can’t just… You have to admit that—”


“I have to do nothing,” she said dully. “I have been thinking far, far too much, Axiom, and I am very, very tired of it. The truth is—and yes, it is the truth, before you interrupt me—that I don’t care if there’s nothing Axiom. I just don’t. I just want to leave this forsaken city and do it on my own boat.”


“A stolen boat,” he murmured like a punished child, staring at his hooves.


Twilight sighed and pushed by him. “Come on, Axiom.”


Together, they walked the catwalk in relative silence. It only lasted a few beats, but Twilight liked it.


“I thought about you a bit,” she said and broke the pleasant emptiness.


“I… Come again?”


“What will you do, after all this?”


“I hadn’t thought about it,” he said swiftly. Too swiftly.


“You should come with us,” Twilight suggested. “Why not? It’s useless here. It’s useless there. It’s not like it’s a worse choice than waiting for the roof to cave in in your little hole in the ground or waiting for it to flood or waiting to get shot. You won’t be able to get out of here anyway, probably.”


“You’d be surprised,” he said lightly.


“I probably would be,” she countered as they came to the stairs, and she descended first. “Be that as it may… I’d like some company. It’s a long trip, and we could use more hooves on the ship and later on.”


Axiom hummed. “I’ll think about it, O Captain, my captain.”


“Hm?”


“Nothing, just something I made up.”


Twilight’s mouth was closed as they descended, but her mind was wide awake and quick. She had tried to avoid the thorny question of the sentinel, hoping that it may work itself out. No, no that was a lie. She had just not wanted to approach it, not wanted to touch it with a pole.


It could still be managed. In all likelihood, their prisoner—she hated that word, but it was useful—would be headed back to the walls, and they could part ways easy enough. Exchanging pleasantries and a few farewells would be ideal. Of course, then the problem would be one of knowledge, because their mare might yet mention the location of the intruders and all would be undone.


She’d repeated all this before.


They left the stairs behind, and Twilight hummed nervously against the drone of rain falling on the windows and walls and roof. Manehattan was still there, just beside her, almost underhoof, in every raindrop. So instead of working herself up, Twilight hummed. It was an old song, she thought, though she wasn’t sure. It was a song she remembered Lyra playing one afternoon, when the wanderer had come to rest by her tree. That the two ponies, Lyra and this variable, shared a similar image was an accident and nothing more. Statistically plausible and ordinary. There were thousands of ponies with a mint-green coloring, Twilight told herself. She could calculate it, count them, figure out the percentage of the surviving Equestrian populace with exactly that coloring. It was a question of genetics.


But as she passed empty boxes and dusty, unused rooms, Twilight felt as if it meant something.


They found the pegasus awake and attended to by Applejack, who was redoing the bandage on her head. They talked in quiet tones, but Twilight knew that her friend would relay anything important. There was no secret in it. Pinkie was making some remark that made the wounded mare grin, as she was wont to.


It was Pinkie that noticed Twilight first. Her ears perked, and she turned to greet the newcomers with a little wave. “Hey, Star,” she said. “I’m glad you’re up! So is Tradewinds.”


“Tradewinds?” Twilight put on a smile forged in the white heat of ten dozen intensely boring political functions with Celestia. “That’s an interesting name, miss.”


Tradewinds smiled. “Father was merchant marine, mother was high spirited with wings, yes? They compromised.” She coughed and then resumed her smile, and Twilight catalogued the sound of her light, pretty voice—catalogue, catalogue, like always—and then the guard continued. “From Petrahoof—”


“Could tell from the accent,” Twilight said.


“Well, spasibo, am glad to hear word has spread about scenic Petrahoof. I miss it. I never liked it, you see, even when was not on fire, especially when all they teach you in school is north tongue. My Equestrian is terrible.. But… Thank you again. I would have been, ah, nee da dyeloni, yes. It was very kind of you.”


“And we’re glad we could help. I’m sorry about your wings,” Twilight offered, not having to fake her tone. She knew just how awful that could be.


Tradewinds whistled. “Is nothing to me. I am alive, and that is all one such as I needs. I am happy for it. Am also lucky, as I am remembering now how far I must have fallen… Eh.” She shrugged. “Should’ve died. Though,” she began, shifting her weight. Pinkie and Applejack backed away to give her some room. “It is curious that you would. Please take no offense, druz’ya, but you are from the latest batch of stranded, da?”


“That’s right,” Twilight said quickly, firmly.


“Then it is great wonder and credit to you that you do this. I had heard it was… unpleasant.” She frowned, and Twilight was taken aback by how sincere she looked. “I am very sorry for it.”


“I… well. Thank you,” Twilight offered. “Ah… forgive me, but is there anywhere we can take you?”


“Me? I will be reporting back to the captain on the dock.” She chuckled. “He is hard stallion, is that how it is said?”


“Hard as in rough on you? Mean?” Pinkie asked. “Oh, that sounds terrible.”


“Heh, he is babnik, that is word. So he will forgive me, because I have a pretty face. But my wing…” She made an odd sort of cooing noise and examined her wings. “Oh, I thank you for helping, but they are so…”


“Broken,” Twilight said flatly, softly. “Won’t be flying for a while.”


“Is calamity,” she agreed. “Wings are what is keeping me in food and with fire. I will sorely miss having that.”


Twilight paused. “Come… come again?”


“Oh, I forget that you are stranded.” Tradewinds smiled and gestured for her caregivers to move so that she could stand fully and then shifted her weight to and fro, getting used to the new way that her balance had shifted as one wing stuck out awkwardly, unable to fully fold itself. “You see, druz’ya, that when soldiers cannot fight, they are thrown away like so much muscor, like filth to be burned. Well, no burning, that would be bad. But I am not fed, and they will not give me a bed anymore in the nice bunkhouse. I will be… I suppose I will be stranded,” she finished.


And Twilight could not muster a single inch of sympathy, because she was thinking so very hard, and it was hard not to grin like a fool.


“So yes… but I must report. It is duty as a soldier, and mama always taught us to obey the rules. Or to dig ice caves to survive if we were stupid and played in the blizzards, but I am sure both things are useful.”


“Right…” Twilight said. Were the northerners always this odd? I’ve not met a sane, normal pony north of Ponyville yet, I think.


“That’s terrible,” Applejack cut in. “Throwin’ ya out in the cold cause you can’t work? And not because of any other reason but that you physically can’t? Makes me mad,” she said, and Twilight imagined her spitting off to the side. “Why go back? If they ain’t gonna help you none.”


“Well…”


“I mean, ain’t they your friends?” Applejack asked, clearly frustrated.


“Friends? No, no we are only comrades. No, that is word for friend in this tongue… ah, kollega? Is that it? We drink and we laugh and I know their names but we are not friends.” She smiled. “I… I could perhaps have your help, yes? We are friends. Friends indeed, I-I can perhaps fetch for you a thing or so from fort, yes? This would help me find a place to be staying?”


Pinkie shook her head vigorously. “No! You don’t have to bribe ponies to be your friend, silly! We like you, don’t we Tw—Star?”


“Of course, Pinkie,” Twilight said and then spared the pegasus a smile before she turned to Axiom. His expression was blank, and Twilight raised her eyebrows. He fixed her with a stare that communicated nothing—including, she noted, an objection to what was obviously her plan. Oh, she did love it when a plan came together out of the blue.


“So, Tradewinds, we would love to let you stay with us,” Twilight said and smiled. “Perhaps we can even help you with your wing until you can fly and get your job and food ration back. In the mean time… I don’t suppose we could come help you move your things?”















Twilight knew as soon as Tradewinds got them through the gate that it was going to end badly.


Knew is perhaps too hard, too harsh a word for the experience. She had a feeling. A strong, overpowering sort of feeling, yes, but just a feeling of something looming.


It came again as the young mare—they found that she was just out of her adolescence, in the same young adulthood Twilight had enjoyed once, when first she had arrived in Ponyville—greeted all of her “comrades” only for them to make nasty comments about her wing. She felt it like a nagging itch on the back of her mind when they retrieved the possessions she had, which were not many, and Tradewinds went to make her report.


“You know why she said yes, right?” Applejack asked quietly as they waited outside of the bunkhouse. The ship—the big ship, the one that would take them West if she could but grab it from the clutches of these idiots—was right there in front of her. A hundred and fifty yards. That was it. She could make a run for it.


It was not beautiful, the ship. It wasn’t exactly hideous, but more functional than appealing. It was all angles and straight edges, blocky with a little bit of obvious rust on the blackened hull. She imagined that, up on deck, the wood panelling was probably cleaned but not taken care of, due for a replacement. It ran on steam, as any ship heading West would almost need to be if it planned to get there in any sort of hurry. Two smokestacks rose out of the middle like the spires of her Canterlot home. It was long and wide, and just by looking at it she knew it would be a pain to steer. Fast but not maneuverable but she supposed that was alright. She didn’t need to turn. She was only going one way. Her mind turned the name of the ship over and over again like she was unsure of it. Of what it meant. Alicorn was surely a portent of sorts if those existed. Regardless, the word drove her back to her worries and the plans.


Of course, the plan would fall apart because everypony in this fort would know who had let them in.


“Why don’t you enlighten me?” Twilight responded, bluntly.


No, more like two hundred yards. Maybe? She wasn’t sure. The pressure of being surrounded was starting to get to her.


“She just wanted a friendly face or three, Twi. Somepony to come with her when she was nervous. I don’t feel right about this. Why don’t we take her with us or get her out? We can try again.”


“No, we really can’t,” Twilight replied.


“Twilight’s right,” Axiom said, and all three mares turned to look at him. He had been silent for more than an hour. Twilight had figured that he was brooding, but now that his hood was no longer a shield, she thought he seemed nervous. He licked his lips, his eyes moved side to side as if in calculation.


“Axiom?”


“Yes? Hm?”


“You’ve been quiet.”


“I have been irritated by your unexpected dalliances, Twilight, if you must know.”


Twilight shook her head. His tone was sharp to cut like a knife, but she barely noticed it. “No, no I think I’m on to something here. Are you okay? I guess I never really… asked. I assumed you would be used to this sort of thing after all you’ve been through, but…”


“It is not the threat of violence that bothers me, at least not the kind you are imagining,” Axiom said, tightlipped.


“Afraid of bein’ caught?” Applejack asked, walking forward and throwing a hoof around his shoulders. He tensed but did not throw the gesture off. “Why, so is everypony,” she continued in a whisper. “Ain’t nothin’ to get all uptight about. It’s okay. We’re almost home free, I reckon.”


“Reckon again.”


She gave him a quiet sidelong glance.


Twilight said, “Axiom, what’s wrong?”


“It’s been too long.”


“Too long? Now what the hay—?” Applejack began to whisper, but Axiom cut her off with a hoof in her face and another pointing at Twilight.


He spoke, his voice coming low and fast like muffled repeater fire in the distance. “Twilight, the Duke is coming back, and he will not hold back this time.”


Twilight stared. “Why…? But we already made it in. What do you mean?”


“Twilight, have you ever dealt with a pony who feels as if he is in decline?”


“I don’t understand,” she said. “It doesn’t make sense for him to attack. Why risk it now?”


Axiom sighed. He looked around, making sure there weren’t any nearby Blues, and then drew them all in with a gesture.


“I must be brief. The Duke has been unraveling for a while now. Did you really, truly trust him? Do you not remember how he was, when you spoke to him? Did you not… wonder about a stallion who would call himself a Duke when he is not, put on airs like some storybook hero even when he is driven beneath the ground in the filth? Oh… oh, but he’s been on a slide for a long, long, long time, Twilight Sparkle. You were the last straw. An excuse.”


“He’s coming back,” Twilight said.


“He’s more than coming back. He means to end it. End all of it. He’s gathered all the Grays together. It’s finished. We’re all finished. He’ll run them to the wall until everyone is dead and the Blues will die and we’ll die and… and it shouldn’t have been a problem but it is. Because of the delay, he’ll be here before you’ve left, and he won’t care a bit. He’s coming, Twilight.”


“When is he comin’?” Applejack asked, and Twilight met her eyes. Both of them were thinking the same thoughts.


Twilight was more than ready to be rid of this place. The concrete and the smell of gunpowder and the cracked city streets and the busted windows. It wasn’t just the shadow of Manehattan. It was the smell of death. She was so tired. Her bones seemed a thousand pounds each.


“Soon.”


“That ain’t good enough, dammit,” Applejack hissed.


“Axiom… please, if you know…” Pinkie began, but the stallion shook his head.


“Don’t you see? I don’t know. I have no idea when! I have—”


The universe, Twilight would reflect later, is strange. It has a way of orchestrating events in such a fashion as to seem ridiculous—to make fools of mortals such as Twilight and her friends and their would-be-friend-mostly-hanger-on. Before Axiom could finish his desperate protest, Tradewinds came out of the bunkhouse, muttering. Her ears were down, her face wiped clean of her cheerful smile and replaced with a wilted expression.


Sovolotch… am not na panale for captain to… grr! Pidar,” she spat and then looked up. “Oh. Hello, druz’ya, I am terrible, I know. Mother used to whip me.”


“I… I take it things went poorly,” Twilight said, struggling to maintain a neutral tone.


“Could be saying that, yes. Mostly, I am mad because of son of bitch captain who cannot keep hooves and dirty mind to his dirty self, yes? I am no… nevermind. It is long story and goes back away, so we should go… Are you alright?”


“Fine!” Twilight said quickly. “Come here, would you?”


“Alright…” Tradewinds said slowly and joined their circle.


There was no way to discuss a course of action. Axiom fidgeted. He shook like a leaf under his oversized cloak. Applejack was beginning to understand what was coming, and so was Twilight, and Pinkie… well. Pinkie was going to do this all by herself.


“Did you like being a soldier?” Pinkie asked first.


“Well, no, not exactly,” Tradewinds admitted, still obviously puzzled.


“Oh good! Do you like me? Are we friends? I sure think so. So you wouldn’t mind going somewhere, right? You’d even be happy to go, huh?” Pinkie asked, talking circles around Tradewinds, who was beginning to look suspicious.


“Yes… perhaps? What is this meaning?”


“Wanna steal a boat?” Pinkie asked, and Twilight could not help but spare an absurd moment to just glory in how confidant Pinkie was in her own stupid declarations. She didn’t even have the presence of mind to tell her to hush. Pinkie looped a hoof around the Petrohoofan pegasus and pointed towards the barge, tall and old, but still in working condition. Twilight imagined that their lithe friend’s eyes frantically ran down the smoke stacks as if looking for some hidden meaning beyond the obvious. But none came, and Pinkie’s hood came down, revealing her voluminous pink mane to the world as she had revealed their secret in words. Twilight supposed it was appropriate. Their potential newcomer was quiet for a beat.


“You… oh. Oh chyort,” Tradewinds replied. “Oh, hell’s snow, oh no. You’re a crazy pony.”


“Nope! Very sane. We need to—”


It was then that the world was rocked by explosions behind them. A roar went up and another answered it. Two ponies appeared on the boat’s deck, unfurled their wings, and flew above Twilight’s and the other’s heads towards the sounds of conflict.


Twilight did not need to be there to know what was happening. She had seen the sack of a city before.


Tradewinds whirled and looked as if she was about to run towards the sound, but then she hesitated. She caught Twilight’s eyes.


“Who are you ponies?” she asked shakily.


“I am Twilight Sparkle,” Twilight replied and found her voice surprisingly calm even as the fires began again. “And I am going West to find Celestia and the Sun. Anypony who is willing and who is able with a good heart and a keen eye is welcome with us. Will you come? If you stay here, you’ll die.”


“Oh, Luna…” Tradewinds groaned. “They’re attacking… I let you in. I let you in… oh, chyort. You are… you are T-Twi… oh, chyort. And I let you in. Everypony will die now, and—”


“They aren’t with us, sugar,” Applejack said, advancing. Tradewinds cowered as Applejack lifted her hood and revealed her own face. “Applejack, pleasure to meet ya with my own name, Trade. Now would you kindly come along? ‘Cause I got a feelin’ none of us are gonna wanna be here in about five minutes.”


“Here’s your stuff!” Pinkie cried and with a movement that Twilight did not entirely follow, shifted the tightly wound pack off her own back and onto the trembling pegasus’s back. Tradewinds stared with eyes wide, still shocked.


“I… I…”


“Oh, hell, just bring her, Twilight. It’s not like you gave any of your friends much of a choice,” Axiom groused. He marched past Twilight, grabbed the ex-Blue, and pushed her along with him as the two of them headed for the barge, double time.


The mares followed. No one minded a few refugees fleeing the sounds of war. A squadron of earth ponies in scratched and battered steel barding thundered past. Twilight saw their lances, attached at the shoulder, and kept her distance, somehow feeling as if she’d caught every eye.


“Oh, with my mama’s gods on my back, off to go find mountains,” Tradewinds was grumbling, shocked. “With princesses and crazy ponies! Oh Luna…”


They passed a little booth at the edge of the pier where a pony was cowering. Twilight gave him a lookover: small earth pony, no armor, no weapons, no spine. No threat. They pushed on.


But as they sprinted down the pier to the boarding plank that bridged the gap over the water, the shrimp from the booth tumbled out.


“Hey, stop! Where you think you’re g-going?” he cried, and Twilight saw that she had been mistaken. He’d been hiding hoofblades in that little hideaway.


“Oh, don’t mind us,” Twilight began, but he advanced.


The sentinel was sweating. Twilight took in his greasy mane and awkward gait and knew that she wouldn’t be able to talk him away. He was afraid, and he was ready to hurt something, and he was too young to realize that he was going to do that without a good reason.


“N-no, you aren’t supposed to be here. Get out!” he said, advancing. “Back away from the boat. I’ll… I’ll count to five. Shit, no, three. Three. Okay?”


“Okay, just please calm down,” Twilight said. She took a deep breath and prepared to throw him into the water with magic.


“Hey, I said stay still!” the guard said, and Twilight looked around, confused.


Axiom was at her side, and moving fast. He blocked her vision, overshadowing the teenaged stallion. He was a blur. There was a short cry, and then the youth was in the water, screaming as if he’d been murdered.


Axiom turned around.


“Can we please, for the love of the Bitch Goddess please get on the stupid boat?” he said, his chest heaving.


And they did just that. Twilight was third up the ramp after Tradewind and Applejack.


There was another pony with a shootstick on deck. She stood up, balancing on her back legs and leveling the smooth black bore right in Applejack’s face. But Applejack was too fast. Her hooves rattled on the wooden deck like dull thunderclaps; her hooves on the gunner’s face were like the crack of a whip. One hit and the gunner went overboard, and her gun went flying forward. Axiom lunged under it and then picked it up awkwardly.


Twilight looked over the edge and saw the battle truly unfolding. The fighting was still localized, and the Grays hadn’t broken through… but that meant that Blue soldiers were around to notice that something was very wrong. Twilight called up her magic, and it filled her horn and body like a reservoir in rainy season. It flowed and hummed in her blood, and she threw it out in thin wisps, reading the air in front of her.


It was this that told her to duck and that saved her life as a bullet sailed over her head and ricocheted off the iron hull.


“Everypony, down!” Twilight barked but didn’t bother to look to make sure her friends moved. She could hear them on the wood.


Applejack drew her attention instead as several more shots whizzed over their heads.


“Twi, we need to get this old girl movin’,” Applejack yelled. “I need your shield.”


Twilight made no answer. She stood and summoned up the magic and threw it up as a shield. Bullets fizzled against it; they burnt in midair or were deflected away towards the ponies milling on the dock.


A dozen on the dock, as many running towards the gangplank to board. Twilight focused on them and called back behind her. “Somepony kick the gangplank!”


She heard hoofsteps, so Twilight assumed that somepony had obeyed. They could do this. Her shield would hold another minute at the very least, probably more, and that was all she needed. Their shootsticks and battered repeaters and arrows were nothing to her. She was a god with glorious purpose, and they were ants. These poor fools had never seen a true, honest to goodness, breathing and furious battle mage in the height of passion. No, they’d never seen it, and if Applejack delayed another minute, they would get but a taste of the wrath she could unleash.


She thought this, and grinned with bright, dull teeth to the gray and unyielding sky and was still doing this when she was thrown from the deck.


She never saw the blast that did it. One moment she was reveling in magic and the next her face was making impact with the cold, slimy water below.


The world was terrible, muffled sound and fractured light. Her legs felt heavy, useless. They flailed for something to cling to, to stop her slow sinking, but they only drove her down, down into the oily black. She tasted it now, as her mouth opened and let it in, as her last bit of breath escaped out her nose, and she began to drown.


She called up magic, and it came but sputtered and died. She tried again. She could see, but now instead of black, everything was just the familiar purple aura of her horn.


Oh gods, it was hopeless, wasn’t it? She knew that now. It was all hopeless. She couldn’t swim. She’d never learned how to really swim, and now her head was hazy, and she couldn’t even manage a doggy paddle or floating, and she couldn’t remember how to do those things. Things slowed, gradually, bit by bit, in stages until at last she realized that of course this would happen. She should have known. There wasn’t anything in the West at all. She was always going to die like this, in the dark, in the oily scum of some stupid, worthless hellhole, alone, no magic, no friends, no Princess, no mother. She wanted her mother. It was irrational and sudden and powerfu,l and she realized she was going to die with her last thought being about her mother. Except it wasn’t her mother; it was Celestia, and she was a foal, and didn’t Celestia know that the Oratorium was a terrible place for lessons because it was so sunny and she got drowsy and—


Something was pulling at her, and she tried to scream but only drank in more of the filth and gagged. Twilight retched. She squirmed and howled and hit her head on something hard and couldn’t breathe even as something ripped her from the water, and she fell back against the concrete pier. But she could feel it underneath her, rubbing her skin raw through her coat.


Axiom stood over her, his eyes wide, panting as he looked from her to something beyond her.


“Get up!” he hissed. “Oh, star’s sake would you get up? I can’t… Oh, come on!” He was shaking her, and she groaned and spat up water in his face.


“Fuck!” he rubbed his eyes, but Twilight took the time to shakily bring herself up and stand.


She was not a moment too soon. Down the pier, a squadron of Blues came charging, roaring a battle cry. Something burned in her, something angry and humiliated. She called up her magic and it came, no longer jumping, but not yet defeated. Quickly, effortlessly, she fashioned it into a wave and blew them back with a gust of arcane wind that left them seared and icy cold. The fell and stumbled, struggling to rise.


“Where’s—?” she coughed, hacking up her lungs. Axiom was at her side and then in front of her, trying to push her down and keep low himself. She heard a bullet bounce off of something, somewhere. She was sure she recognized that sound.


“Gangplank,” he hissed. “Gangplank, right?”


She nodded and shook away her confusion. “Y-yes, yes where is it?”


“Bloody… You think I know? Hurry, Twilight! Hurry.”


The Blues came again. The same ones and she could spare no time for them. But she did anyhow, throwing one of the three back with arcane lightning and then turning to search the water below with magic for the gangplank.


She found it but heard Axiom cry out. He was yelling something. She couldn’t focus on it; it wasn’t important. She had a job, and he had a job. If she was slow, he died, same for him. Above her, she heard somepony fire the shootstick Axiom had recovered from the gunner on the boat, and her ears popped.


Magic raised the gangplank up from the depths, and she set it against the hull and then turned.


Axiom was on his side, mane wild, mane frayed, side red and slick. He kicked, and his front right hoof connected with a Blue’s face, and Twilight heard something snap. The stallion in blue fell on top of him, and she saw now that another was coming to finish him while he was pinned. Twilight grabbed the fallen Blue with her magic and threw him back into his living comrade, throwing them both back onto the concrete with a wet thud.


Axiom rose, panting, looking like an intruder in the dirt.


“They…” Twilight began, horrified, for she saw where a hoofblade had cut his side, but he coughed and shook his head.


“Up the damn stairs, will you? Go!”


She turned and fled.


But behind her, she heard more gunshots and more voices. She heard him call after her that he was coming, just run, just keep running, that she was almost there, and as she crossed the threshold, she looked back at him, turning and fleeing before the foe. But they had stopped. They were running away from him. Twilight realized what was happening. She knew it before Applejack roared it in her ears and started pulling her away from the edge of the ship.


“Run, you damn fool!” Applejack called down at Axiom. “They have a cannon—”


The pier exploded and threw her rescuer flat on his back. Debris rained on the deck and pelted her back and cheek and head. It cut her flank.


Her ears rang. Her body was numb. She thought she was screaming for him to start swimming, that she could carry him even though she knew she couldn’t, but Twilight wasn’t sure if that really happened. All she was sure of was that Applejack was telling her that the boat needed to go now and then her friend was gone, and that Axiom was lying there, and she was hanging over the side trying to do something, pick him up, carry him like a mother carrying a child with skinned knees, but he only fidgeted and rose on his own power. He was burnt. Horribly, horribly burnt. His mane was mostly gone, his coloring all ashy, like the city. As the ship rumbled beneath her, he became a part of the city, just like it, all dead and on fire and black, and as another cannon roared and struck the water, he flinched. And she realized that he was just shellshocked, that he hadn’t tried to pose or look like anything other than himself, that the mask was off.


“Twilight! Twilight, can you make a shield?” Pinkie yelled, her voice tight with panic from the doorway. More gunfire forced her back behind the bulkhead.


“No! Too strong! Axiom! Axiom, get up! Please, just swim this way! Turn around and swim!”


He looked up at her. He looked like he wanted to say something, something heroic or brave, but he just sort of stared at her blankly. The gangplank was gone.


Ponies, Twilight remembered, can’t really climb.


He looked back at the Blues, who loaded shootsticks and cocked repeaters. There were dozens now, lining the docks, aiming at him, ready. His hood was gone. His distinctive Gray barding was visible now, and it was obvious even after hellfire what he was and what it was and what it meant. He looked at them, and then he looked at Twilight.


“Swim! I know you can!” She screamed.


They weren’t firing. Why wouldn’t he move? If he just moved, then he could come back. She could thank him for saving her. She could explain she couldn’t swim, she could… she could…


The boat began to move.


“Come with us! Please! Axiom, just jump! Please! PLEASE!”


He turned as if to do so but then looked back, as if something caught his attention at the last moment, and Twilight had the most absurd thought that he would be blasted into salt. But he was not.


An explosive shell ripped him and the ground beneath him from existence in fire and finality.


Twilight stumbled back, horrified, mouth working without any sound, head not caring that it slammed against the wood with too much force. She was in shock.


But then Tradewinds was there, shaking her. “Get up! Get up opezdol! Chort tzdbya beeree! Shoot back! Shoot back!”


She stumbled to her hooves and looked out over the city.


The magic came without her having to call it. It knew her. It knew when she needed it, when she had no other way to speak, nothing else to do. It sang a song of millenia in her ears as it set the cannons to glowing. They were easy to see now. She had forgotten about them, forgotten to check for them. But it all made sense now.


The magic knew what she wanted. Not what she asked, what she wanted. It roiled, and above her, it formed a massive fire storm. Tradewinds was cowering. She knew that Applejack would be slack-jawed in fear. She thought they all were, probably. The magic was whispering. Had it done that before? It did so now. Death, destroyer of worlds.


She flung fire down on the sinners and their cannons.


She expected there to be two small explosions. Two cannons destroyed, all’s right in the world, goddesses in their heavens.


Instead, there was a storm of fire. She saw too late, before Tradewinds could say it, the magic telling her the truth too late to be useful, that the Blues had stored all their powder close to the guns. Efficiency, of course. Or carelessness. Or suicidal tendencies. It all went up. All of it. Blackpowder, tons of it, far too much stored in one place in both cases, all going up at once, spitting fire on the rest of the warehouses and bungalows and hovels and on soldiers and foragers and stranded, and everything burned. The whole encampment burned. They were screaming. She imagined she could smell the cooking skin she’d smelt once before in the firepits of Manehattan, imagined she could see the degenerate renegade Griffons flying in for another barbecue, and she sank. The magic was gone. Her mind was gone. Her heart was gone.


Vanhoover began to burn in earnest.




























END OF ACT ONE

Author's Note:

The Secrets
If you want to know the secrets of this story here you go!
(and if you're sad.)

Interlude provided and paid for by the institute of randomguys and RazedRainbows and Nothing is Constants.


Act Two begins soon. Goodnight, and good luck.

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