> The Janitor Named Dustbowl
>  by MrAlbum321
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

> The Janitor Named Dustbowl
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

Dustbowl lived his life content with where he was. Every night, he would wake up, make his rounds through the shops he was employed to maintain, make sure that every floor was as polished and spotless as could be, brush out any cobwebs and exterminate any bugs or pests that may have infiltrated the premises, and then witness his hard night’s work with an approving eye before heading to his bed. He never made much money, but it was enough to get by, and that was all that mattered to him. 

Dustbowl never recalled receiving any of those Employee of the Month awards or any other forms of recognition for his service over the years, and in his mind he didn’t care. He made sure his feathers and horn were cleaned every morning after work, and he did everything he could to make sure his job was done to the best of his ability. Having to hide his wings was annoying at times; he wished the pony-folk in that one village hadn’t worshipped him that time he went for a morning flight. 

As he magically taped his wings to his flanks before putting on his first uniform for the night, he looked at himself in his bathroom mirror. His hooves were scuffed but well-clipped and horse-shoed, his mane and coat well-brushed shades of grey. He smiled, nodded approval, put on his uniform, and walked out the door to his small house. 

The sounds of the City of Neighdon blared at him. Coaches rushed past; he was near the main thoroughfare, Reins Highway. Neighdon was known for its noise and its hustle-and-bustle, and tonight did not disappoint. 

Dustbowl had to step off the sidewalk multiple times as ponies rushed by on skateboards, bicycles, tricycles, and once even a unicycle. They always had some sort of bell or horn that they bleated just as they came up behind him. At some point, he gave up and kept to the grass. The stench of the ditch off to his left side was more offensive due to the light rain that coated everything, allowing the water to pool and stagnate when it would normally sludge off to the sewers. 

Thank the Gods for that little rain-repelling spell, Dustbowl thought as his horn lit up with his trademark dirty-grey-colored magic. The rain flowed around him like a curtain, keeping most of his uniform clean. The cuffs by his hooves, however, were victims to the wet grass and the sloshing of the occasional puddle. He grit his teeth and forced himself to ignore this fact as he walked up to the Stall-Mart, where he worked. 

“Heya Dusty!” The night cashier shouted to him. Dustbowl smiled and waved after wiping his hooves at the front door rug, and went to the back of the small store area. He went through a set of double doors, and came back out a few minutes later with a long, flat and wide broom. As he walked back to the front of the store, he double-checked the positions of all the rugs and doormats on the vinyl floor. 

“Well, if I never!” Someone said in his general direction. He looked towards them, to find somepony talking to the cashier. He turned away and went to get a shopping cart to place all the mats on, so he could start to sweep the floor. 

“Did your husband really say that?” the cashier asked as she absent-mindedly scanned the chatty customer’s groceries and placed them into bags. 

“You bet your rump he did! Calling me fat just ‘cause I’m pregnant with HIS foal - OOOHHH!!!” The customer fumbled with her coin purse, but the strings slipped past her hooves and the bag spilled all over the checkstand area. The customer swore, visibly shaking with anger. 

“Here, lemme get that for ya,” the cashier said as the customer groaned with unspoken frustration. The cashier dashed around the checkstand, picking up every single coin that had fallen and returning some of it to her purse. She tore the receipt from the cash register printer, put it by the purse, and put the amount the customer owed on the checkstand counter, smiling as she did so

“If only HE was as nice as you,” the customer mumbled as she snatched her purse by the strings, the opening closing with an angry snap. She tossed the bagged groceries into her cart and stomped off towards the exit where Dustbowl was. 

“Need a hoof with those groceries, Ma’am?” Dustbowl asked. 

“No, I’ll get my lazy ass of a husband to load ‘em into the coach!” she shouted back as she slammed the doors to the store open. Dustbowl took a long and deep breath, then went back to putting the floor mats onto the grocery cart. 

“Guess that’s what I get for working the night shift,” he heard the cashier mumble under her breath, as she took the customer's bits and put them into the register. Dustbowl rolled his eyes. 

“It ain’t the night that’s to blame,” Dustbowl said to the cashier. “I’ve seen that mare burn through two husbands in a row. It’s a wonder her family ain’t fallen apart yet. The only reason the latest one hasn’t left is because he likes her anger, fer some reason.”

The cashier frowned and turned to the next customer, thinking about Dustbowl’s words as she shifted groceries through the checkstand. Dustbowl had left the cashier’s checkstand for last, and as he went to get the floor mat there, he whispered into the cashier’s ear: 

“Besides Custard, if yer boyfriend or stallion talked like that to ya, how would you act?”

“Oh, I’d be all passive-aggressive,” Custard, the cashier, answered softly, “and put skunk odor in his deodorant.” 

Dustbowl looked at Custard, and saw her smile in his direction. He smiled back, then turned to the cart, now piled high with floor mats. Her smile hung in his mind as he wheeled the cart through the double doors near the back of the store, and walked back to the checkstands. 

Dustbowl swept out the checkstands, one by one. He had noted which checkstands had full trash-cans and which didn’t, knowing that they would be next once the floors were done. The evening light disappeared as Dustbowl swept the store from top to bottom, clearing out the dust and loose dirt that had been tracked in during the day. 

Once ten o’clock chimed at the store clock, Dustbowl took a brief break to get some water, then put his broom away. He went to get a trash bag, and emptied the checkstand trash cans one at a time into the bag. He took the now-full trash bag out to the dumpster at the back of the store. 

The night sky blazed with starlight despite the yellow-orange glare from the street lights. The light rain had blown to another part of town, the wind teasing Dustbowl’s dark-grey mane. He spent a moment staring up at the sky after tossing the full trash bag into the dumpster and wondered: 

What makes you so special, Miss Luna? Why am I like you… yet not like you? I can’t do half the things you can, so why am I an Alicorn like you?

He came back into the store via a back door, his mind buzzing with familiar questions and resentment. He walked into the main store section with a duster in one uniform pocket and pushing a fresh bucket of soapy water in front of him using his magic, a mop with a clean head in it. 

Once again, Dustbowl worked from the dirtiest place, the front of the store, to the back, taking care to leave no spot un-mopped. He had to change the bucket water multiple times, but that was normal. Floors get dirty with everyone’s hooves walking over it during the day, and the repetition helped calm his head a little. 

As he mopped he would periodically look both up to the ceiling and at the grocery shelves. Every so often, he would stop mopping and replace goods that customers had misplaced, or bring damaged goods to the back room to be tallied and eventually disposed of. He would also bring the duster out and remove errant cobwebs that tried to establish themselves in the nooks, crannies and corners. 

It always amazed Dustbowl what kinds of things people would leave on shelves. He once found a gorgeous diamond necklace, hidden behind the Easy-Bake Lasagna. He had turned it in to lost-and-found, but no one had come to claim it. Thirty days later, he was able to claim it for himself. A few months later, some stallion recognized the necklace when Dustbowl wore it and claimed it was his. Dustbowl gave it over without a word; he didn’t like to stand out from the crowd anyway, and even if the stallion was lying, the stallion would wear it better than he would. 

Once the floors had been mopped spotless, he put the mop away in the back of the store. He was about to take the rugs and doormats out to the back of the store and give them a good beating, to get most of the dirt out of them. The moment he heard a scared voice from the vicinity of the checkstands, his neck hairs stood up. 

“-take whatever you want, just don’t hurt m-!”

There was a thud, and Dustbowl’s breath went short. He dashed round the corner of the store lane to see Custard’s unconscious yellow body slide to the ground. Her masked attacker ripped the cash register open and began to stuff money into a grocery bag. Dustbowl could see that the green-coated attacker had a large mass of glistening knives levitated, and menacingly aimed at the space around him. 

SHIT! Gotta back off, hope he didn’t see me-

The robber looked up, and his eyes connected with Dustbowl’s eyes. Dustbowl swore, and turned around and ran as fast as he could. The robber roared after Dustbowl: 

“YOU MUTHERFUCKER! YOU GET THE FUCK BACK HERE!”

Dustbowl heard the robber run towards him. Dustbowl turned to the left, changing store lanes, hoping that would be enough to throw off his attacker. He glanced back, and saw the robber run down the lane Dustbowl had exited. He cast a quick levitation spell, hoping it would do what he wanted it to do. 

Goods flew off the shelves and smacked the robber in the face. Stuff flew around the robber in a tornado of cans and boxes, items at random zipping away from the vortex of brands to clobber the robber. A can of decaf coffee suddenly opened, and the grounds dumped themselves into the robber’s face. The robber howled, and flailed his hooves around him while trying to wipe the coffee grounds out of his eyes with his hooves. 

Gotcha! Dustbowl thought. Now I just gotta knock him-

Dustbowl didn’t notice the knives; he only registered the impact they had on his right shoulder and wing. When his body realized that he was hit, the sudden pain made him buckle over and fall to the ground. The shock overwhelmed his mind, and next thing he knew he lost the focus on the levitation spell he had cast. 

The goods all fell down in a mess around the robber. The robber heard the stuff fall down, and stopped throwing his hooves around. It took a second to clear enough of the coffee grounds from his eyes so he could squint and get his bearings. 

The robber’s strained gaze zeroed in on Dustbowl’s position. Dustbowl began to panic, and tried to back away from the robber as he began to step around the mess of goods that littered the floor towards Dustbowl. One wave from one of the robber's knives in Dustbowl’s direction was enough to freeze Dustbowl in place. 

“You shouldn’t’ve run,” the robber growled. “Next time, get yer ass to the ground if ya see someone like me, and I won’t have to stick ya.” 

Dustbowl thought of the panic button the manager had installed in the back of the store, through the double doors, which would call the patrol in a heartbeat if pressed. I should’ve run, Dustbowl thought as the robber began to back away. 

“Now, I’m gonna get outta here,” the robber said, “and if I see so much as a wink o’magic from ya, I’m gonna stick yer throat.” 

Dustbowl remembered the location of the shovels in the store, which caused him to glance away from the robber. A knife zipped by his head, causing him to startle and look back towards the robber as the robber continued to back away. 

“Don’t get any ideas!” the robber barked at him. “I’d hate to hafta cut that pretty thing I knocked the lights out of.” 

“You motherfu-”

Another knife through Dustbowl’s ear interrupted his swearing. Dustbowl jerked his head away by reflex, as the robber turned around and bolted towards the front of the store. 

Come on, Dusty! Dustbowl’s brain yelled at him. You got one chance, take it!

Dustbowl managed to hold his breath, visualize where the shovels were located, and cast another levitation spell. He heard a metal clank go off, then the sound of metal hitting a skull and horn, and the clatter as the shovels scattered across the floor. It took a second for Dustbowl to realize that silence followed that clatter. 

I hope that got the shit-head, Dustbowl thought as he tried to stand up. He managed to get on three legs, but any attempt to try and limp on the injured leg sent a spasm of pain through him so severe that he fell down again. His breathing became intense as he tried again, this time simply pulling himself along the floor, not moving his injured shoulder or wing. 

He got as far as the double doors in the back of the store when he realized something: 

I coulda pressed the panic button using my magic!

Dustbowl cast a telekinetic spell that pressed the panic button, mentally berating himself for forgetting something so simple that could have saved him a lot of pain. He stopped where he was and laid on his left side, keeping his injured shoulder and wing off of the floor. As he sat there and bled from the knives still stuck to his body, he tried to steady his breathing and calm down. 

Damn knives, now I’ll hafta go to the hospital, he thought, trying to fight the tide of anger at himself. Why didn’t I keep running? Why didn’t I push the button?

Wait, did… did the knives get my wing?!

Dustbowl craned his neck to check his wing, and swore out loud as he saw the blood staining his uniform by his wing, the knife jutting out of it. 

For a moment, Dustbowl didn’t react. He leaned back, his eyes blank, his brain still trying to process the implications of what he saw. 

I… I got hit there, the, the docs and medics, they’ll hafta treat it, and, and-

DAMMIT!

Dustbowl tried to heave himself up, biting his lip at the pain in his shoulder and wing. 

“Ten… years….” He groaned as he got himself on his hooves. “Ten years ruined by a, a fucking knife!”

Dustbowl tried to put one hoof in front of the other, stumbled over his injured side, and hauled himself upright again. He kept trying to walk forward, and managed to get as far as the checkstands. His injured leg and wing throbbed, his body shivered with pain, his blood soaked his uniform, but he kept trying to walk out of the store. 

“Gotta… gotta get outta here…. Maybe, get a doc, swear him to secrecy, get myself fixed up-”

Dustbowl heard a siren in the distance. He held his breath, and found himself on the verge of tears as the siren sound grew louder. He began to sob as the flashing rotating lights of patrol coaches shone through the store’s front windows. 

“No,” he sobbed as he sank back to the ground, despair climbing over his face, “no, no no no, DAMMIT, NO!”

Dustbowl sobbed into the clean side of his uniform. Some part of him hoped that the patrol ponies would overlook him so he could escape unnoticed, but he knew that the blood would lead them to him. Didn’t matter how far he would run, they would catch up. 

Maybe… maybe I can get them to leave my wing alone, Dustbowl thought. He glanced at his wing, and knew that the blood stains and the knife clearly marked the wound on his body. They would have to treat his wing. They would be idiots not to. 

“Dusty!” 

Dustbowl glanced up, and saw Custard leaning on the back end of a checkstand. Her body swayed, as if she were intoxicated. She swayed a little too far, and tumbled to the floor. 

“Custard-AaaAAUuUgggGGHH!” Dusty tried to run towards her, triggering another spasm of pain in his injured side. He fell back to the ground, his teeth bouncing on the floor and rebounding into his upper jaw. He began to hyper-ventilate as he laid on the floor, staring at Custard as she managed to roll herself upright. 

Patrol ponies stormed through the front doors, noticed both Custard and Dustbowl, and immediately radioed for an ambulance. Dustbowl saw them messing with something over by the shovel stand, and heard a few words that gave him a little comfort:

“If it isn’t the thief that robbed three other stores tonight! Description from witnesses matches you up perfectly!” 

Dustbowl managed to smile a little. So I did get him, he thought. There were only a couple of patrol ponies present, but another siren came blaring into the parking lot. Soon, nurses came through the doors carrying stretchers and first-aid equipment. 

He lost sight of Custard as a couple of nurses picked him up and laid him on the stretcher. They threw a few switches on the stretcher and elevated him to belly level, where they locked it at that height. 

One of the nurses brought out a safety knife and began to cut away his uniform around the wound. Dustbowl closed his eyes, and waited for the moment they would realize what he was. 

“Sheara, take a look at this.” 

Dustbowl cringed, waiting for the sharp breath of realization. 

It never came. 

“Just treat it, Clippers,” the other nurse said. “He’s hurt and needs help, now. Judging by how much blood he likely lost, he’ll need surgery, an IV and a blood transfusion.” 

“But-”

The nurses went quiet, then Dustbowl felt bandages and gauze being wrapped around the knife wounds. As much as it hurt to get stabbed by the knives, the pain Dustbowl felt when they extracted the knives from him was much worse. He dimly remembered crying out in pain. 

He found himself moving. He opened his eyes, to find himself alongside Custard as both of them were wheeled out to the ambulance coach. They loaded them into the back, strapped them in, then jumped in with them as the ambulance siren wailed to life. They closed the door right as they began to move forward. 

Dustbowl didn’t want to say a word. Thankfully, no one asked questions. He saw that his wings were freed of the tape that had held them in place, and that the injured wing had been bandaged well. He looked over to Custard, to find her staring at his wings. 

He turned away, hoping that she would notice the movement and get the hint that he didn’t want to talk about it. He fell asleep on the ride to the emergency room. 

When he woke up, he found himself in a hospital bed, an IV in his left foreleg. He sat up a little bit, yawned, and looked around. The room was empty, with the exception of Custard, who slept near the head of his bed. He saw a wisp of her orange mane flutter back and forth over her mouth. 

Dustbowl sighed. What am I gonna do? he thought. First thing you know, reporters will chat me up, I’ll be given keys to the city for no good reason, then they’re gonna throw me in a pit with a manticore and expect me to tame the bloody beast. Or worse.

Pony-folk just expect Alicorns to be gods. I’m not even close, and I don’t even WANT to be close. 

Custard stirred, which caused Dustbowl to freeze. She opened her eyes, and noticed Dustbowl looking at her. She sighed, and sat up. 

“How are you feeling?” she asked. 

Dustbowl looked away, and flexed his wings and right shoulder a little. He cringed at a twinge of pain, but it wasn’t nearly as bad as the actual stabbing was. 

“Better,” he answered. 

“Good,” she said. She slapped him in his face.

He turned towards her, shocked at the stinging sensation that still lingered. 

“Five. Years.” she said. “Five years of your teasing and flirting.”

Dustbowl didn’t know what to say. 

“I thought you would have opened up to me,” she said. “I thought you’d, well, TRUST me.” 

“Custard, it wasn’t-”

“Oh no, it wasn’t ME holding you back,” she spat at him, “It was the fact that you’re a FUCKING ALICORN.” 

Dustbowl looked away again, only for Custard to slap his face again. 

“Don’t you DARE turn away from me, you, you-”

“Would ya shut up for a couple seconds and let me EXPLAIN?!” Dustbowl shouted. 

Dustbowl could hear Custard’s ragged, emotional breath right by his face. After a couple of seconds of silence, Dustbowl continued: 

“Custard, when ya look at me, do ya see a Prince or leader? No. I can’t move mountains or do miracles like the other ones. I can’t BE the Alicorn everyone wants.”

Dustbowl put his face on his front hooves. “All I know is how to clean.”

“It’s not that,” Custard said. “I WAITED for you.” 

Custard stood up. “I didn’t date. I didn’t go out on the town. I didn’t have any fun or happiness, ‘cause I thought you’d finally get the BALLS to ASK. ME. OUT. But it never happened. I thought ‘Oh, he’s probably going through something’, but no, it was just, just-”

Custard turned away from Dustbowl and ran out of the room, grabbing her purse on the way out. Dustbowl saw a couple tears fall from her eyes. 

For a moment, Dustbowl did nothing. He could only think of Custard’s words. 

You know they’re true, he thought to himself. So what are ya waiting for? Go apologize, for fuck’s sake.

Dustbowl sighed, knowing what he needed to do. He grabbed the IV and ripped it out with his teeth. He took off the other sensors, jumped to the ground, and ran out of the room after Custard. He saw Custard zip around a corner, and ran after her. He chased her through the hospital, leaping around startled doctors, nurses and patients. Within a few minutes, Custard dashed out the front door, Dustbowl in pursuit, his right shoulder and wing roaring with pain. 

Custard ran out to the coach parking lot, up to one of the coaches. She frantically dug through her purse and pulled out a set of keys. 

“Custard!” Dustbowl called out, his voice hoarse. Custard dropped her keys. She bent down to get them. 

“Custard!” Dustbowl called out again, as he came up to her. She picked up her keys and began to flip through them. 

Dustbowl stopped just short of Custard, breathing hard. She stopped trying to find the right key, and sank to the ground. He saw her start to cry. Dustbowl did not say or do anything, even though he knew he needed to say something.

“Custard, I, I was,” Dustbowl looked away, trying to find the right thing to say. 

“I… I was a coward.” 

Dustbowl knelt down on the ground by Custard, who continued to sob. 

“I’ve been through some rough stuff,” Dustbowl said, in a quiet voice. “Every time someone found out about what I was, things went from good to bad.” He put his left wing over Custard, who turned towards him. 

Custard’s teary-eyed face gave Dustbowl pause. He brought her closer, and hugged her in his embrace. 

“One time, folks found out about me during a nasty storm. They tried to get me to save a bunch of foals who had been left out in the middle of a river. Best I could do was fly over and get them, one by one. Something clobbered me in the head after I grabbed the last one, and next thing I knew, I was washed up near the ocean shore. I was twelve years old.

“Then there was that time when stampeding buffalo were about to stomp this town into the ground. The townies found out about me and demanded I stop the buffalo. Best I could do was get everyone to run out of the buffalo’s way. No one looked me in the eye as their homes were ground to dust. I was fifteen.

“I could go on and on.”

Custard looked up at Dustbowl. Her eyes were wide, and scared. 

“I was a coward ‘cause life told me it was better to be one,” Dustbowl continued. “I never meant to break your heart, it just, well-”

Custard kissed Dustbowl on the lips. Dustbowl almost jerked back in surprise. 

“I just… I wish you had told me. I coulda helped you,” Custard said. She returned Dustbowl’s embrace. 

“Next time you want someone to be with you, you have to trust them with these kinds of things,” Custard whispered into his ear. “No one wants to be with someone who keeps secrets.”

Dustbowl opened his mouth to say something, but then closed it. The two of them hugged each other for a while. 

“You… you risked getting found out just to chase after me?”

Dustbowl nodded. “... huh, yeah, I guess so.”

“Your leg doesn’t look too good, you should go back inside and have it checked out.”

“In a bit.” 

“Look, just go back inside, alright? I’ll be right behind you.”

Dustbowl gently grabbed Custard’s shoulders, pushed her out to leg’s length, and stared into her eyes, searching for any doubt. She looked away with an annoyed expression. 

“I just… need a minute alone, okay?! Just go, it’ll be fine!”

Dustbowl closed his eyes, let go of her, and stood up. 

“Alright. See you soon, I guess,” he said before he turned back to the hospital. He began to feel his right shoulder and wing ache from the exertion. He found himself limping in a very pronounced fashion.

As soon as he got to the door, a couple of nurses burst out, grabbed him, and dragged him inside. Dustbowl hadn’t realized that he was dizzy, and once he was installed back into his hospital bed, the IV’s re-inserted, he felt ready to fall asleep. He did not see Custard when he closed his eyes. 

He woke up late at night. There was no one around him, not even Custard. Dustbowl took a deep breath, as he cried a little. 

She left me, he thought. What did I expect?

The dull hum of the hospital machinery with the bland whiteness of the walls, bed and space lulled Dustbowl into a very, very drowsy state. Right when he was about to fall asleep, he heard someone knocking on his hospital room door. Before Dustbowl could call out and let them in, the door opened. 

Four ponies walked in. Four very familiar ponies to Dustbowl, all with wings and a horn. All four of them had crowns, and all four of them had serious looks on their faces. 

Great, Dustbowl thought. Now I’ve got royalty visiting me. As if this couldn’t get worse. 

Dustbowl sat up a little, yawned and rubbed the sleep out of his eyes. 

“To what do I owe the pleasure of your visit?” Dustbowl asked. 

“We just want to talk to you,” the smaller one, Twilight Sparkle, said, “get to know you a little better.” 

“We could not come during the day, that would have made too much of a disturbance,” Luna said. 

“Any time an alicorn is revealed, it is usually in response to a need of the people-” Celestia said. 

“Oh really?” Dustbowl interrupted. “Well that’s swell. Guess what? I can’t stop natural disasters or tame dragons or move the sun and moon like you all can do, so-”

“It doesn’t work like that!” Twilight spoke up. “You became what you are because you know everything about whatever your talent is, and Magic leads you to that because there is a need for that somewhere in the world!”

“Twilight, you’re getting a little worked up,” the pink one, Cadance, said. 

Twilight looked away, her brow furrowed in frustration. “I know, it’s just-”

“I don’t believe you,” Dustbowl said. 

Twilight turned back to Dustbowl, a hint of anger in her eyes. 

“Every time folks found out about who I was,” Dustbowl continued, “they made me feel like I didn’t deserve to exist if I couldn’t be like you all.” 

Dustbowl leaned forward. “If there was a need, then I’m a shitty savior,” he spat out. 

He turned away from the four of them, and laid down on the bed. “Get out of here.” 

The four royal alicorns were silent. One by one, they turned away and left the room. The click of the door resonated through Dustbowl’s brain. 

I just turned away the only ponies who could help me figure out why in all of Tartarus I’m the way I am, he thought. Get your rump out there and catch ‘em before they go away, and apologize. 

Dustbowl once again tore the sensors and IV’s off of himself and put his hooves on the floor. Why am I such a moron? he thought as he dashed out the door. 

He found the four of them looking at him, smiling. Dustbowl’s confusion was on his face. 

“Wait, you knew I’d be-”

“You’ve obviously been through a lot,” Cadance interrupted. “It seemed better to let you come to us, than the other way around.”

“If you hadn’t come out when you did, then we would have made it easy for you to get to us,” Twilight said. “We knew that you would have questions.”

“We hope this does not insult you,” Luna said. “We did not intend to manipulate.” 

Dustbowl sank to the ground, put his wings over his face, and used his wingtips to massage his temples. His brow was furrowed in confusion as he tried to interpret what just happened. After a minute of silence, he sighed and looked up at the four of them. 

“Why me?” he asked. 

“Do you remember when you became an alicorn?” Celestia asked. 

“Yeah, so?” 

“Tell us what happened, and how you felt,” Twilight said. She magically whipped out a notebook and pencil, and looked ready to write stuff down. 

Dustbowl looked away, and closed his eyes as he remembered, visualizing the moment. 

“I was cleaning the orphanage again ‘cause the mares who worked there never had the time to clean it properly,” he began. “I had gotten my cutie mark a year ago, and was more than happy to do the cleaning. As I scrubbed the walls, I thought, ‘It’d be nice to not have to do this again.’ I knew that was wishful thinking, but then I realized something.”

Dustbowl heard footsteps in the hall. He put them to the back of his mind, and continued:

“Cleaning can never stop. Things get dirty, but why they get dirty is ‘cause you’re always leaving something behind, a footprint, a smudge, an ink stain. Everything leaves a mark behind, and if it isn’t taken care of, those leftovers make things hard for everyone. Bad stuff collects in that junk, and all it takes is one hoof to throw that bad stuff elsewhere and spread it.

“It’s no-one’s fault it happens, but it’s how the world works. There’s gotta be someone cleaning up the messes left by other folks, or at least get it down to an okay level. I mean, just imagine how many messes this country had to clean up these past few years. Changelings, that bit with the Everfree Forest, that weird dragon-thing that turned everyone weird, they all leave something behind. Who’s cleaning that stuff up?”

Dustbowl opened his eyes, which were wide with realization. He looked over to the four alicorns, and saw that they were looking at each other. Dustbowl could tell that they were thinking about his words. 

“There are still areas needing rebuilding in the more rural parts of Equestria,” Celestia said. 

“It is also true that our country has been under a lot of stress, understandably so,” Luna chimed in. 

“Whoa, hold up,” Dustbowl said as he stood up. “Every time I’ve been in the limelight, things went bad-”

“We could put you on the volunteer list anonymously-” Twilight interrupted.

“Give me a second to think about what I wanna do before you go signing me up!” 

The sudden silence allowed Dustbowl to take a deep breath. “Look, I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to-”

“It’s alright,” Cadance said as she put a hoof on Dustbowl’s shoulder. “We understand.”

“Can… can I get some time to think on this?”

“That seems reasonable,” Celestia said. She turned away from Dustbowl and walked down the hallway, Luna close behind her. 

“Here,” Twilight said. She scribbled something down on her notepad, tore it off with her magic and put it beside Dustbowl. “When you have made a decision, send a letter.” Twilight turned away to a stairwell and went down it. 

Cadance turned to follow Twilight, then turned her head to someone else in the hallway. Dustbowl followed her line of sight, and saw Custard standing near a bathroom doorway. 

Custard’s face was streaked with tears. Dustbowl didn’t know how to respond. 

“Be honest, but gentle, with each other,” Cadance said. She then turned around and followed Twilight down the stairs. 

Custard walked over to Dustbowl, crying some more. As soon as she got close enough, Dustbowl hugged her close. He cradled her in his embrace for a few minutes as Custard sobbed on his shoulder. 

“I wanted to blame you,” Custard said, “but I couldn’t.” 

Dustbowl continued to hold her. 

“You’re no coward. I’m sorry for calling you one.” 

“Hey, I called myself that,” Dustbowl said softly. “I wanted to blame me, too.”

“Promise me that you won’t blame yourself again.”

“I can try.”

There was a minute of silence. 

“I… I quit my job, so I could be here.”

“You didn’t have to-”

“I wanted to be with you. I wanted you back then, and I want you now.” 

“You sure? I did hurt you-”

“It wasn’t your fault. I’d hide it too if I was you.”

“Custard…”

“Don’t try to change my mind, Dusty. I’ll be damned to Tartarus if I ever leave you alone.”

“Look, I want what’s best for you. Am I really that?”

“You won’t know ‘till you try, so I’m putting my heart on the line so you don’t have to.”

“Custard, that ain’t fair.”

“How? You’ve been through a lot, you’ve got every excuse-”

“It isn’t an excuse.”

“Then what is it?”

“It’s what happened, and that’s that. I pick myself up and keep moving.”

“Then who’s gonna clean up after you?”

“I clean up after me.”

“Just shut up and kiss me already.”

Custard and Dustbowl kissed. They pulled away. Dustbowl could see Custard's teary, yet determined face. He could see how scared she really was, how confused her mind must be. Yet, she was here. In his embrace. Crying his heart out. 

When Custard grabbed Dustbowl's face and pulled him into his hospital room, he did not resist her. 

THE END