An accident causes Celestia to end up in a frontier town amid the wilderness without her memories, leaving Twilight Sparkle feeling devastated as Luna tries to help her—plus, there's a little mystery to solve.
An accident causes Celestia to end up in a frontier town amid the wilderness without her memories, leaving Twilight Sparkle feeling devastated as Luna tries to help her—plus, there's a little mystery to solve.
Certain TAGS that apply to this story are spoilers and will be added only when the relevant chapters make them unavoidable—there IS a mystery to reveal in due time, after all. Have fun figuring it out
My other two stories are pretty good sized and I've been bouncing between them on posting chapters. But since those chapters are rather large and highly detailed, I thought to post this in increments to pass the time. This is story is completely unrelated to my others and it has considerably few chapters, with a new chapter to be posted about 1/wk.
Okay, a few words about the points to award: 1 point for the first one to guess the origin of the "crossover" in this story -- that's way too easy. 5 points for the first one guessing who Tumbleweed is from that "crossover" series -- not so easy 10 points for first one who guesses Filly's partner prior to Ch 6; 5 points for first one to guess who she is if no one has by Ch 6 but before Ch 7; 0 points if after, because the answer will have been given. 25 points for first one who guesses the overall mystery of the story prior to Ch 10; 15 points for first one to guess what's going on if no one has by Ch 10 but before Ch 11; 0 points if after, because the answer will have been given. Again, just have fun
oh, and a bonus of 20 points to whoever can guess the "crossover" that's referenced in "Night the Lights Went Out in Canterlot"
Princess Luna's worse fears were confirmed as she rushed down to land at the crash site.
"REPORT!" she demanded; her use of the Canterlot Voice being solely instinctive given the horrific nature of the scene.
One of the half dozen or so Solar Guard on station instantly turned to address her.
"Princess Luna!" Lieutenant High Flyer exclaimed, snapping off a salute. "We're still searching for the Princess! It's as bad as Swift Wing reported. The team appears to have been hit by lightning, but it was impact with the ground that killed them all."
Luna glared with a fury at the clouds above the heavily forested mountains that separated the Crystal Empire from the rest of Equestria. The weather here was as wild and untamed as it was over the Everfree Forest.
"We've found the portal, but still no sign of the Princess or the others!" a nearly exhausted Private Swift Wing shouted as he flew by before darting off in a different direction from where he came.
He had been the one to deliver the news, having been the patrol pony that happened upon the crash site. After checking the team, there had been one survivor, who told of them being hit by lightning, but he soon expired. Unable to locate the missing Princess, he immediately flew to Canterlot to deliver the news and flew back with the rescue team and was even now assisting in the Search and Rescue.
"FIND! MY! SISTER! NOW!!" Luna roared.
********************
Many months later, a lone four legged figure slowly and tiredly trudged on over a parched and barren landscape. Her unsteady pace seemed to make no progress to her mind. Only when she occasionally looked behind her did she see the trail she had left. Except—it never seemed to change either.
The sun rising somewhere off behind her left flank momentarily grabbed her attention.
She watched curiously as the glowing orb shakily rose up several diameters in a moment and then suddenly stop to hang there in the now azure and cloudless sky.
She slowly blinked at the sight, thinking there should be something odd about it, something to jog a memory. But for some reason, nothing came to her. The feeling was the same as it was yesterday. And the day before. And the day before that. She long ago lost count of how many times it was….
The light helped with seeing. Part of her welcomed the light. But the heat of the day sapped at her strength. No food. No water. Just miles and miles of endless scrub and broken terrain. And dirt. Everywhere—just dirt.
So much dirt.
Where did it all come from?
She pawed at the ground with a hoof to see if there was anything underneath, but all she could tell was there was just more dirt.
After a few minutes, she stopped digging.
Numbly, she turned her head back to her path. Exhaustion made her head hang low. She resumed her walking, taking a step first with her front right leg, and using it to pull her body forward. Then her rear left leg moved forward, pushing her entire frame a few more inches. Then her front right—no—left leg, she remembered. Pull. Now her right rear leg, this time. Push. Another few inches. And on either side of her, her wings dragged in the dirt, making her painful progress that much slower.
Dirt.
So much dirt.
It covered everything.
The ground.
The air.
Her white wings.
Her white coat.
Well, she thought they were supposed to be white.
They just looked the same color as the dirt now.
As did those formerly yellow marks on either of her flanks.
And her ridiculously long mane.
And equally ridiculously long tail.
She could never figure out just what color they were supposed to be.
They just looked like dirt now.
Dirt.
So much dirt.
It covered everything.
The ground.
The air.
Her white wings.
Her white coat.
Well, she thought they were supposed to be white.
They just looked the same color as the dirt now.
As did those formerly yellow marks on either of her flanks.
And her ridiculously long mane.
And equally ridiculously long tail.
She could never figure out just what color they were supposed to be.
They just looked like dirt now.
Dirt.
So much dirt.
It covered everything.
What was supposed to be next? she wondered pausing.
Oh, yeah. Left rear leg blue.
She giggled at the rebellious idea.
Sadly, there was no blue.
Just dirt.
So much dirt.
She would like to see some blue.
Dirt.
So much dirt.
It covered everything.
She suddenly stopped and lifted her head, blinking.
Something was missing!
"BLUE!" she happily shouted, seeing the sky for the first time today.
"Huh?" she questioned. Was it today?
Her mind went blank, once more. She was trying to figure out the puzzle that popped into her thoughts for a moment. But, sadly, it was gone now.
Numbly, her head lowered again.
Dirt. (Right front leg. Pull.)
So much dirt. (Left rear leg. Push.)
It covered everything. (Left front leg. Pull.)
The ground. (Right rear leg. Push.)
The air. (Right front leg. Pull.)
Her white wings. (Left rear leg. Push.)
Her white coat. (Left front leg. Pull.)
Well, she thought they were supposed to be white. (Right rear leg. Push.)
Tumbleweed was the last of the ponies in the Long Tree Saloon when Filly Rustler, known by all the townsponies as Miss Filly, nudged his slumbering form, which was draped over the bar, to let him know she was closing for the night.
"Thank you, Miss Filly," Tumbleweed said as his unsteady legs tried to support him after having sat on the bar stool for so long. He looked at her wistfully, guzzied up in one of her ever-present dresses that accentuated her rump. Even without his blurred and drunken vision, he considered her quite attractive. But then, she was something like twenty to twenty-five years younger than he was. Any mare that young is still going look attractive to an old washed-up stallion like him.
"For what?" she asked. Miss Filly was a middle-aged mare, whose voice had, long ago lost her youthful soprano tones due to years of yelling at rowdy customers, and the ever-present dust from the surrounding desert, had settled into the mezzo-soprano with a heavy graveled nature to her range. And even without his age to bias his opinion, she was still considered quite attractive in a handsome manner by most of the ponies in town. It was not uncommon that mares ten to fifteen years her junior had bouts of jealousy regarding her looks alone.
"For being so generous with my tab," Tumbleweed sighed with a blush, remembering that he's rarely ever paid any of the tabs he racked up with anypony in town.
"Hey, it's not like you're the only one, Tumble," she gently told him. "Take care going home. See you tomorrow."
"Night, Miss Filly," he said in parting.
He ambled out into the night; the snooze having the effect of partially sobering him. Or so he thought.
The figure he saw steadily trudging down the main street was silent. Like a ghost. Or she would be moving silently had the sound of her wings dragging on the ground not been making a noise that sounded—well—like something being dragged through the dirt with each of her steps.
She approached him, otherwise totally silent, her head hung low. He stared at her, caught between terror and simple astonishment. The light from the streetlamps showed that she was quite tall, and almost twice the height of any other pony in the town. In addition to the obvious wings dragging along either side of her, there was a long thin horn jutting out from her forehead, along with a ridiculously long mane that somehow failed to trip her or otherwise get caught by her hooves as she walked and an equally massive tail dragging in the dirt behind her.
As she took each step, she looked at nothing about her. She didn't seem to see him as she walked straight down the middle of the road. Since he wasn't directly in her path, she plodded silently in a straight line, and slowly passed him as he just stared in utter shock. When it was clear the specter was going to go straight out of town again without pausing, Tumbleweed snapped out of his astonishment and ran back to the saloon and started rapidly banging on the closed outer doors with his fore hooves, shouting for Miss Filly, all the while trying to keep an eye on the slowly departing figure.
There was no indication the strange figure heard the noise from either his yelling or banging on the double doors.
"What in tarnation?" the middle-aged earth pony mare shouted through the closed doors as she approached from inside.
"Tumbleweed!?" Filly exclaimed when she pulled the curtain back to look out at who was making such a racket.
"Miss Filly!" the earth pony stallion screamed, pointing his hoof down the street. "Miss Filly! Look!"
Puzzled at his behavior, she opened the door and stuck her head out to look where he indicated. Her eyes widened in shock.
"Sweet Celestia!" she swore before rushing out, quickly followed by Tumbleweed.
They easily caught up with the tall pony.
"Miss! Miss!" Filly Rustler fearfully called out. Even as they approached her, she could see the poor thing was in a frightful state. She was tall and lanky, bigger than any pony she'd ever heard about—well, save for that one, but she didn't really count.
The strange mare was covered in layers of dirt and dust, and her wings must have been hurt bad to be dragging in the ground like that. At first, she thought the tall mare was a freakishly large pegasus, but when she got in front and saw the horn, her mind had to partially reboot at the sight.
This is no pegasus! She's an alicorn! A princess!
The strange mare took no notice of the ponies. She just kept plodding along in a straight line.
"Miss!" Filly Rustler called out again, reaching out with a hoof to gently touch the mare's shoulder. The strange mare stopped and turned her head, but her eyes were focused on nothing, and her mouth moved erratically, but with no sound coming out.
"Miss! Are you alright?" Filly asked, fearing the worse. Instead, the mare simply stared at her, unblinking, her vision appeared glazed.
"Miss!" Filly called again, giving the mare's shoulder a gentle nudge, but still got no response.
"Tumbleweed! See if you can help get her wings up," Filly said to her neighbor. "Be gentle. Let's hope they aren't broken."
"Sure thing, Miss Filly," Tumbleweed replied and immediately did as he was told, taking a careful hold on the leading edge on the side where he stood and tried to lift them up to where they had seen the occasional pegasus visitor hold their wings. There was stiff resistance, but once he was able to lift it up, carefully trying to guide the limb into its natural folding action, it suddenly settled into place along her side.
The tall mare looked back at what Tumbleweed had done with her wing; something of her mind evidently waking up from what Filly Rustler could see in her glance.
"Oh. So that's where they go," the mare softly muttered. But she was clearly still in a dazed state.
"Miss! You need help! You have to come with us!" Filly said to the alicorn, reaching out to the mare's face to direct her to look at the earth pony mare, as Tumbleweed stepped around to get the other wing up. Her words got a few blinks from the alicorn, but nothing more.
Once Tumbleweed got the other wing in position, he stepped up to help Filly with guiding the alicorn back to the saloon.
"You know? That really makes walking easier," the stranger finally muttered as they prodded her in the direction they wanted her to go.
She almost stumbled when they got to the wide wooden boardwalk that stuck out of the base of the saloon, but Filly was prepared for that, and caught the taller alicorn to keep her from falling.
"Easy, easy," Filly said, helping her to negotiate her footing.
"Right rear red!" the alicorn suddenly called out for some odd reason as her back leg was getting up onto the boardwalk.
They manage to persuade her to step on through the swinging inner double doors and to the middle of the Long Tree where there was an area clear of tables.
"Okay, dearie," Filly said, holding the alicorn carefully. "Take it easy, now. But we're going to ask you to lay down for us. Can you do that?"
However, the tall mare just stared blankly ahead, still not focused on anything, with her legs locked in place.
"Great," Filly huffed. "Tumbleweed, help me with her. We're going to take out her back legs first." He nodded and got into position opposite of the saloon owner. "Be ready to catch her."
"Right, Miss Filly!"
"On three," Filly told him. "One … Two … Three!" Whereupon they each used a fore hoof to give the back of her thighs a whack in the joint and her rump went down hard. Filly and Tumbleweed were both ready to help catch the inevitable tilt she might do towards either side. What they hadn't counted on where the wings.
FWWWMMFPH!
They snapped out on instinct as she suddenly sat down. Tumbleweed went through the bar, smashing into the wall behind, with several bottles of drinks and salt dropped on him. Filly Rustler, on the other hoof, splintered apart several of her tables and chairs, stopping only when she reached the far wall.
"Well! I sure caught that!" the former train engineer muttered from where he lay.
"Oh, there go the wings again," the alicorn sighed, still sitting upright. "And I just got them folded."
"Oka-a-a-ay," Filly grumbled as she pulled herself out of the debris of the newly made kindling. "We don't do that again. Tumbleweed? You okay?" she said as she made her way back to the seated alicorn.
"Yeah," he replied with a hiss. "A few cuts from the bottles. The salt's sure waking me up! I can tell you, it's much more pleasant when it's going in through my mouth rather than my hide! Owww!"
"Hey! You get yourself over to Doc's," Filly ordered him. "I should be able to handle her front end from here. Be sure to tell Doc to come over when he's finished patching you up."
"Sure thing, Miss Filly," he said, carefully getting up.
"Hey, Tumbleweed," she called out just before he walked outside. He paused to look back at her. "You did good," she told him.
"Th—thanks, Miss Filly!" he happily said as he left.
"Okay, Princess," she said to the alicorn, who was sitting there looking blankly at her. "Let's get you the rest of the way down and start cleaning you up."
"Twilight!" Luna spoke out as she came upon the lavender alicorn in the dead of night, who was once more pining at the memorial that had been set up for those lost to the wild lightning strike that had taken down the chariot. "It has been a year since the accident. You must learn to move on past your grief."
"How can I, Luna?" she asked, choking back a sob. "To lose her like that! And the others! How can I forget it? And it was all my fault! If I hadn't agreed to Cadance's request to return the portal to the Crystal Empire—"
"I'm not telling you that you should forget her, or them!" Luna snapped. "I'm telling you to let go of your grief! We are alicorns are immortal! However, we will outlive hundreds of generations. We will outlive even some long-lived friends like dragons. I've lost friends. Even my sister has. And it is unfortunate, but entirely true: accidents will remove our friends all that much quicker."
"It shouldn't have happened! It should've been me!" Twilight protested. "It should've been my broken body. Not hers!"
"No, Twilight!" Luna chided her. "Never think like that! Being an immortal alicorn doesn't mean the same as being invulnerable. After all, Celie and I lost our parents, who were also alicorns! The wrong situation can take out even one of us!
"That lightning strike was in no way 'your fault', Twilight Sparkle!" Luna said, continuing to chastise her. "Nopony could've anticipated anything like that. Nopony! Not even the Wise-and-All-Knowing-Twilight-Sparkle!"
"Don't worry, Twilight. There's no way we'll ever forget her," Cadance said, coming up on the two of them.
She looked at her two friends and finally nodded, accepting the truth of what they were telling her.
But there was still something about that incident that felt—odd.
********************
"Well, now I've seen everything!" Gallup (Doc) Apple grumbled as he stepped through the swinging leaf doors to the Long Tree, to take in the sight.
The 'patient' he had been told about was lying apparently asleep, her nose just short of a shallow empty bowl setting on the floor. The tan colored, red maned owner of the saloon was on the far side of the alicorn working a soapy sponge over the alicorn's right fore-shoulder. With her head turned to where Doc could see her, the mare's face was mostly cleaned, revealing an almost ethereal white fur underneath the dirt that remained.
As he came on in, Doc noticed the damage to the saloon.
"Land sakes!" he exclaimed, looking at the destroyed bar. "Did she do all that?"
"No," Filly responded. "She did this," she said, lifting a hoof to point at the shiner around her eye. "Tumbleweed and I did all that," she finished, gesturing about to the demolished saloon. "Hey, Doc. You remember, you once told us about how in one of your medical journals there is a passage about horses being dangerous at both ends and uncomfortable in the middle?"
"Yeah," he absently muttered, still taken aback by the visage of his 'patient'.
"Well, your medical journal forgot to mention that pegasi and alicorns are just as dangerous on either side!"
"I'll keep that in mind," Doc fervently assured her. "How bad is she?"
"Well, if the desert wasn't still out there, I'd swear she came in here wearing the entire thing!" Filly muttered, getting back to her washing. "Her mind seems gone, but let's just hope that will pass. I've given her some water, not too fast, mind you. Just sips. But she sucked it up faster than that desert does! I can't find any obvious wounds, but with all this dirt, there's just no way to tell."
"I'll give you a hoof," Doc said, picking up a spare sponge and got to work on her other side.
It took almost an hour just to wash down the alicorn's front third before the wings. They skipped the wings because they didn't have the right cleanser for the feathers. And based on Filly's recount of their meeting, and how she was able to get them folded again after getting her to lay all the way down, it didn't seem the wings were giving the alicorn any problems. They then started washing off her flank.
As Doc worked on her left side, he noticed numerous signs of really deep bruising over large areas and in various locations under the coat, so he was trying to give a more thorough cleaning, making his progress slower than Filly's, who was aiming to clean off as much surface area as possible and worry about "immaculate" later.
"Dear Sweet Celestia!" Filly suddenly screamed, getting Doc's instant attention. The saloon's owner was staring in horror at the alicorn's flank.
Puzzled, he stepped around to see for himself, hoping it wasn't a horrendous injury that had caused Filly's reaction. Instead, he was now just as dumbstruck as she was.
"'Sweet Celestia' is right!" he said, finally able to get his voice to working again, as they stared at the exposed sunburst cutie mark on the alicorn's flank.
"Is there a problem?" a deep voiced stallion asked from the doorway. They looked over to see the town's marshal, Mustang Mack, staring, having caught them in the act of washing down the large figure lying on the floor and all the damage to the saloon.
"You'd better come take a look yourself, Mack, and tell us," Doc said to him, still staring at the uncovered cutie mark.
"Hey, Mack," Filly Rustler happily greeted their mutual friend. The large russet colored stallion with a blonde mane wearing his light tan vest with his badge and topped with his ever-present Stetson looked every bit as handsome as ever. "Tumbleweed found her wandering outside a bit ago."
"Yeah, Tumbleweed tracked me down just now," Mustang Mack said as he walked over to where the others were standing. "I got here as soon as I—whoa!" he hoarsely whispered, upon seeing the cutie mark.
"Mack? You don't suppose those old rumors about how Nightmare Moon beat Princess Celestia were true, do you?" Doc asked.
"If they are, that might explain her condition," Filly Rustler softly said. "To be wandering the wilderness all this time—?"
"I—I couldn't tell you," Mustang Mack admitted, uncertainly as he adjusted his hat back as if to give him a clearer view of her. "That one Canterlot Times newspaper took years to get here. It's a four-month trip in winter, after all, just to get to Last Gasp. And that's just one way! Then you have to wait until the next winter in order to get back. Not only that, but you have to account for the routes to the rest of Equestria and the time it takes to get there."
To simply say Dry Gulp was isolated was a tremendous understatement.
At least twenty years previous, an event happened somewhere close to a town called Bug Tussle that tore up the rail lines between all the towns in that part of the Badlands. The Crown, however, never got around to trying to repair the damage. The only way in or out of Dry Gulp was by hoof or by flight.
But since there were no pegasi living in Dry Gulp, that left flight out of the picture. However, going by hoof could only be done during winter, with the hope for some snows to blow enough moisture into a traveler's way to make the crossing onto the next nearest town of Last Gasp which lay beyond Bug Tussle. Sometimes, even that didn't happen, not to mention other dangers that might befall a pony. And crossing during summer, like it was now, was strictly out.
Except, somehow, this alicorn princess just did it.
"Well, there's somepony here that might know," Filly said, almost growling just thinking of her.
Up until seven years ago, Filly recalled, Marshal Mustang Mack had been the tallest pony she knew in Dry Gulp. Then she showed up. But she really didn't count as a pony. Certainly not in Filly's estimation. But this alicorn, she might have a few inches on even her.
And if this was the legendary Princess Celestia…? she wondered. Then who's been raising the sun all this time?
The three of them worked together to clean the evident Princess Celestia of the remaining dirt while the alicorn continued to sleep, sponging off the worst of the dirt over her coat, working at cleaning her mane and tail, and finally her wings.
After her mane and tail were washed, revealing their multi-colored bands with hues like the aurora borealis. And weirdly, once they were roughly dried, they in turn started lifting and waving as though in a steady breeze—from a breeze that didn't exist.
The three of them took turns fetching tubs of clean water, more soap, removing the tubs of dirty water, rolling her first to one side and then to the other so they could clean off her legs and belly. And then they mopped up spilled puddles of muddy water, especially as they began using mugs of plain water to sluice off most of the dust from her feathers in order to not risking damaging them with the harsh soap.
As they worked through the rest of the night, Doc shared his observations of her condition.
The alicorn had some widespread and extensive deep bruising all over her left side some time ago. While most bruises only lasted a couple of weeks, if the trauma was severe enough, the signs might be evident for months or even be permanent. However, bruising such as that was usually accompanied with other injuries, like broken bones, and severe damage to muscles and internal organs.
But Doc could find no other signs of such severe injuries.
Of course, he reminded them, as he often did whenever the opportunity arose for him to talk about it, that his medical knowledge was mostly self-taught: about how his predecessor took him, literally under his wing, when Doc's cutie mark made itself known, to begin teaching him his medical knowledge. However, the old doctor died of old age while Doc Apple was still just a colt, and the earth pony had to study what medical journals and books left behind on his own. That, and what Doc learned by practicing medicine for nearly fifty years by treating what patients came his way.
Filly Rustle and Mustang Mack had heard the same story from Doc for nearly as long—at least thirty-five or forty of those years. Of course, they had their own stories they often shared—repeatedly—with each other and other friends and acquaintances they had in the town. There was little to do in a place as isolated as Dry Gulp.
Other than the old deep bruising, she seemed fine. At least physically.
When Filly told them how she acted and spoke when Tumbleweed and Filly found her, Doc agreed with Filly's concern that the sun and desert may have affected the alicorn's mind.
The sun rising caught their attention.
"If this is Princess Celestia, then who's been raising the sun all this time?" Filly suddenly asked, as she looked through the windows at the view of the town in the morning daylight, finally giving thought to the puzzle she had been wrangling with all night.
"Could it be Nightmare Moon?" Doc asked.
"But she was quoted in that paper that the night 'would last forever'," Mack reminded them.
"Even Nightmare Moon must've realized that keeping the sundown like that would eventually doom the planet," Filly argued.
"That's true," Mack said. "There had been that day of the Summer Sun, where it didn't rise for nearly an entire three days a decade ago. But then it did rise up as normal after that for a time. At least until that period of the crazy stuff going a year later and then again, a few years ago. That very first time corresponds with the date on the paper. But the few papers that showed up since then must have been rather slow news days. They never mentioned those other events."
"Neither did they ever mentioned Nightmare Moon again," Doc muttered. "But I do recall they spoke of a 'Princess Luna'."
Their conversation was ended when they suddenly heard a grunt behind them. They all turned to look and saw the alicorn mare quickly jump up to her hooves and begin fidgeting and looking about wildly.
"Easy, Princess!" Filly exclaimed while trying to keep a calm voice throughout her own panic as she rushed up to her.
Except the alicorn didn't seem to hear her. Instead, after several more panicked turns, she spotted the open double doors and suddenly rushed out through them.
"Oh, roadapples!" Doc exclaimed, as he and the other two ran after her.
Fortunately, they didn't need to go very far. The alicorn had halted her own run just a few paces beyond the boardwalk, still looking about and spinning around wildly on her hooves.
"What's she—?" Mack began to ask when the figure suddenly stopped and then squatted, lifting her tail.
All three of them winced in horror and dread.
"Well—that's not the worst thing that's been dumped on the street in front of the saloon," Filly grumbled as the alicorn emptied her bladder.
What was impressive was the fact she poured out nearly as much water as Filly had given her last night. About a quarter barrel's worth.
When she had finished, the alicorn stood up shakily. But when it looked like she might fall down into the patch of mud she had just created, the three of them quickly rushed forward to help guide her away.
"Here, Princess," Mack said, guiding her back to the saloon. "You'll be better off back over here."
"Yes, dearie," Filly told her. "You've been through a lot. But you're safe now. Let us help you. You need to get more water in you, and we'll get you some food once the Dried Date opens up."
"Are you hurt anywhere?" Doc asked her. "Can you tell us what happened?"
The alicorn didn't reply to either pony. But she did seem to actually see them as she turned her head and blinked at each when they spoke to her. To Filly's relieve, her eyes didn't seem nearly as glazed as they were last night. But the otherwise lack of response worried her greatly.
They guided her to a clean area of the floor, in front of an undamaged section of the bar. Doc stayed with her while Filly went into the back room to pump up some more water and Mack grabbed the mop and bucket to start swabbing up the dirty area on the floor where she had been laying.
"You know, it's a lucky thing that Tumbleweed and Miss Filly found you last night," Doc said, getting her focus by speaking to her. "She told us how it looked like you was about to walk right back out into the desert, as if you didn't even see the town."
She just stared at him and blinked.
"How long had you been out there wandering?" Doc asked her, hoping to get her to talking so he could assess how badly her mind was affected by being out there in the wilderness.
She just continued to stare at him, blinking occasionally.
"Can you tell me if you're hurt anywhere?" he tried again.
There was no response other than her steady look at him.
This is almost as bad as trying to talk with Chestnut Hooves, Doc thought of Mack's two deputies. And Celestia help me if she turns out to be more like Cletus, he morosely thought as he rubbed his scraggly grey mane—but then he suddenly jerked at the rather sacrilegious idea. Whoa, there, Doc—this IS Celestia!
Filly came out with a full barrel of water at that moment and set it behind the bar. Dipping a mug into it, she hoofed it over to the alicorn.
"Here you go, Princess," she told the alicorn, immediately getting her attention. "Drink it slowly, now."
The alicorn instantly snatched the mug with her hooves and began gulping the mug, taking deep mouthfuls between swallows, closing her eyes in ecstasy as she drank.
"Not like that!" both Filly and Doc exclaimed, trying to grab the mug from her. But her height held the mug out of their reach.
She quickly finished the mug before setting it down to gasp for breath.
"Okay. Don't fill it up so much, next time," Doc told Filly.
"Quarter mug it is, from now on," Filly agreed, taking the mug back to dip it into the barrel again.
While they continued to fill the tall mare up with water at a much slower rate, Mack finished mopping up the last of the dirt on the floor and took the cleaning supplies into the back room to wash them out and set them to dry.
Celestia seemed to finally get her fill of water by the time he came back to the bar room.
"Hey, Miss Filly!" Tumbleweed called as he stood at the doorway, looking into the saloon.
"Hey, Tumbleweed!" she happily greeted.
"You open already?" Tumbleweed eagerly asked.
"Afraid not," Filly responded. "In fact, the Long Tree's not going to be opened today at all, with all the damage and with us needing to deal with the emergency."
"Oh," Tumbleweed sadly replied, his enthusiasm instantly deflating.
"Wait, Tumble," she called out to him. "Get in here. You can help with the repairs as well as the Princess. And while you're working for me, the salt's on the House."
Doc would've sworn the stallion suffered whiplash just then as his head snapped around, with his ears straight up and his eyes bright.
Throughout the entire exchange, the alicorn was quickly turning her head back and forth, trying to follow the conversation.
"Has she recovered, yet?" Tumbleweed inquired, looking at the now pristine alicorn, with her gleaming white coat, her almost gleaming feathers, and her multicolored mane that was waiving in a non-existent breeze.
"We don't know," Doc replied. "We only just finished cleaning her up when dawn broke, and she just woke up a bit ago. She hasn't spoken anything yet. That's a worrying sign."
"How are you, Tumbleweed?" Filly asked.
"A few stitches," he mumbled, taking a glance down at the bandages on his legs and body. "Not too bad. Doc got all the glass out of the cuts. Thanks, Doc."
"Sure thing," Doc replied. "That was quite a whack she gave you two," he said, glancing at the damaged part of the bar and the broken tables and chairs. "I'm surprised you both didn't get hurt worse."
"I think our pride got the worst of it," Filly chuckled. "I don't think she knows her wings can hit that hard, even if she had been aware of it. I wouldn't want to see what she could do in here during one of our weekly brawls. Think you can take her, Mack?" she teased the marshal.
Mack snorted, shaking his head.
"From what you told me, I wouldn't be surprised if she'd be able to buck me from here to the Dried Date," he chuckled.
"Or through the Dried Date," Filly agreed, laughing as she rubbed at her bruised eye with a hoof.
"So, who is she?" Tumbleweed asked. The three ponies all glanced at each other before Filly answered.
"We think she's Princess Celestia."
Tumbleweed's eyes shrunk to pinpricks.
"Th-the P-Pr-Princess!?" he stammered. "H-here!? In-in th-the Long Tree!?"
"The hotel should be opening soon," Mack told them. "I'll go on over and get something for her."
"Tr-tr-tree…" the alicorn suddenly croaked out.
"What was that, Princess?" Filly asked.
"Tr-trees," she repeated, but it was a few moments before she continued. "I almost—I almost forgot what trees look like. They're … tall, right? And thin? And brown? With large—bunches—of green—somethings—on top?"
"Leaves?" Doc gently prompted her, hoping to get her to open up more.
"Yes. Green—leaves—on top," she confirmed.
"Where did you see the trees?" Doc asked. "How long ago?"
"A long time ago," she replied after taking several moments to think about it. "The trees were on—mountains, I think they're called. Yes, mountains. I was walking—then the mountains were gone, but the trees were still there. But then the trees were gone, and—then—something else," she trailed off, staring blankly as if lost in her memories.
"What was the something?" Filly asked her.
"Not trees," the alicorn said. "Not tall. Short. Green and short," she said, holding a hoof up at chest height. "Just so."
"Grass?" Tumbleweed inquired.
"Grass," she repeated, nodding. "Yes. Grass."
"So large fields of grass after the trees?" Doc asked, to which she nodded. "And before that, trees and mountains?" Again, she nodded. "Do you remember anything before the trees and mountains?" She tilted her head and stared blankly for several minutes.
It went on, and the other ponies began getting nervous, and began to share glances at each other, as if wondering if they had finally broken the alicorn.
"Falling," she finally replied in the same disinterested sounding voice as before.
"Falling!?" Doc exclaimed. "Do you remember hitting the ground!?" She nodded.
"I—I landed—on my side," she said, turning her head to look at her left side.
"That could explain the bruising!" he muttered, rubbing his scraggly mane. "Do you remember anything before falling?"
"No," she said, shaking her head. "Just—just falling. Then the ground."
"Were you hurt?" Doc asked, anxiously.
"No," she muttered disinterestedly. "No. Not so much. I felt—I felt—stiff. And then I was walking."
"So, after you fell, there were trees and mountains," Mack said, "then just the trees, then the grass plains. Then what?"
"The grass went away," she slowly answered. "Then the land—looked—broken? Then more mountains. Just broken mountains. Then dirt and sand. A few more mountains. Then just—dirt. Dirt. So much dirt. It covered everything. The ground. The air. My—white wings," she trailed off as she looked around to her right, partially extending her member.
"Oh! They are white!" she exclaimed. "I forgot what they looked like." She continued to stare at her feathers, as if trying to study them.
Her self-scrutiny went on, beginning to worry the other ponies.
"Princess?" Filly asked, tentatively reaching a hoof out to get her attention.
"Dirt. Dirt everywhere," Celestia said, resuming her monotone report as if there were no pause. "Until here."
"Sounds like she walked the entire Bad Lands on foot!" Mack exclaimed. "No telling how long she's been out there!"
"With no food? No water?"
"No food. No water," she replied.
"What about all the critters out there to attack a pony?" Tumbleweed asked.
"Somethings bit me. I kicked them," she dispassionately muttered, flicking a hoof that loudly tore a hole in the bar where she sat, making the other ponies dive for cover. "Or I stomped them. They don't bite me again. They don't move either," she finished, not paying attention to how everypony was dodging the debris from her hoof stomp.
"Easy! Whoa there!" Mack called out, hoping he could get her to listen to him. It was clear there was no way he could wrestle her down if it came to it. "Try not to take down the whole building, Princess!" She stopped and looked at him quizzically.
"Well, there goes another hundred bits," Filly ruefully grunted after coming out from behind the bar to see the additional damage.
"I—I'll—I'll go on over to the Dried Date and get her some breakfast," Mack shakily said. "Think you can keep from asking her any questions that will demolish the place while I'm gone?"
"We'll do our best, Mack. Just hurry back! Before she realizes she's hungry!" Doc grumbled as he got up from where he had taken cover.
After Mack left, Filly stepped over to the double doors to close the outer set and set the sign on the outer doors to read "Closed". However, she left them unlocked for Mack's return.
"Let's get started cleaning up, Tumbleweed," she told him as she fished out a ready panel that read "Closed for Repairs" before setting it in one of the doors' windows, too, leaving Doc to look after the Princess. With all the fights that went on all too frequently in the saloons, they each had such signs ready to prop up in their windows—assuming they still had windows.
While she was doing that, Tumbleweed went into the back rooms and found where Filly kept her heavy brooms and dustpans, a few hammers, a couple of wood chisels, a saw, a crowbar, and a wheel barrel. Loading up the wheel barrel with the tools, he rolled it out to the main floor. By then, Filly joined him in working to clean up.
"There's a couple of empty trash barrels in the ally by the back door," she told him as she took up one of her brooms and dustpans. While Tumbleweed went to get them, she started sweeping up the debris of broken bottles, smashed timber, and spilled salt behind the bar. When Tumbleweed returned, he left a barrel for her and took on to the other side of the room where he started picking and sweeping up the broken furniture.
As they worked, Doc went behind the bar to continue giving the Princess more water.
"You've been out there a long time, Princess," he said to her, giving her another quarter mug. "You're going to need more water. Mack's getting you some food. And we'll have you fixed up in no time."
When he saw she was drinking the water at a slower and steadier rate, he opted to give her full mugs from then on.
Mustang Mack walked up the street to the Dried Date Hotel that served as a permanent boarding house ever since the railroads were shut down. It also featured a decent restaurant for the folks living there as well as customers from all over the town.
Dry Gulp was a farming community situated on the northwest side well outside the edge of a large fertile oasis surrounded by an otherwise impassable desert. The old rail line passed by on the north side of town with the old route to the rest of Equestria out to the east, and several played out mines in a mountain range further off to the west and southwest. The entire town's population amounted to about just under a thousand ponies, with maybe eighty of them being actual farm and ranch owners of the land about the oasis itself. About two thirds of the ponies that lived there were hired farm workers and the rest were mostly community support or former railroad workers and miners.
There was a bank, but it was nearly useless since there was no trade in or out of town with which to invest in.
Three hotels, some general stores, a farrier—he shuddered at the thought.
Celestia! I hate getting new shoes every few months! It's just not natural to have nails pounded into a pony's hoof like that!
Several saloons, of which Filly Rustler owned a couple along with her new partner, after her former boss had passed away. And when the old Lady Gay was finished being rebuilt by Filly's partner, that'll put the town at sixteen—for a town of just under a thousand ponies.
The main road, Front Street, ran roughly in a northeast-southwest direction with several side streets and alleys branching off from it. Recalling what Tumbleweed and Filly had mentioned made him pause and look off to the northeast up the main street.
Coming across the desert from that way is perhaps the worst route a pony could take! he realized as he stared in wonder, thinking of the alicorn's endurance. Even in winter, no known pony had ever lived to reach the other side!
He had an estimation of just how far that was, given there were surveys of the continent centuries ago that mapped the extent of the desert's edges. That direction, had she walked all that way, put her as coming from the Demolished Lands, where a natural disaster—perhaps an ancient giant meteorite—had torn up the land for hundreds of square miles.
He stared for a few moments longer before remembering what his mission was, and he resumed his trek to the hotel.
He arrived at the hotel right on time to see the doors for the restaurant opened up for the day.
"Good morning, Marshal!" Whinny Tater greeted him upon seeing him. "You want your usual?"
"Good morning, Whinny," he replied, tilting his hat to the mare who managed the eatery for the Dry Date's owner, Morris Yoke. "Sure, but I can't stay to eat it. I'll need to take it to go," he told her. "Also, I need to get breakfast for a few others over at the Long Tree. We've got some work to clean up over there."
"Really?" Whinny asked, surprised. "I didn't hear about any fights breaking out last night in the Long Tree. Wrong day of the week for them, too."
"Just—an accident—and some minor damage," Mack replied, evasively. "I'll need breakfast for four others—" but then he remembered how big the alicorn was. "Uh—better make it for five," he sheepishly amended.
"Sure thing, Marshal!" she cheerfully replied, going back into the kitchen. He was grateful Whinny wasn't one to nose into the gossip much.
As he waited, he moved over to the window to where he could see the sun starting to peek over the buildings across the street and began to wonder.
So, just who has been raising the sun all this time while she was wandering out there? he pondered, thinking on the question Filly had spoken earlier.
Ponies living there began filtering into the dining area from upstairs, calling out greetings to him, which he returned before resuming his internal questions. The others, seeing something apparently was on his mind, elected to not disturb him. He was more than big enough to be intimidating, even as he was polite and friendly enough that most knew they could speak to him on almost any matter, and he'd happily talk with them. Truly, a gentle giant.
But when something was clearly bothering the marshal, most knew not to stick their noses into his business. And the only ones who'd dare were his closest friends.
Whinny called for him and he broke out of his trance to pick up the picnic basket she had thoughtfully packed for him.
"Thank you, Whinny," he said, paying for the meals before taking it out.
He was soon back to the Long Tree in time to see Filly guiding the alicorn out of the restroom. He was thankful she hadn't gone outside to do her business again. Aside from the unsightly act of going out in public like that, there was the matter they had all agreed to try keeping the matter of Celestia being there as quiet as possible. Mack was NOT looking forward to the mob of curious ponies that was sure to form once they all found out about her.
The alicorn's eyes suddenly lit up when the aroma of the breakfasts hit her nose.
"I got us six meals, just in case she'd want two," Mack told them as he began setting them out on one of the undamaged tables.
"Well, I'll defer mine," Doc said, looking at Celestia's reaction at seeing the plates of food appear. "She might want a bit more than that."
"Me, too," Filly spoke up. She was clearly feeling charitable toward the poor creature.
"Uh—I—I—guess I can always get something later, too," Mack muttered as his left eye began twitching, not wanting to be outdone by his friends. But Whinny always made such great breakfasts, and it was a shame to not be able to savor them. He wondered how he'd be able to wrangle a replacement from her without it sounding like he didn't like what she had prepared for him the first time.
"Thanks, Marshal!" Tumbleweed happily exclaimed, snatching his from the large stallion, jumping into a chair, and started digging in. The other three townsponies just stared at him, and then looked to each other before unsuccessfully trying to suppress their giggles.
"Yes! Thank you!" the tall alicorn said as she also sat at the table.
Yes, indeed she was very hungry.
She didn't even bother with her magic or hooves to begin eating as she attacked the stacks of pancakes, the hash browns, the fried eggs, the hay fries, and buttered mashed potatoes, devouring them like a super predator gorging itself on an entire herd of prey all at once.
And as fast as Tumbleweed was going through his plates, even he had to slow his pace, giving her nervous looks when he finally noticed she was going through her fourth serving without slowing down a smidgen. When she cleaned off the last of the fifth sets and wistfully began looking at his remaining food, he wasn't even halfway done with his. He finally wilted and pushed his plates over to her, much to the amusement of the others.
"Oh! That was delicious!" she gratefully sighed when she finished the remains of Tumbleweed's as well.
Then she startled them all with a loud belch.
"Thank you!" she said, before suddenly sinking to the floor.
"Are you okay, Princess?" Filly exclaimed, rushing forward with Doc at her side.
"Yes," the alicorn replied yawning. She looked up toward the light coming in from outside. "I—I feel—like I should be up for the day—for some reason," she said before letting her head settle back to the floor. "But this feels so good!" Then she was snoring.
"We'd better get her into a room upstairs," Filly quickly said. Doc and Mack nodded. With both of them getting to work to get her lifted up and with Tumbleweed and Filly's help, they got her on their backs. With Filly leading the way, they carried her up the stairs, leaving Tumbleweed to clear the table and set the empty dishes back into the picnic basket.
After putting the alicorn to bed, Filly used a key she kept in her mane to lock the door and set a door sign to "Do Not Disturb" before the three of them went back downstairs.
The owner of the Lady Gay Saloon strode confidently down the main street of Dry Gulp, satisfied with the progress she had made since arriving in such a destitute state seven years ago. The renovation of the establishment was going well and with it completed, she would soon have enough to keep herself and her children fed—well, her remaining children.
Of course, not a day went by that she didn't remember how much she lost. Only a hoof-full of her children had lived through that disaster. And it was only through the compassion and generosity of the town that she and the other survivors lived.
Dry Gulp, it seemed, was truly a land of Second Chances. And to think, she had once tried to wipe it off the face of the planet just twenty years earlier. It was a very sobering irony, indeed.
Despite the hardships that ponies here faced every day, life went on. Life, dreams, and perseverance. And above all, hope. That was the other, harsher, irony. This place had everything her kin needed to survive—just not enough of it, had she come here with all of her children before the disaster which ended up bringing her here—but for her remaining children, it was enough.
Not enjoying the morose thoughts, she continued on her route to the Long Tree, to meet with her partner. True, it was too early in the day for Filly Rustler to be up and about, given the hours the Long Tree kept. But she was patient. While her partner would continue to sleep, she planned to prepare the storeroom's stock for the saloon's noontime opening. Then they would have words.
So, coming up on the closed doors of the saloon was no surprise. The sign in the shuttered window indicating it was closed for repairs, however, was startling.
Her children working here last night reported the last pony in the Long Tree when they left had been one of the town drunks, a former train engineer named Tumbleweed—and no bar fights had broken out.
So why the "repairs"?
Stepping up to the doors, she tried her key, but the doors were already unlocked. So, she opened them and stepped through the swinging inner panel doors. And stopped, flabbergasted.
Inside, Filly, the town doctor, the marshal, and the drunk from last night were busy cleaning up the floor space and cutting off sections of the bar that had obviously taken a major hit—a hit that had evidently done considerable damage to the shelves which were in line with whatever destructive force that had demolished the bar.
"Filly?" she politely inquired. Questions. SO many questions clearly voiced in that one word she spoke.
"Morning," Filly Rustler flatly greeted in return, setting her broom to lean on the bar before walking toward her.
Oh, buck! It's her! Filly instantly thought, seeing the figure standing in the threshold. She was dreading this meeting with her partner, especially with an unconscious Celestia sleeping upstairs in a locked room.
"Can we talk?" she coolly asked. More like demanded.
"Of-of course," Filly nervously responded. "I'll be right back, guys," she said to the other three.
They slowly ambled down the street. Filly was alone with her thoughts and concerns. Her partner—who knew what sort of schemes she was planning?
"I know we don't often see eye-to-eye, Filly Rustler," her partner finally stated after having walked a couple buildings down. "Please understand. I have no desire to cause you or the Marshal any problems. Just be aware, you and the Marshal are quite—shall I say?—quite popular with our customers. Even more than a certain purple unicorn or a certain pink alicorn, for which I always give discounts for so that I can always enjoy seeing them getting some good poundings—if only all that were real," she wistfully sighed.
Filly wasn't sure how to respond.
What she said just now was another of those random dribbles of information about her past. Individually, they were meaningless to anypony hearing them. And even together, with what had been revealed over time, they painted a picture that was frustratingly too incomplete to even make a guess about.
So, Filly did the wisest thing she could and didn't respond. Instead, she waited for her partner to reveal more of what this was about.
"But you and the Marshal," she began again, "you two have something special between you. I assure you that neither I nor my children will ever use that against you."
Filly was now completely confused. Yes, the matter they were discussing was a sore spot that she had against her partner. But it now seemed she was willing to talk about it. And do so on Filly's terms, which only puzzled her further.
"What are you saying?" Filly had to inquire.
Her partner suddenly stopped and turned her head, looking between the buildings to stare at the hill to their northwest, and suddenly Filly had an inkling what the matter was. She was staring up at Hoof Hill Cemetery, where most of her kin had been buried after their spectacular and sudden arrival on that day seven years ago.
"They're all dead—because—because I killed them," she whispered.
"You killed them!?" Filly exclaimed, horrified. She was suddenly worried if she needed to run back and get Mack to help with this. "YOU!?"
"No. Not like that," she sadly replied. "But it might as well have been by my hoof."
"I was desperate," she said after a while, resuming her tale and their walk. "As a result, I was unwise in how I deployed them. My plan almost worked, but in the end, it cost us. It cost us all. And so, here we are."
"What happened?" Filly asked.
"You know those two I always give a discount for?" she responded with a smirk. Filly, honestly, didn't really want to know the story about them, given what she had seen of her partner's attitude about them.
"Let's just say I underestimated them and paid a heavy price for it," she stated, clearly finished with that tale.
"But, back to you and the Marshal," she continued. "With the obvious relationship you have with each other, it makes you rather popular. It's something other ponies really want to have a bit of. Believe me, it's just business," she explained.
"I guess I can't fault that," Filly said, sighing. "I used to engage in a lot of that, myself years ago. I just didn't want to do it anymore after taking ownership of the Long Tree."
"Understandable," she responded with a nod. "So—about the repairs, back there?" she asked.
"Just an accident," Filly replied.
"Really?" she asked, looking at her with arched eyebrows.
"Yeah," Filly nervously said.
"I'll send a team over to help with the repairs," she stated in a tone that brokered no resistance. Still, Filly did her best to decline.
"That's really not necessary—" Filly started, but quickly stopped at the sharp glare she received instead.
"I'm sending a team over! They're experts at doing those sorts of repairs!" she snapped, putting an end to the conversation and she spun about to quickly march back up the road.
Sure enough, within an hour, several of her children arrived, armed with a load of carpentry tools and segments of precut two-by-fours. Mack, Doc, Tumbleweed and Filly had just finished trimming off the jagged edges splitting the bar when the team of seven showed up.
Wordlessly, they got busy, essentially pushing the others out of their way, as they began taking measurements and selecting locations for mounting the short two-by-four segments to function as a brace for whatever they were going to fill in the chasm with. They also addressed the hole in the floor from where the alicorn had stomped her fore hoof by cutting out the jagged edges in the floorboards and prepping it for repairs as well as the additional whole that had been kicked into the bar.
After getting their measurements, five of them departed and the others began drilling and setting the lumber pieces in with long wood screws. Then they began giving the entire bar a light sanding over every surface. Once that was completed, the two cleaned up the mess they made as well as the remaining debris left over from where Filly and her friends had worked.
"We'll be back shortly," one of them told Filly as they departed.
"Well, not much left for us to do here," Mack said, sighing. "I'll go wake Cletus for his shift."
"Thanks a bundle, Mack," Filly said, giving him a quick kiss on the cheek before the marshal left.
"I'll check on our guest, if you don't mind," Doc said. "Then I'll head on back to my office."
"Sure thing, Doc," she said, passing him the key to the room. She also helped him to balance a mug of water for him to take up there to her.
"Well, just you and me, Tumble," Filly said with a sigh. "I'll get you your drink and some salt to go with it." Then she paused as she noticed his vacant stare and half grin on his face. "Anything wrong, Tumble?" she asked.
"What? Oh, nothing, Miss Filly," Tumbleweed said, snapping out of his daze. "It—it just felt good—working like that again. Having a job, I mean," he explained, fully grinning this time.
"It does, indeed," she said, returning the smile.
As Tumbleweed enjoyed his repast, Doc came back down with some disturbing news.
"She took the water just fine," he told her. "But when I asked her about contacting Canterlot to let somepony know she was here, she just looked at me. Blankly."
"Her memories?" Filly asked, quickly catching on to what he was telling her.
"Apparently, they're gone," Doc replied. "All she remembers is that fall, the impact, and then walking. She's got amnesia. She doesn't know what Canterlot is. Or even Equestria, for that matter. She doesn't even remember her name."
The crew her partner had sent over returned with a couple large precut panels of plywood, some shelving, and some hardwood lengths of lumber, also precut for the length of the affected section of the bar, as well as a couple paint cans. Once they settled in, they got busy. As a couple of them aligned the panels in place, one large section for the front façade, another section for the top of the bar, they quickly drilled pilot holes and began screwing in the sections to match the rest of the bar. After that, they got busy sanding down the surface to shave off a thin layer that stuck out just beyond the joined panels to either side.
The other five were busy working with chisels on the hardwood segments. In less than a minute, Filly could tell they were aiming to duplicate the molding at the base and on the upper level of the bar. It was almost hypnotic to watch them work. And in an hour, they were done with assembling the filler for the chasm and other than the mismatch color of the sections it looked like a perfect match.
That was where the paint cans came in. One was a wood stain, the other a can of varnish.
The one team got busy staining the new lumber, and to Filly's surprise, they were very rough with their work, hitting the stained sections with a light sanding before it was dried, painting over it again without wiping it down first, and even a few times, she watched as one of them took some of the ever-present dirt from the floor and mixed it into the work.
While the one group was applying the stain job, two of them worked on the hole in the floor and the smaller one in the bar while the rest did cleanup. In about half-an-hour, the second hole in the bar as well as the floor were also completed and stained to look just like the rest of the saloon. Again, Filly simply couldn't find the spot again, even as she knew where it was supposed to be. They had even duplicated the crack and the flaws from previous imperfect repairs that had been there from before last night.
But she was totally astonished that by the time they were done with the staining, she couldn't tell where the new section was at all. They repeated that process once more, this time attacking the entire bar, not just the newly rebuilt sections.
By then, the stain had dried, and the team began going over the entire bar with a coat of varnish. When they were done, it looked almost as pristine as it had when Filly Rustler first arrive in Dry Gulp over twenty-five years ago. Of course, the bar had been in use for several years before that, but it was looked just as fresh now as it did back then.
"That is simply incredible!" she exclaimed. "It's perfect!"
"Unfortunately, no, it isn't," one of them said as the others were leaving. "There is no way to duplicate the worn pattern of the varnish, so we had to make do with removing the old varnish and drink stains and giving it a fresh coat. Mother would certainly not approve. But at least we were able to match up the age of the wood stain."
"Well, I don't care what your mother may say about it," Filly growled. "I still say you've done a wonderful job! However were you able to get everything to match up so perfectly?"
"Lots of practice," the last one to leave said, giving Filly an unnerving grin. "Unfortunately, you will need to remain closed for another day for the lacquer to fully dry." Then it left.
After all this time, it was that—missing piece—that kept bringing her back to thinking about the accident and the ramifications it caused—all that terrible loss. And that always sent her spiraling down in her emotions.
But Luna's words had made an impact on her. She needed to stop dwelling on the past and the things lost to it.
It was finally at that moment, Twilight realized: it was her grief that was preventing her from solving the puzzle that remained from that accident. So, she resolved to focus on the puzzle of the accident and stop thinking of the accident itself.
However, she had no idea of just what was puzzling her. So, the only option for her was to go through the details, one by one, until she ultimately located the discrepancy. She started by returning to the final inquiry report.
"Item one: The team, the chariot, the cargo, the passengers—Item two: the flight path—Item three: the location of the incident—," she muttered, laying out the beginning of her list.
********************
"Good afternoon, Princess," Filly greeted her guest as she opened the door when she brought the tray with her lunch.
"Why is the door locked?" Celestia demanded. The princess was awake and alert, her head held high as she laid on the bed that was barely large enough for her. She didn't sound happy. And the set of her ears also conveyed that displeasure.
"For your privacy," Filly stated matter-of-factly while she set the table for the princess. "I'll leave the spare key with you. We shouldn't have to worry about anypony disturbing you today, since the Long Tree will be closed for another day. But tomorrow evening, you'll want to have your door locked."
"Why?" the princess demanded. She still didn't sound happy.
"So that none of my customers will assume that you're one of my employees," Filly replied. Celestia merely tilted her head in puzzlement.
"You might as well know, Princess Celestia," Filly said with a sigh. "You may or may not approve, but this here's a saloon. Downstairs, it's a bar. Upstairs, it's a brothel. And the mares and a couple of stallions who work here are my employees. The rest are customers. There's an old saying in this business: 'any moist plot in a dust storm is a good port'."
"Hmf!" Celestia snorted. "I know dust storms."
"Well, as most of my customers will be coming up the stairs so drunk they can't see straight, I seriously doubt they'd see you as the Princess. Hay! They'll be lucky to even see you're a mare. But they'll be able to smell you. I just don't want you bothered with that sort of nuisance."
"I—I see," Celestia replied, after taking several moments to consider what she was told. She got up off the bed and stepped over to the table.
"I made sure to give you plenty of water, Princess," Filly said, getting out of her way. "The bathroom's just down the hall opposite the stairs.
"Why?" Celestia spoke up before Filly could close the door.
"Why what?" Filly asked, pausing.
"Why do you and the others call me 'Princess'?" she asked.
"Doc said you seemed to have amnesia," Filly replied. "You really don't remember?"
"He called me 'Princess Celestia'. You do, too. You all did. I don't know who that is," Celestia stated.
"Does it scare you to not remember?" Filly asked.
"No," the alicorn replied after thinking about it. "Should it?"
Filly gently smiled and sat down on her haunches.
"'Once upon a time, in the magical land of Equestria, there were two regal sisters who ruled together and created harmony for all the land….'," she began, reciting the story from memory.
"Any luck with her?" Doc asked without preamble when he stopped by that evening. Filly and Mack were just putting the finishing touches to repairing a few tables that were damaged but salvageable.
"A little," Filly replied. "It seems her mind's coming around okay, but she still has no memory of being the Princess. I told her some of old stories we all learned as foals about her and Nightmare Moon, but she just has no recollection."
"Well, the desert has a brutal way of getting to anypony," Doc muttered. "You would almost think being the immortal Goddess of the Sun would give her some immunity to—that—out there," he finished with a wave toward the doors with a foreleg and a look of disgust. "But I suppose even alicorn princesses are still flesh and blood."
"Who's to say it didn't?" Filly asked.
"Come again?" Doc asked.
"Who's to say being the immortal Goddess of the Sun didn't give her some immunity? Or at least, resistance? She did just walk across all of it, didn't she? No other pony ever could."
"Yeah, you got a point, there," Doc admitted, rubbing the back of his neck.
"Seems to me that somepony's going to have to make the trip come winter," Mack muttered.
"Does it have to be you, Mack?" Filly asked; the worry was clear in her voice.
"Well, I've done it more than a few times," Mack replied. "I'm not fond of the idea of ordering anypony out there. It just wouldn't set right with me to send Chestnut. And Cletus—"
"And Cletus, the durned fool, would as liable go off in the wrong direction and miss Bug Tussle completely," Doc loudly spoke up, interrupting Mustang Mack.
"I wasn't going to go there," Mack grumbled.
"I know!" Doc snapped. "You're too nice to say what's needs to be said. So I said it for you."
"What'z this Ah hear?" another voice suddenly yelled from the doors. Mack, his back to the door suddenly grimaced, while Doc snickered, knowing that Cletus had been approaching from up the street before he came in. He had timed it just about right. And Filly was giving Doc a look that said she knew what he'd done, and he tried to suppress bursting out laughing. It was making Doc's day.
"Ah'll have you know I'm an excellent navogator an' Ah know that desert like th' back'o mah hoof!" the earth pony deputy yelled as he stomped into the saloon to confront his long-time nemesis.
Oh, yeah! Now this is a good way to start the day! Doc happily thought as he readied a few more buttons to push on the deputy. Mack and Filly both sighed, each knowing that Doc and Cletus would be trading insults with each other and arguing for hours. Despite Cletus' hick background and speech, his mind was surprisingly sharp, and he could give as well as he could take. It was no guarantee that Doc was going to win this match, but he was certainly off to a good start. It was quite like watching two chess masters going at it, only their pieces and moves where entirely verbal jousts.
With the saloon closed for the rest of the day, Filly Rustler took the time to shop for replacement tables, chairs, bottles, and supplies that had been demolished with the damage to the bar. Mack departed to get some sleep for his regular patrol later that evening. When she returned, Doc and Cletus were still going at it, both of them using wildly animated gestures to help throw insults back and forth at each other. And Cletus was at the moment, getting the upper hoof on Doc. But Doc didn't look irritated as he normally did when he was losing points. In fact, he was still smiling.
And it was only then, did Filly figure out what Doc was actually doing. He was keeping Cletus occupied so that he wouldn't notice the bar wasn't opening on time. It was already well on its way toward three in the afternoon and Cletus was entirely focused on Doc. She couldn't help but smile and her suspicions seemed to be confirmed when she saw Doc wink at her. Of course, Cletus noticed it.
"Now whyz you go an' wink, fer, ya old coot?" he demanded. "Ya fixin' on signaling somepony 'bout sumin'?"
"I wasn't winking, you dang blasted fool!" Doc growled, but still smiling. "It's a medical condition. Your nasally voice is making my eye twitch!"
"You wuz winkin' at somepony!"
"You see anypony around here, you idjit?" Doc yelled. "Well? Look around! Do you?"
Filly was shocked. THAT wasn't the sort of thing to say to Cletus to keep him from figuring out they were still closed.
"Now donja be changin' the subject, none!" Cletus yelled at him after taking a glance about. "What're yer smilin' 'bout? Ya been smilin' ever since I came in here, so Ah's know yer up ta sumin'!"
And Filly saw that Doc wasn't just smiling. He was grinning. And fighting hard to keep from bursting out laughing.
This whole exercise was to keep Cletus focused on Doc. And he was so thoroughly focused that when Doc actually revealed the thing he was hiding, Cletus never noticed! Filly could only smile and resume her work as though nothing was going on. She wasn't about to do anything to interfere with the game. She knew better.
That evening, the both of them were still arguing and Filly went to the Dried Date to get some supper for Doc, Cletus, Celestia, and herself. And after supper, Cletus finally excused himself as he recalled he was supposed to be doing his rounds. Doc chuckled as he gave Filly a wink as he, too, left. It was well past six when Filly was finally able to lock up.
Taking Celestia's dinner upstairs, she checked in on how the princess was doing.
"You certainly seem stronger, your highness," Filly observed as Celestia finished her meal and more water. Gone was the shakiness that accompanied her efforts to stand earlier. "The rest and food certainly has helped in your recovery."
"I still don't feel like I'm who you think I am," Celestia demurred.
"Maybe," Filly temporalized. "It could be that you just don't remember. Of course, some of it could be the magic that's in Dry Gulch."
"What magic is that?" Celestia asked.
"Second chances," Filly replied. "Everypony that ends up here always seems to get a second chance at their destiny."
"Really?"
"You'd be amazed by all those who came here, by what they did before and what they're doing now," Filly told her. "Seeing how it's affected me and everypony else in this town, I truly believe in that sort of magic. Good night, Princess. Pleasant dreams," she said as she left and closed the door.
The reopening went on with the usual fanfare: grumbling customers coming in for their usual drinks, complaining about how they couldn't get anything the day before and how they were disappointed by the service at the other bars, and making it sound like it was Filly's fault. For most ponies, such complaints would normally make Filly feel bad. But years and years of fielding the excess customers from other bars that also gone through their normal disruptions, and then comparing notes with the other bar owners, she knew the complaints were just a kind of lip service. She had never treated those coming to her badly when their usual establishments were shuttered, and those other barkeeps swore they had treated her customers well whenever they visited them. So they all knew it was a lie that the customers liked to spread about the other establishments. It was something of a game to make their regular barkeeps feel a bit guilty over the closures and keep the regular customers in the good graces of their preferred bars.
Seeing the slightly larger than normal crowd filling the bar (with today being George Hoofer's normal day for repairs, some of his regulars were here along with hers) and the ponies going upstairs for the other half of the Long Tree's business made Filly wonder, when the Lady Gay opens, who here will be making that their regular hangout? That thought made her rather ambivalent about the impending "competition" from her partner.
Speaking of which, she grumbly thought as the tall changeling strode in to check up on her staff, most of whom were changelings.
Most likely those who live closet there, she concluded as she refilled a customer's request for Pecos Whisky. Probably not Wiley here, she thought, regarding the lone, scrawny-to-the-point-of-looking-starved (which he probably was) diamond dog who was trying to drown his sorrows. He spends all his time out in the desert chasing that damned bird.
"Hey, Miss Filly!" Cletus' call sounded as he came in about seven o'clock. She waved at him as usual and turned to address another pony's glass, but she noticed Cletus was giving her an odd look and came toward the bar like he was stalking something.
"What's up, Cletus?" she asked, when he continued to stare at her for a few minutes.
"Whenja get that shiner?" he demanded.
"This? Oh, just the accident the other night," she nervously replied.
"Yeah, I got so busy jawin' with Doc ta notice ya wuz closed yesterday," he grumbled.
Yep, she thought morosely. Leave it to Cletus to finally start putting the pieces together. Quite a few ponies and other scofflaws found out the hard way that Cletus might seem rather simple minded. But that stallion's got a mind like a steel bear trap. You definitely don't want to have a piece of your hoof in there when it snaps. You ain't gettin' it back! she then nervously considered.
"An' th' night befer last ain't yer usual day fer such shenanigans. Ya usually don't get hurt, either. Does Mac know 'bout whut did it?" Cletus demanded.
"Uh, yeah," she said, nodding. "He's dealt with the matter."
"Ain't nopony in jail coolin' their hooves fer buckin' ya one," Cletus said, warningly.
Uh, oh! Filly gulped. I think I'm about to lose my hoof!
"Really, Cletus. It was just an accident," Filly protested, trying to quickly salvage her situation. If he dug too much, he'd very quickly uncover Celestia was staying upstairs. "Nopony got into any fights. I had a slip and it knocked down most of the stock behind the bar."
Cletus glared at her, shifting his head to look at her face from a different angle.
"Yeah. It don look like a hoof did that," he finally acknowledged, giving Filly some relief for his scrutiny. "But that shiner do look odd. An' ya ain't got no cuts from broken glass. 'Cause it's Tumbleweed here that's got all the bandages," he said, making her blood suddenly run cold again. And not just Filly's. Cletus was no fool, as he had cleverly come up to the bar, so he had been standing next to Tumbleweed the entire time. The former engineer's eyes had suddenly shrunk to pin pricks and Filly could feel her own eyes straining as well.
"And I said, NO!" a raised voice from upstairs suddenly yelled, followed by a large crash that resulted in two earth pony stallions flying from the upstairs hallway to thud into the wall at the top of the open landing. The two, now insentient, stallions came rolling down the stairs, and all conversations throughout the bar came to a halt. Filly and Cletus rushed over to check on the ponies. They were still alive, and nothing looked broken, but they were definitely going to have a headache in the morning.
"What is going on up there?" Chrysalis demanded, as she weaved through the crowd to approach only to stop in shock at what she saw walking out of the entrance to the upstairs hallway. Filly looked up and her heart nearly stopped as she beheld Celestia standing there with one of her wings flared out.
"WHO AUTHORIZED YOU TO TAKE HER FORM!?" Chrysalis screamed as she leapt over Filly, Cletus and the two unconscious ponies to land on the stairs so that she could advance up them. "BECAUSE I SURE Didn—" the tall changeling continued to scream, then suddenly stopped. "Oh, spit!" she quietly hissed in horror and began slowly backing down the stairs as Celestia continued to walk out.
"Are—are they okay? I—I didn't mean to hurt them," Celestia said as she folded her wing and came to a halt at the top of the steps. "They just wouldn't take 'no' for an answer."
"Uh—M—Miss Filly?" Cletus stuttered, looking up with wide eyes at the regal alicorn standing there. "Wh—who's that?"
Chrysalis thought she was going to have an accident right there on the stairs.
At first, she had thought one of her children had seriously disobeyed her directives about who they could and could NOT impersonate. But it wasn't until she was halfway up the stairs that she finally realized; this is NO changeling!
But the Day Princess hadn't seemed to notice Chrysalis was there. Her eyes were on the two earth ponies she had knocked silly. Of course, that would change at any moment. And when it did, it wouldn't be pretty.
Back during her invasion, she had absorbed enough love from Shining Armor to actually be a match for Celestia. That was, until the smack-down she received when Mi Amore Candenza rescued her betrothed, and she and all of her children were blasted out of the Equestrian capitol. Here, in Dry Gulp, she and the surviving members of the Hive had recovered their health, and the changelings' hunger was finally sated by the sustenance they got from the town's residence. But it was nowhere near the level of power she had possessed during the invasion.
The years spent here had mellowed her ambitions. In this place of second chances, she had no desire to resume her conflict with Equestria's leadership. However, Chrysalis realized, Celestia would have no idea of her change of heart.
As Celestia slowly descended the stairs, Chrysalis backed down in equal measure until the changeling queen had reached the unconscious ponies. Celestia continued to approach, step by step.
With nowhere else to go, Chrysalis knew if she used her wings to back away further it was going to trigger Celestia's attention!
But that damned Celestia took no notice of her!
Not YET, she hasn't!
The alicorn continued to step closer, and Chrysalis' instincts finally overruled her commands! Her wings buzzed as she hopped back out of range again!
However, Celestia still took no notice!
That made Chrysalis blink.
Something's wrong, Chrysalis suddenly realized.
"Are they hurt?" Celestia asked, still only looking at the fallen earth ponies.
"J-just bumps on the noggin," Filly Rustler replied.
Chrysalis blinked again and glared at her partner.
She's not surprised! What betrayal is this!?
"Now justa gosh darn minute, there!" the village idiot deputy growled as he stood up and confronted the Day Princess. "Ya can't just go slappin' ponies about! Dinja see yer ma 'bout ta scold ya fer that?"
"Who?" Celestia asked, puzzled. The Day Princess now focused her attention on the deputy.
Wh--? Chrysalis was also about to wonder when she realized too late what he was about to say.
"Yer ma!" the moron exclaimed, pointing directly at Chrysalis. Celestia looked to where he was indicating.
Oh … SPIT! Chrysalis thought, her eyes widening in fear.
Celestia stared at Chrysalis.
Chrysalis stared back.
Celestia tilted her head.
Chrysalis nervously swallowed.
Here it comes….
"Are you my mommie?"
Chrysalis was falling.
The impact on her rump knocked her out of her shock.
Whuuuu….?
She blinked and realized she had sat down hard on the saloon floor. Celestia still continued to stare at her with her tilted head. That's when Chrysalis realized something was seriously not right with this picture. There was absolutely NO emotion coming from the alicorn that she faced. Not fear, nor hatred toward Chrysalis. Not even the ever-present love she normally felt for her ponies. It was as if the alicorn was an animated ponyquin in the form of the Day Princess.
"Uh, Cletus," Filly Rustler said, scolding her fellow pony, "this isn't one of the changelings working here! This is Princess Celestia!" There were audible gasps throughout the entire saloon as well as the flare of shock and horror from everypony there.
"Are you my mommie?" Celestia asked again.
"Wha--? Uh—No!" Chrysalis snapped, suddenly getting to her feet.
"Filly Rustler! What is the meaning of this joke?" Chrysalis angrily demanded. "WHO IS THIS!?"
"This is Princess Celestia," her partner repeated.
"IMPOSSIBLE!" Chrysalis angrily shouted. "I FOUGHT CELESTIA! THIS ISN'T HER!"
"We fought?" Celestia asked, tilting her head the other way. "Nothing I kicked ever got up again. But I don't remember fighting you."
"Wai—! Wha—?" Chrysalis exclaimed.
"We found her the other night," her partner cut in. "Tumbleweed and I brought her into the saloon. She'd been wandering the desert. Our guess is, she's been wandering since Nightmare Moon's return."
"NOT possi—" Chrysalis began to protest.
"She's got amnesia," Filly Rustler said, interrupting once more. Only this time, what she said made some sense. Except for—
"—ible!" Chrysalis slowly finished her declaration. "Amnesia?" she asked, looking at Celestia—this time really looking at her.
Yes, she considered, using her senses. The signs are there. The completely blank personality…
"Do we know each other?" Celestia asked, tilting her head back the other way again.
"Yes," Chrysalis replied. "Yes, we do," she said, nervously swallowing. The day that she had dreaded for years had finally arrived. However—
Here was the opportunity! she suddenly triumphantly realized. An opportunity to finally win that coming confrontation!
At that moment, the town's marshal, accompanied by the physician and led by the town drunk that her partner had mentioned came through the door.
"Who am I?" Celestia inquired to Chrysalis.
"Wo—would you mind if we could move this discussion to the marshal's office?" Chrysalis asked.
There were collective groans of protest from the saloon's patrons.
"ALL OF YOU PONIES HAVE BUSINESS TO ATTEND TO!" Chrysalis angrily shouted at them. "Ponies, you have drinks and salt to imbibe! Changelings, you have customers to satisfy! Marshal, you need to bring her! GET TO IT!" she finished before marching pass the stunned stallion and out into the night.
Chrysalis led the procession through the street, not bothering to look behind her. She expected them to obey. Her senses told her they were. After a short walk, she stopped, seeing as she had reached her destination at the marshal's office. There, she stood as the others filed in.
Mustang Mack led the Day Diarch inside. Followed by Filly Rustler.
Wait … Filly Rustler?
"What are you doing here?" Chrysalis demanded. "Why aren't you at the saloon?"
"I found her," Filly replied. "I asked Doc to run the shop while we were here."
At that moment, the town's physician stepped up to the door.
"Wait! What's he doing here, then?" Chrysalis exclaimed.
"Doc?" Filly also inquired, as stunned as she was.
"She's my patient!" the physician replied. "Don't worry. The bar's in good hooves," he said with a smirk as he walked passed to go inside.
Her partner shrugged and entered.
Her senses told her there were nopony else coming, but Chrysalis couldn't help taking a glance back just to be sure, before entering the marshal's office, too.
Cletus smiled as he stood behind the bar, looking at all the customers. Of course, Doc assumed that he was too dumb to handle the business. At first, Doc had asked him to stand in as he had to go help with his patient. But an instant later, he had insulted Cletus by retracting the request, lamenting on about how Cletus couldn't read.
Naturally, Cletus had to defend his honor. After all, he had watched how Filly kept everything running smoothly for years.
How hard could it be? he wondered.
"So," he shouted. "Who's next?"
He was pleasantly pleased as the bar patrons began making their requests….
"First thing I have to say," Chrysalis began, "is I ask for your forgiveness, Princess Celestia."
The princess blinked blankly at her.
"For what?" she asked.
"We did indeed fight, years ago, in the past," Chrysalis explained.
"And she defeated you?" her partner inquired. "Is that how you ended up here?"
"Yes. It was the day I ended up here," Chrysalis sighed. She really didn't want to have to tell these ponies. They had no need to know. But when it came time for her to finally speak her peace to Celestia, she knew that word would get out.
"However, it was I who defeated her," she said to correct their misunderstanding. They all blinked in surprise. All but Celestia, who merely tilted her head in puzzlement.
"The fact was, at the time, there were three alicorns," Chrysalis explained. "I had already imprisoned one—the pink one that you often see one of my children posing as. Celestia, here. And Celestia's sister, Luna. There was a wedding planned for the pink alicorn and her betrothed. I had imprisoned the pink one and taken her place, in an effort to siphon off the love her betrothed felt for her."
The town's marshal, the physician, and her partner all looked at her in shock and horror.
"It was an attempt to provide nourishment to my children," Chrysalis told them. "At the time, I had a great many more children—" She had to stop to reign back in the horror she felt for her loss.
"All—all those—you found—when we arrived," she continued. "Yes, it was a gamble. Yes, to you ponies, it was a terrible crime. In fact, it was an act of war. It was one nation versus another. But we were desperate. I was desperate. My children were so hungry—" She paused as she hung her head in shame.
But—her senses told her—something amazing. Instead of hatred or fear from the ponies for what she had done—there was—compassion. And from Celestia, there was only more curiosity. Chrysalis looked up in stunned amazement. It gave her the strength and courage to continue.
"With the pink alicorn imprisoned and me taking her place, I fed on her betrothed's love. I had everypony fooled, including Celestia and her sister," Chrysalis said, resuming her tale. "What I did not know at the time, the pink alicorn had a friend who immediately knew I wasn't her. That purple unicorn you've all also become familiar with? She was the sister to the stallion I was going to marry. For a time, I was able to convince Celestia that she was simply jealous and didn't want her brother and me to be happy together.
"Despite those mistakes, my deception almost worked," Chrysalis continued. "Almost.
"But I made the mistake of revealing myself to the unicorn. And, worse, I took my joy at imprisoning her in the same caverns as the plink alicorn. Together, they managed to escape and interrupt the wedding, forcing me to be revealed as I am as well as trashing my original plans for the invasion. That's when Celestia stepped in and tried to fight me. But the love from the stallion from who I had been feeding had actually made me stronger than Celestia! Stronger than the pink alicorn, the unicorn and all the guards and their friends! I was able to vanquish everypony there. Still, all of my original, carefully laid plans were now trashed, and I had to wing it from that point on. That's when I had my children come down and begin conquering the city to feed off the populace.
"However, the unicorn and her friends were able to wake up and make a break for weapons they hoped to use to defeat me. As they fought a pitched battle against my children, the pink alicorn managed to reach her betrothed and break the spell I had cast upon him. Together, their love for each other reignited—and—and together—they blasted not only me, but all my children out of Canterlot—past the Badlands—to land—back here."
"The rest, you already know," she finished, hanging her head. "The bodies … you found—the survivors … are all I have left.
"I—I never yet thanked you for giving the dead—the respect you did," she tearfully told them, reminded of those lost. "They never deserved to end up here in that manner. I should have found a better way." Chrysalis looked directly at Celestia.
"I should have asked you for help," Chrysalis said to the alicorn. "But centuries of rejection from every nation we ever approached had made us bitter. We had to live by stealing love for so long it became the only way for us to live. We knew no other way."
"I'm sorry—" Celestia gently said, reaching a wing out to her. "I'm sorry you had to suffer."
"Yes," Chrysalis said, looking up and smiling. "That's the Celestia I know! Always compassionate. I know I don't deserve it. I certainly expected this meeting between us to go quite differently."
"I—I don't know what the pony you knew would say," Celestia hesitantly said. "I—I only wish I could help."
"You know, the ironic thing is, in making our preparations to invade Canterlot, I had established a hive in the mountains to the west of here," Chrysalis began again. "In fact, to ensure our security, we had torn up the train tracks leading back to the rest of your nation."
"Whoa! That's new!" the physician exclaimed.
"Yes," Chrysalis acknowledged. "And I'm very sorry for what we did, too. We tried to wipe out this community. And yet, at the moment of our defeat—it was Dry Gulp that took compassion upon us! After all we did! To Equestria! To you! It was you, who saved us, even though we didn't deserve that, either. Yours is a place and a populace truly blessed. All this time, you had everything my children needed—only—only—just not enough of it. Not until—not until—our numbers were knocked down to what we are now."
"Well, we're certainly going to have to reconsider the situation," the town marshal grumbled. "But you have helped the town since you got here."
"Yes," Chrysalis agreed. "As Filly reminded me the other day, this is a town of second chances. It's good you came here, Celestia. In many ways, this town is a microcosm of you."
"But—you and your children came here—years after the newspaper said Nightmare Moon returned," her partner finally spoke up.
"Yes," Chrysalis replied. "Well, I don't know what the newspaper said, but Nightmare Moon was defeated long before my attempted invasion. The same unicorn that helped defeat me was instrumental in defeating Nightmare Moon and restored Princess Luna from her exile to the Moon."
"It's right here," the marshal said, opening a drawer to a filing cabinet and carefully removing the fragile newspaper and setting on the desk in front of him. Chrysalis stepped over to look at it, confirming the date and reading the article.
"Yes, that's the date of Nightmare Moon's return," she confirmed. "But—this account is incomplete. The purple unicorn defeated Nightmare Moon and cleansed Princess Luna a few days after this paper came out. I know, because we were still at the hive, deep in making preparations for our invasion of Canterlot. We had infiltrated numerous cities throughout Equestria by then.
"As I said, except for the mistake of not taking the purple unicorn in to account, my attempt to take over the pink alicorn's position and establish a secure feeding source for my children would've worked. Two things had worked against me: somehow word had gotten out that there was going to be an attempt to interfere with the wedding, and the purple unicorn's arrival. It was only when my original plans were disrupted that I made that final desperate invasion en mass. The original plan had called for a careful and slow invasion by infiltration while I would continue to pose as the pink alicorn."
"So, she wasn't out there, wandering the desert for ten years?" the physician asked.
"No," Chrysalis replied, shaking her head. "Not possible. Celestia was perfectly healthy when I and my children got blasted out of Canterlot—although she was in a cocoon at the time—it wouldn't have been hard for her friends to get her out. Whatever the reason was she came to be here, it was after I left Canterlot."
"Well, we still need to get word to Equestria," the marshal said. "Since you were the one who tore up the tracks, can you get your children to work to repair them?"
"I would if I could," Chrysalis sadly replied. "I just don't have the numbers I had before. All those you buried—at least the bodies you were able to identify as such—they were enough to tear up hundreds of miles of track overnight! But we're only a quarter of your town now—a minute fraction of what we were. All the rails we removed were pulled back to the hive. And you've only got the one train stranded on this side of the gap. It will take years to ferry those rails back out here and rebuild the track to Equestria."
"There has to be some way to get word out," her partner put forward. "We can't wait for winter!"
"I—I can—I can send a team out," Chrysalis suggested. "Travel at night, shelter for the days it will take to get there. And fly under a flag of truce once they get to civilization. It will still be dangerous, however. There's no guarantee they'll make it."
"So, we're still left with questions," her partner grumbled. "What caused her to end up here? And who's been raising the sun in her stead all this time?"
"Well, Luna would certainly have the means to continue raising the sun," Chrysalis put forward. "After all, Celestia took over raising the moon when her sister was banished. Why is Celestia here? Unfortunately, only you can answer that," she said to the alicorn.
Celestia simply shrugged.
"Thank you for being so understanding, Celestia," Chrysalis said as they filed out of the marshal's office.
"I wish I could be of better help," Celestia replied.
"Where will you be staying?" she asked.
"I've got a room set up for her at the Long Tree," her partner answered for the Day Diarch.
Just at that moment, the sound of a smashing window got their attention.
"Doc! You said the saloon was in good hooves!" Chrysalis' partner exclaimed.
"I did," the physician replied with a chuckle. "Cletus is in charge."
"Cletus!?" Filly Rustler exclaimed, and the marshal instantly began galloping toward the Long Tree.
"Are you forgetting what day this is?" the physician asked. "There's no way I'm going to stay behind the bar on a night like this!"
Her partner groaned and facehooved while Chrysalis sighed and shook her head.
"I'll send a team over to start repairs as soon as you close up," Chrysalis said, leaving her partner and the physician to deal with Celestia.
"Aw! Com'on, Chestnut! L'me out!" Cletus begged. But his fellow deputy just glared at him with the prominent black eye he got during the riot for a moment before going back to his reading.
"Com'on, Chestnut! Ah've gotta do mah rounds this mornin'!" Cletus said, trying a new tactic.
"Ah'm donin' yer shift, Cletus," Chestnut said, absently flipping a page.
"Lahk hay, yer are!" Cletus protested. "Yer ain't out there yonder lookin' fer no break-ins or troublemakers!"
"Yep," Chestnut responded. "Ah'm doin' the same job you'd be doin' if Marshal Mustang left some varmits in the cage ifen they'd caused a ruckus—which is zackly whaja did!" he said, flipping the next page. "Gots ta keep an eye on ya two."
"Ya ain't even readin' that there book!" Cletus exclaimed, pointing a hoof at his partner.
"Hmf! Says the pony who cain't even read numbers, much less words," Chestnut snarked back, not even taking his eye off the book. For good measure, he flipped to the next page.
"Then what's that book 'about'?" Cletus demanded.
"This here's a Mane Grey novel, called 'The Rainbow's Tail'," Chestnut responded by lifting the book up to show Cletus the cover. "It's the sequel to his 'Riders of the Purple Sage'."
"No it ain't! Yer just makin' that up!" Cletus yelled.
"Are ya colorblind, too, Cletus?" Chestnut asked with a snort, pulling the book back to resume his reading. "Cain't ya see the cover? It's got the pegasus with the rainbow tail right there."
"What'sit 'bout?" Cletus yelled. Cletus blinked as he felt his face redden a touch. Then he looked over to Cletus and smiled.
"Learn ta read, an' ya can find out fer yerself," he said with a grin. Right at that moment, the door opened, and Doc and Filly Rustler came in, bringing everypony's breakfast.
"Good mornin', Miss Filly! Good mornin', Doc!" Chestnut exclaimed with joy as he slammed the book down on the desk and leapt to his hooves.
"Morning, Chestnut!" Filly happily greeted in response. "Morning, Cletus, Francis," she said with a little less enthusiasm.
"Morning, Miss Filly," the two prisoners both cheerfully returned.
"Here's your breakfasts," Filly said, setting trays for them on the table standing by two cells.
"Thank you, Miss Filly," Francis said. "Sorry about the ruckus."
"Perfectly understandable, Francis. Wasn't your fault," Filly said, before giving a glare at Cletus.
"But AhI didn' start tha' fight!" Cletus insisted. "HE did!" he exclaimed, pointing at the occupant of the adjacent cell.
"You're in there because you can't read! You were giving ponies sarsaparilla when they was wanting whisky!" Doc criticized him.
"Well, Tumbleweed liked it," Cletus protested.
"Nopony else did, you durned fool!" Doc exclaimed. "Even you should've been able to see the difference between a bottle of whisky and sarsaparilla. Peco's has a picture of the last thing you'll see before a mule bucks you in the face—no offense, Francis," Doc offered to the mule sitting in the other cell.
"None taken, Doc," Francis replied.
"While the bottles of Sarsaparilla has a bunch of foals pronging about on the label!" Doc yelled, finishing his argument.
"How 'bout tha' brand of vodka wi' th' picture of th' pegasus filly ona scooter towin' a wagon tha' has them unicorn and earth fillies ridin' it as they all sail over that-there canyon?"
"…. Oh, well, you've got me there," Doc sheepishly muttered, rubbing the back of his mane.
"Plus, you were giving out incorrect change," Filly complained. "Although most of those errors were in their favor. But so far, all the ponies we've tracked down are coming clean and returning the money or 'fessing up their tabs."
"Yes, sorry 'bout that, Miss Filly," Cletus apologized. "By the way, how's the princess doing?"
"Princess?" Chestnut inquired, pausing in his meal. "What princess?"
"Where ya been, ya danged fool?" Cletus grumbled as he pulled his tray in through the slot in the cell's bars made for meal trays. "The Long Tree's got themselves a genuine princess stayin' there." Chestnut glanced from Filly to Cletus to Doc to Francis.
"Since when?"
"Since a couple nights ago," Filly admitted. "Seems Princess Celestia wandered into town after walking through the desert for who knows how many months. We were thinking it was as long ago as ten years, but Chrysalis insisted it had to have happened sometime after she arrived."
"So what's goin' on with her today?" Cletus inquired.
"Chrysalis and Mack are taking her around town," Filly said, sighing. "With her spectacular appearance last night, we all figured it'd be better to let everypony get a good look at her this morning, so they don't go busting down the Long Tree trying to see her."
"Are you okay, Marshal?" Chrysalis quietly inquired as the farrier shop owner was busy explaining his wares to the tall alicorn. "You're putting out a lot of unpleasant feelings right now."
"I've never felt comfortable with the idea of shoes," Mustang Mack quietly replied. "Just the thought of having nails pounded into one's hooves just—" He trailed off with a shudder, and Chrysalis had to add a few more feet of distance between them for the intensity of his dislike.
It wasn't that Mack was ever hostile with Foaly. In fact, they considered themselves good friends. After all, there were more than a few times Foaly stepped in to help Mack when both Cletus and Chestnut had been away from town. But he just couldn't stomach the idea of Foaly's job, not that Mack ever thought of denying other ponies a set of shoes.
Foaly, the shop owner happily looked forward to having a new customer, especially one as challenging as such a tall pony like her would no doubt be. Celestia, however, didn't seem interested in any of the horseshoes on display. Instead, her eye was constantly going to the two anvils Foaly used for his work.
And Foaly's explanation for what all the different types of shoes were doing for the wearer finally trailed off as the princess stepped over to give one of the anvils a closer look and rubbed a hoof over the surface in an appreciative manner.
"Uh—Princess?" Foaly hesitantly asked when she picked the anvil up from its pedestal with her hooves and set it on the ground. She was still eyeballing the hunk of metal, moving her head around to view it from different angles.
"Hmmm?" Celestia asked as she once more pawed at the anvil with her right hoof over the flat surface in the middle of the mass.
"Is—is there something—I can help you with?" Foaly asked. He looked nervously to Mack and Queen Chrysalis for advice, but they could only shrug.
"Hmm," Celestia absently replied as she speculated.
Then, she did the totally unexpected thing. Raising her right front hoof over the anvil, she stomped down upon it, driving her hoof deep inside, eliciting screams of surprise from the other ponies, and a snort from the changeling queen.
"Yesss…" Celestia cooed lifting her right front leg up to inspect the anvil now wrapped about her hoof. "I like this!" Before anypony could react or think to try and stop her, she picked up the other anvil, set it on the ground, and gave it a stomp with her left front leg as well. Then she was walking about, looking down at her forelegs appreciatively as though they were regular shoes.
"Oh! These are perfect! I'll take them!" she happily exclaimed. "Do you have the rest of the set?" she eagerly asked Foaly, obviously thinking of having matching shoes—or anvils—for her hind legs.
Unfortunately, for the farrier, his mind had stopped about a minute ago when she had turned the first anvil into her own personal horseshoe.
"Eeep!" he squeaked as a hoof lifted to point at where the first anvil had been before dropping back to the floor.
"I'll—go—get my children to start reinforcing the floors of the Long Tree," Chrysalis said walking out the door.
"Eeep!" Foaly squeaked again.
"That—would be a good idea!" Mustang Mack quickly agreed as he stared at the sight. "A very good idea! Filly will really appreciate that!"
Foaly's mind continued to try rebooting.
"Eeep!" he squeaked again, and this repeated several more times.
Even Mack could emphasize for the farrier, seeing the poor pony's source for his livelihood suddenly disappear like that. No doubt, Foaly was trying to think of where he was going to get replacement anvils—assuming his mind was ever going to get to the point where it could think again. He still seemed stuck in shock as the princess continued to prance about the shop, happy with her new shoes.
But then, Mack remembered: the railroad!
There were several siding tracks where one could be shortened by a rail length or so, from which Foaly could make replacement anvils, once he cut off enough and melted it down, as well as make a couple more for the princess' rear hooves.
Chrysalis flew back to the Lady Gay.
"Listen up! I need a team to report to the Long Tree and begin reinforcing the floors. ALL the floors!" she emphasized. "That crazy alicorn has decided to make anvils into a fashion statement." As the regular team of drones left, she truly regretted what she was going to do next.
"Xerox, Phauxtaux, Klauxn, Doup LeQat!" she called. As they were named, the changelings instantly leapt to their hooves. "I have a very dangerous mission for you. You are to take a message to Canterlot directly to Princess Luna. You will fly under a flag of truce and expose yourselves as changelings when you arrive. You are to tell Luna we have her sister here. Tell her that we are treating her well and are helping her recover from the ordeal that caused her to find her way out to us, but that Celestia has amnesia and cannot remember who she is, where she comes from, or who I am. We wish to have no hostilities with Equestria, but we ask they come right away to recover Princess Celestia.
"We'll prepare to go right away, Mother!" Xerox responded for them.
"Be ready to fly out tonight," Chrysalis instructed. "I deeply regret asking you to do this. You all know the crossing will not be easy. Travel at night will be easiest, but also the most dangerous time to be out. Help each other as best as you can, but delivering the message is vital! You must not fail!"
"We will get through, Mother!" all four shouted. "And we will return! We promise!"
"Best of luck to you, my children," she said before turning to leave and fly back to the farrier's store.
Mack finally managed to help Foaly recover enough to pick up on the idea of getting replacement steel from the railroad. After paying for his anvils and the new sets Foaly would have to make, Mack led the princess outside. There, she continued to hop about and prance with her new shoes, gleeful at the square divots the bottoms of the anvils made in the dirt street.
Down the street, he saw Filly and Doc leave his office to make their way back to the Long Tree that stood between them. Further back, he saw the dark form of Chrysalis flying back toward them from the Lady Gay.
Mack waved to them, and Filly waved back.
But just then, behind him, Mack heard a pony scream the two words that always filled his heart with dread.
At that shout, everypony on the street was in a panic.
Mack turned and looked.
"Oh, roadapples!" he cursed, seeing the gang of diamond dogs walking into town, with the hulking brute everypony feared in the lead.
Those two words sent a sense of dread down Mustang Mack's spine.
Fortunately, the pack didn't come into town that often. But the times they did they were led by their gigantic alpha, and it always left the entire town in a bit of a mess.
Every bar had their own, unique weekly bar fights that tended to trash the establishment. But those fights were usually spread over the entire week, so that no one saloon was affected more than any other. However, when the diamond dogs came to town, the damage affected every bar as well as most of the restaurants and residences.
Despite being one of the strongest earth ponies in town, when it came to the fight the best Mustang Mack had ever accomplished was to get a grunt out of Mongo. And a paw across the jaw that would send him across the street and through whatever wall happened to get in the way. Queen Chrysalis actually was about the only pony who could stand up to the giant diamond dog, and she was only good for a few minutes of trading blows with him.
As the pack advanced, he worried about Princess Celestia. He had no idea of how much recovery the alicorn had gotten with her rest. She was oblivious to the danger approaching, as she continued to dance about in the middle of the street admiring her new shoes (anvils).
Mack saw that Foaly had stepped out in answer to the call that was sending most townsponies inside.
Grimly setting his jaw that he sure was going to get broken again, Mack marched forward, stopping when he got within reach of the gang.
"Mongo! We don't want any trouble with you," he flat out told him, only to duck the swat from the diamond dog's paw. Spinning about on his hooves, Mack delivered a resounding kick to Mongo's face with both rear hooves.
"Umph!" Mack had the satisfaction of hearing Mongo grunt before the inevitable paw slammed him in the ribs and sent the stallion through the front wall of the store they were standing before—this one was Morris Yoke's Dry Goods Store. Fortunately, nothing but his pride was bruised, and Mack was able to sit up in time to see Foaly take a crack at Mongo with his hammer. The result was the bank across the street was permanently opened for a while.
Chrysalis stepped into Yoke's store to help Mack back to his hooves.
"Looks like it's your turn," Mack said with a sigh.
"I think I'll take a pass on this one today," she replied chuckling.
"Wha—!?" Mack exclaimed. "But they'll wreck your bar! Plus, there's Celestia standing in their way."
"That's what I'm looking forward to seeing," Chrysalis laughed.
Celestia, for her part, had evidently noticed how the giant diamond dog had swatted aside her friends. Mack was very nervous seeing how she stood there glaring at the pack as they made their way up the road toward her.
"That's far enough!" she suddenly announced, and Mack couldn't help but be impressed by the gravity in her voice. "You will turn around and leave. Now! After you apol—"
WHAM!
Mack couldn't believe his eyes.
Celestia took a solid left hook to the jaw.
And she was still standing there.
Not even Chrysalis had ever remained on her feet after a solid punch from Mongo.
Even Mongo seemed surprised.
Celestia just stood there, with her head slightly turned away. Then she looked back at the diamond dog that stood eye-to-eye with her, and Mack could see her using her tongue to probe the cut to her lip.
Then she smiled.
Mongo grinned in return.
WHAAAAAAAANNNNNNNNNNGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGG!!
Mack was certain he hadn't blinked, but he had never seen anything that fast.
One instant, Mongo was standing there in front of Celestia. The next instant, her right front anvil-covered hoof was where his head had been. The ringing sound slowly faded as his brain tried to process what just happened.
Mongo was gone!
"Wh-where—where did he go?" Mack whispered.
Chrysalis' tap to his shoulder got his attention. When he looked at her, he saw she was staring up into the sky, watching something going through the air. He shifted his view to where she was looking, and he could just make out the small speck of dark sailing through a perfect arc across the bright blue sky. He followed the object as it came back to earth to land in a small puff of dust on the road going out of town.
"You bunch want to cause any trouble?" Celestia coldly asked. Mack looked at her as she glared at the remaining pack of diamond dogs.
"Oh—uh—no! No trouble!" "We promises! We be good!" "You new alpha—uh—pony!" "You boss now!" "Din't mean to be means!" "We bes good!" "Can wes just—uh—get drinks?"
"And to think," Chrysalis said sighing. "I once held power as great as that."
Celestia suddenly looked up and narrowed her eyes.
"You lot! Go out and bring him to me!" she commanded. "Meet me at the marshal's office."
"At—at once!" the diamond dogs all shouted and ran back down the road.
"Are you okay?" Mack asked Celestia as Chrysalis walked over to the bank and helped Foaly out of the building.
"Yes," she replied, taking a moment to probe her cut lip again with her tongue. "I just can't remember ever getting hit that hard before. But it wasn't anything to worry about."
"I'm just glad you're on our side," Mack said.
"You've been kind to me," Celestia replied. "I didn't like to see any of you hurt."
********************
Celestia's scream resounded throughout the night.
A stroke of lightening illuminated her falling body just before—
Twilight's scream of horror echoed off the walls as she bolted out of her slumber. Then she had to immediately shield her eyes with a hoof from the glare of the sun coming in from the window.
When her eyes finally adjusted to the light, she saw the pink alicorn standing by the window.
"Ca—Cadance?" she inquired.
"I see our little talk the other day hasn't had any influence on you," the pink alicorn scolded her.
"Actually, it has," Twilight said, rubbing the sleep from her eyes.
"Yes. I can see that," Cadance said sarcastically as she looked over the several billboards covered with notes, pictures, diagrams, reports, and a web of string connecting them all that would make any spider envious.
"Believe it or not, I'm actually making progress," Twilight told her.
"I can certainly believe the 'or not' part."
"It was my grief that was getting in the way," Twilight tried to explain.
"In the way of 'what', exactly?" Cadance demanded. "So that you can reexamine an accident that was just that: an accident! The three of us were there, Twilight! You, me, and Celestia! Lightning struck the chariot! Ponies died! Including—including—including our friend. End of story. Yes! It's tragic, but it was an accident! That's what accidents do: they strike without warning and take friends away. I'm not about to cheapen her memory chasing something that's not there!"
"But that's just it, Cadance! It's not the end! There's something the investigation missed! I know it!" Twilight protested. "If I—if I could just get past these nightmares! I could certainly use Luna's help on them."
"Except you're up all night," Cadance pointed out. "And when you do sleep, most times, it's during the day. Luna, if you'll recall, is Princess of the Night. You can't exactly expect her to chase after dreams 24/7. Especially as you tend to sleep on a 56.7-hour cycle when you get into such moods—"
"Will you at least take a look at what I've done?" Twilight demanded.
"Yes, you've emulated Lyra's father almost perfectly," Cadance said sighing as she scanned over the work. "He's always going on about abductions and alien visitations. No wonder she takes after him. Of course, you've completely managed to outdo him. He's got an entire office in the EUP Bureau of Investigation full of X-files to devote his time on, whereas you've managed to cover a whole wall with just one incident, which doesn't even have a single human involved—"
"Will you please at least hear me out?" Twilight pleaded.
Cadance rubbed the top of her muzzle beneath her horn and sighed.
"Against my better judgement," she muttered. "Fine! Let's hear it," Cadance finally snapped.
They trussed Mongo up in the jail using chains to bind him on the inside of the cell door, facing out. Mack had to release Francis and Cletus early for their own safety, and because he'd need Cletus to help keep an eye on Mongo.
"You got lucky there, Mack," Doc told him after finishing examining the marshal.
"Tell me about it!" the big stallion replied. "I've been punched by Mongo before. I'm really impressed by Celestia, though. Neither me, Foaly, nor Chrysalis can even budge Mongo. At least Chrysalis can get back up after getting hit by him. But to see somepony who could reverse the tables on Mongo like that!"
Celestia, for her part, didn't seem all that happy.
"I dented my shoe," she complained.
That's when Doc and Miss Filly seemed to notice what Celestia was wearing on her front hooves. Both Mack and Chrysalis were amused by their reactions.
"How did—?" Filly began as Doc got up and looked closer at Mongo, feeling the giant diamond dog's jaw.
"Damn! Still in one piece!" he exclaimed.
"Oooh!" Mongo groaned as he woke up to Doc's examination. Doc quickly retreated and the others in the room tensed up—except for Celestia, who was critically looking at the malformed tip of the anvil's horn.
"Heh!" Mongo said when he opened his eyes. "Mongo like Pretty White Pony! Pretty White Pony hit good! Mongo impressed!"
Celestia looked up at him.
"I'm impressed, too," she said. "You're the first thing I've kicked that ever got up again."
"Mongo follow you!" Mongo announced smiling. "You Alpha, now!"
"If that's all that it takes to tame him—?" Doc muttered beneath his breath. "You should've tried using an anvil years ago, Mack."
"Heh! You funny pony!" Mongo said to Doc. "Hiyah, Marshal Mack! Hiyah, Pretty Black Pony! You in Pretty White Pony's pack, too? Mongo happy to join Pretty White Pony's pack! We're all pack-mates now!" he finished, grinning.
"Really?" Mack exclaimed. "After all the times you've knocked me out?"
"Yeah," Mongo happily said. "You kick good. Could be better, but Mongo feels it when you kick. Pretty Black Pony got good punch, too! Fights good! Mongo happy we're all pack-mates finally."
"Hmf!" Filly exclaimed. "How about that? Seems like diamond dogs just wanna have fun!"
"Yeah! 'Fun' you call it," Foaly grumbled, rubbing his jaw with a fore hoof.
That evening, after the sun set, four changelings set off toward the east.
In the morning, Chrysalis approached the marshal's office, accompanied by the changeling who had brought her his message that he wanted to speak with her.
"You wished to see me, Marshal?" Chrysalis asked when she entered his office. In addition to the marshal, there were two other earth ponies sitting whom she recognized, and they stood upon her arrival.
"Yes, Queen Chrysalis," Mack replied who also stood. "Thank you for coming. You remember Agents West and Gordon?"
"The two treasury officers?" Chrysalis asked, nodding to them. Kwik Khoppi gave them both a very fond smile.
"Hi Pappy! Alika!" Kwik Khoppi happily greeted, making the two ponies blush slightly.
"Hello again, Kwik. And nice meeting you once more, Your Highness," West said, speaking up to offer his hoof to her with a genuine smile.
"Agent West," Chrysalis formally replied shaking his proffered hoof.
"Please," Agent West replied. "Call me Pappy."
"And me Alika," Gordon added as he offered his hoof as well after his partner fished shaking hooves with her.
"To what do I owe the pleasure?" Chrysalis inquired after introductions were completed.
"After our talk the other night," Mack said, speaking up, "I got to thinking about the logistics of moving those rails from your hive. How close do any of these lines into the mountains come to your hive? It occurred to me that with their train still on this side of the gap, we could use it to begin ferrying the rails back here."
"Hmm," Chrysalis considered as she stepped up to look over the detailed map of the local territory. "Yes, But as I mentioned, it will still take several years to undo all the damage we did when we pulled them up. Plus, my old hive is more than a dozen miles beyond the last mine on this spur," she finished, pointing to the end of the rail line in question.
"And if we tossed in as many of the townsponies as we can to assist as well?" Mack proposed.
"Interesting…" Chrysalis trailed off, looking down at Kwik Khoppi. The smaller changeling tilted her head as they both conferred on the problem.
"Every ling working in shifts to transport the rails over the hills…" Kwik Khoppi initially muttered.
"And with the train limited to the time to run to load up and return here before repeating…" Chrysalis added.
"We're assuming you would work only during daylight hours?" Kwik Khoppi inquired to Mack.
"Mostly the daylight hours, except for the height of the day" Mack confirmed. "Of course, we'll be able to start before sunup and work quite a bit after sundown."
"And what is the maximum capacity your train can carry down from the mountains?" Chrysalis asked Agent West.
"Our engineer can give you more specific numbers to what she can haul," West told her. "But the Nimrod's plenty strong enough, more than twice the power of any of her contemporaries that were running back when all this happened. Plus, we can uncouple our private office cars and replace them with the half-dozen flatbeds sitting on your sidings. She'll do quite the job for this."
"Twice the power of other trains, you say?" Kwik Khoppi inquired. "Impressive. If that's true…"
"The couple hundred miles from here to Bugtussle, and of course the hundred or so miles beyond there," Chrysalis muttered. "And there's the problem about getting through Bugtussle, itself. We did have quite the fight on our hooves as we were tearing up the tracks when we got there," she added wryly. "They won't be happy to see us return."
"We'll take care of that," Mack said, chuckling.
"If all that's so, putting back 30 lengths of track per day…" Kwik Khoppi muttered.
"It's doable…" Chrysalis finished, nodding. "It could be done in a little over a year—maybe two…"
"Fifteen months at best," Kwik Khoppi confirmed.
"Assuming we don't run into any of those other problems out there to delay us," Chrysalis agreed. "But yes. Fifteen months, or so. It can be done. It might be able to be done," she amended turning to face them.
"How about your changelings?" West inquired. "How will they work laying the tracks back down?"
"I'll have them working in shifts around the clock," Chrysalis explained. "We'll start by having a quarter of them moving the rails from the hive over to the mine and to help load the train. They'll continue to transport the rails to the mine as your train runs the maximum loads down here. From here, the townsponies will offload your train and start laying down the tracks as you go back for subsequent loads. Once that process is completed, my changelings will come back here to help in the re-laying of the rails."
"A quarter of your changelings, all around the clock?" Gordon asked incredulously. "They'll get worn down pretty quickly at that pace."
"They'll still be working the brothels," Chrysalis replied with a shrug.
"Moving tons of steel for hours AND working the bars!?" Gordon exclaimed.
"You forget, Alika," Chrysalis said, smiling. "Their time in the brothels is really their relaxation and feeding period. The work will actually do them some good. More than a few of my changelings are getting a little pudgy in their carapaces," she said, giving a poke with a hoof at Kwik Khoppi, who visibly blushed a little.
The five of them continued to discuss the logistics to restore the rail line well into the day.
That afternoon, Filly escorted Celestia to the farrier.
"Okay, Princess," Foaly said, setting down the second of the four anvils he had made to replace the two Celestia was wearing on her front hooves. These two were for her back hooves, if she was still insisting on wearing such things. "Why don't you give these a try?"
Celestia nosed at them, and then moved to set her rear legs beside them. One by one, she lifted her back feet and stomped down on them, sinking her hooves into the mass of metal.
"Hmmm! Still warm!" she happily exclaimed.
"Well, I only did just finish quenching them," Foaly started just as the now giddy alicorn began dancing about on all four hooves. Except at that moment, Celestia's front right and rear left legs burst through the floor to the ground beneath.
"Ooops!" Celestia sheepishly apologized.
"Are you sure the Long Tree is sufficiently reinforced?" Foaly muttered to Filly.
"We'll find out," Filly sighed as she and Foaly went to assist Celestia out of the holes she had made.
Once out in the main street, Celestia resumed her happy dance, mixing up pronging, flapping her wings, and spinning about with the anvils covering her hooves thudding onto the ground in a complicated pattern that was too involved for Filly to follow. Filly wisely kept her distance—at least a couple of body lengths away—just for safety’s sake.
"I know alicorns are supposed to be the embodiment of all the three tribes, Princess," Filly spoke up, "so naturally, you've got the strength of us earth ponies. But how can you just walk—no—how is it possible for you to dance with an anvil on each hoof? Even Foaly and Mack find it difficult to move just one about and they're the strongest ponies I know."
"I—I don't know," Celestia cheerfully replied after stopping to consider the question. "It—it just feels right. It feels like I had been missing something and just found it again."
"Weird," Filly muttered. "But, with all that weight, will you still be able to fly?"
"FLY!?" Celestia stared at Filly as if in shock. She looked back at her wings that were still partially unfurled from her happy dance earlier.
"I—I—I don't know how to fly," she sadly whined, her cheerful attitude suddenly deflating.
"Oh," Filly winced in consternation. "I'm sorry. I didn't mean to make you feel bad. I'm afraid there's no one in town that can help teach you—except maybe the changelings. I'm sure that once you learn the motions, it'll come back to you."
"I—I guess it might," Celestia finally shrugged as she set her wings back to her sides. Then she experimentally stretched them out to their fully reach, moved them up and down, forward and back, and tilted them first one way then the reverse before folding them back to her sides again. "I supposed so," she concluded. Filly could tell her sadness had departed and was evidently replaced with puzzlement. "They don't hurt and they seem to have a full range of motion. But they just feel so odd."
"I see," Filly replied. "And what about your magic?"
"Magic?" she asked with curiosity.
"You—you don't remember how to do that, either?" Filly timidly inquired, to which Celestia shook her head.
"Hmmm, I hope that won't be a problem," Filly said, sighing. "I'm no unicorn, so I don't know how to even begin teaching you something like that. But at least we do have a few unicorns in town. Hopefully, they can teach you again. But if your innate magic is as powerful to them as your physical strength is to us earth ponies, I shudder to think of what might happen should there be an accident."
At that moment, the sun began its final shaky journey toward the horizon to mark the end of the day. At the same time, the moon quickly rose in the east before pausing to hang in the sky for its first hour of the night.
"That—that—somehow, that just seems so—wrong," Celestia muttered, still looking to where the sun had lowered.
"Well, so far as I know, it is supposed to be you raising and lowering the sun," Filly put forward. "According to what Chrysalis said, it may be your sister who's been raising and lowering the sun while you were wandering the desert."
Celestia merely tilted her head at that before turning to resume their walk back the Long Tree.
"So, what sort of things will be going on in the saloon?" Celestia inquired, getting her cheerfulness back.
"Nothing that we've not been doing for years on end," Filly replied with a smirk.
********************
Once the sun set again, they broke camp and flew high in the night sky for the greatest dangers dwelt in the lower altitudes. And they flew throughout the night to travel the furthest they could for the day was not without its own horrors, least of which was the oven-like heat.
Speech was kept to a minimum since they had little to say to one another, but they did occasionally chitter as they traveled. It was next to impossible for non-changelings to learn their language, as they communicated on at least four different levels, one of the major used being chittering. A few clicks could at one moment be as profound as the greatest orations of history, while a dozen minutes of chittering could literally mean nothing at all. Only a changeling could tell the difference.
The four kept their thoughts to themselves throughout that first night. Doup LeQat, Klauxn, Phauxtaux, and Xerox knew their mission. Their Queen, the Mother of the Hive, depended upon them to complete the instructions she commanded: deliver the message to the Princess of the Night. It was a mission they all knew was fraught with danger. After all, they had taken this route once before, when the entire Hive was mobilized in full force to invade Canterlot.
Then, it had taken the thousands and thousands of changelings a week to travel from their hidden caves in the mountains west of Dry Gulp to the Equestrian capitol. It had been a dangerous undertaking crossing the desert even then as several hundred battle-ready troops were lost to the hazards along the route taken, only for them all to be blasted nearly all the way back to their lair in a matter of hours on that fateful day.
Now, they were once more heading to the place where they had met their doom.
“Pappy? Alika?” Marshal Mustang Mack called out to the two EUP Secret Service agents before they boarded the train.
West’s eyes bugged out when they turned and saw who all were accompanying him.
“Whooooaaaa!” Gordon whispered in horror. “Having all those changelings onboard was bad enough, but this—!?"
“Mack!?” West inquired, looking up at who walked alongside the marshal.
“Given all the weight of all those track rails you guys are going to have to move, I figured you all could use some help,” Mack said, looking up at his friend. “I talked it over with him, and Mongo’s agreed to go along and help. He, and his pack.”
“Hiya, West and Gordon!” Mongo greeted them with a toothy grin. “Long time, no see.”
“And. He talks. Too,” Gordon fearfully muttered, gulping during his pauses.
“Marshal Mack says you friends with Pretty White Pony,” Mongo told them. “Need Mongo’s help. Mongo happy to help! Bring whole pack to help friends of New Alpha.”
“We could certainly use the help, Mack, but we don’t want any trouble,” West demurred.
“Well, it turned out that Mongo and his pack just like to play a little rough,” Mack explained. “When Celestia beat him fair and square, Mongo accepted her as their new alpha, and is following her lead now.”
“Mongo always like Marshal Mack and Pretty Black Pony. They fight good,” Mongo explained. “You don’t fight so good. But Mongo still like you. You clever ponies.”
West and Gordon both nervously shuddered at the complement for some reason.
“Mongo always wanted to be friends. But Old Alpha hated you. Old Alpha was very clever pony, but you more clever.”
“We only got lucky all those times we had to deal with him,” West replied. “Loveless is a certifiable genius, but he’d always overlook some tiny detail that we were able to exploit. That, and a giant ego the size of the planet.”
“Whatever happened to that Shetland?” Gordon inquired. “We’ve not had any run-ins with him for quite a while.”
“Old Alpha always unhappy about you,” Mongo told them. “Died of ulcers.”
“Oh, that’s too bad,” Gordon sighed. “I always hated that he’d do all those crimes, but to be honest, I’m sorry to hear he’s gone. His inventions were always beyond incredible and quite ingenious. We were always impressed. We were almost looking forward to what he’d come up with next. Not really, but almost.”
“Too bad we couldn’t afford to let him know, that,” West agreed. “His ego was his biggest weakness, but we could never afford to stoke it, as much as he truly deserved such praise. It was the only way to beat him.
“But just think of all the good he could have done with those inventions,” he added. “For example, imagine how we could have utilized that sonic device to transport ponies in and out of pictures. I’m sure if he had worked for the betterment of Equestria, he would have eventually figured out how to tie two distant paintings together and then use his sonic key to create a long-range teleport system.”
“Wouldn’t something like that eventually make trains like yours obsolete?” Mack chimed in.
“I seriously doubt it, Mack,” Gordon protested. “Supplement them, perhaps. And like any new technology, such devices would certainly redistribute the workload, but trains would never go obsolete. No more than railroads made wagons obsolete, or than wagons made sidesaddles obsolete.”
The train’s engineer came walking up to them from the engine.
“The train is ready to go whenever you are,” Tumbleweed said, reminding them that it was time to board, “and will wait on your pleasure, Mister West. But daylight won’t wait for us, sir.”
“Right you are!” Gordon replied, laughing.
“How are you feeling, Tumbleweed?” West asked him.
“I’m doing great!” the engineer happily responded. “It’ll be good to see the old girl doing her runs, again! Oh, and Marshal Mack?”
“Yes, Tumbleweed?” Mack inquired.
“Please extend my apologies to Miss Kitty,” he said. “If we can get the railroad back into operation again, I’m afraid I won’t be as frequent a customer as I have been. But my future absences isn’t intended to be a complaint against her or the Long Tree. They’ve always treated me very well there.”
“Believe me, Tumbleweed, she’ll be very happy to hear it,” Mack gently told him, smiling. “Everypony in town knows how much this has hurt you. We’re all happy to see you finally back at doing what you’ve always loved.”
Mack then turned and left them all to board the train.
********************
“I’ve finally got Twilight to agree to sleep for tonight, Auntie,” Princess Cadance told Princess Luna as the Night Diarch prepared for her duties. “I hope you can help her with those bad dreams she’s been having. And also help her get over this obsession she has.”
“I’ll do my best,” Luna assured her. “She claims she has accepted what happened? But that her—mind—won’t let go of that night?”
“I—I can’t really say,” Cadance said, sighing. “Part of me believes it to be so—but—I can’t be certain if that’s all there is to it. She certainly thinks there was something more. Something that was missed. She worked really hard to make a compelling argument. But even Twilight says she isn’t certain, and without that missing element—that even she can’t identify—she’s insisting she just feels there’s something there. Although, it may be nothing more than wishful thinking of a sleep-deprived pony.”
“That could be true,” Luna agreed. “Intense sleep deprivation can make ponies imagine all sorts of scenarios. With Twilight Sparkle being such an exceptionally intelligent pony, a sleep-deprived genius can still sound quite lucid and in full control of her faculties, thus create very compelling cases.”
“If only Celestia could—” Cadance began.
“I know, dear Cadance. I know,” Luna softly said to her. “Sadly, that’s not possible.”
********************
Queen Chrysalis entered the Long Tree, and after quickly spotting Filly and Mack at the bar, headed their way. They paused their own conversation at her approach.
“Hello, Chrysalis. How are you this evening?” Filly cheerfully greeted her partner, even though her emotions prepared her for another confrontation with the Changeling Queen.
“You need not worry, Filly Rustler,” Chrysalis snapped at her. “I find no fault with your performance.” She paused to look up at the sounds of heavy thumping coming from the ceiling.
“What—is she doing!?” Chrysalis demanded as her ears laid back.
“Tap dancing, so far as we can tell,” Mack replied.
“SHE—has absolutely NO rhythm—whatsoever,” the Changeling Queen complained. “And with anvils. Tomorrow morning, I’ll send the regular crew to reinforce the upstairs—again—just to be safe.” She looked back at Filly and Mack.
“Celestia’s the reason for my visit,” she began. “It’s—hard to put a hoof on it—but I feel there’s something not right about her.”
“In what way?” Mack inquired, suddenly perking up his ears. “Could she be an imposter?”
“She’s NO changeling!” Chrysalis instantly snapped back at him.
“So, what’s the problem?” Filly asked.
“Like I said, it’s a very difficult matter to lay a hoof on it,” she grumbled her replied. “As a changeling—we can get an instant reading on pretty much any creature we come across. We can decern the likes and dislikes, all the elements of the personality, the emotional state—” She broke off to stare at them staring at her.
“WHAT!?” she angrily demanded from them.
“You make it sound like something to be proud of,” Filly muttered.
“We are,” Chrysalis acidly responded, arching an eyebrow back at her. “We’re changelings. Such abilities just come with the territory. They’re necessary because infiltration is how we earn our bread and butter. To do that, we had to develop the ability to disguise ourselves, and to successfully do that, we had to quickly pick up on a creature’s emotional states and mental processes, otherwise such disguises would be worthless.”
“I thought we were talking about Princess Celestia,” Mack spoke up. “Or if she is Princess Celestia.”
“She is, and she isn’t,” Chrysalis fumed. “That’s the problem!”
“That sounds a lot like the old ‘Radioactive Cat’ riddle,” Mack muttered. “’Is it dead or alive? The answer is it’s both until you look at it, then it becomes one or the other’.”
“But we’ve all seen Princess Celestia!” Filly objected. “Right!? She’s here!”
“Like I said, she is and isn’t,” Chrysalis repeated. They continued to stare at her with questioning looks.
“You forget, I had to infiltrate Canterlot,” she explained. “Give a changeling an hour or two with any other pony, like one of you, and we’d pretty much know everything about you and your lives so well, that we could fool your parents, your siblings, your spouse, even yourself! You’d finally end up simply convinced that you were born a twin, had a brain fart, and just forgot for a moment that you always had one.
“But I was with Celestia for several days!” she emphasized. “And believe me, I’ve never had a target that was so hard to get a reading on. She was extremely tough!”
“We’re not talking about reading minds, are we?” Filly nervously inquired.
“No,” Chrysalis replied tiredly. “We’re not telepaths. Although, we simply can read your body language so well, you can easily be excused to believe we are. With all your involuntary twitches and tells, you ponies are virtually yelling out every single thought you have at us.
“We’re not even empaths, for that matter,” she went on. “We’re emotivores. We can’t mentally read your emotions, but we can and do is taste them. After all, that’s where we get our nourishment. And we can read your body language. But that’s about the extent of it.”
“I see,” Filly said.
“Anyhow, the Celestia I knew,” Chrysalis said, resuming her comments, “she was the most tightly reigned-in pony I’ve ever encountered. In many respects, she and I are much alike. Both long-lived, and both sovereigns of our charges, therefore we both must keep our emotions and thoughts very tightly hobbled.”
“And this Celestia isn’t like that at all,” Mack acknowledged, nodding in understanding.
“Indeed,” Chrysalis quickly stated. “Plus, there’s the amnesia. That’s—a complicating factor. Given that we are changelings, having intimate experience with such mental disorders also comes with the territory.
“Such severe memory loss, like what she’s suffered, is usually due to either an extremely intense emotional shock, brain trauma, or both. With the clear personality difference, I can immediately rule out emotional shock by itself as being the cause. If it was due to brain injury, then depending on what part of the brain was impacted, then it is possible that her personality was rewritten.”
“Maybe Doc needs to take another look at her,” Filly suggested. “He might be able to find something.”
“Remember, simply being a changeling, I’m far more experienced with those who’ve had traumatic brain injury,” she growled at them. “Even most cases that cause memory loss, it’s the prefrontal cortex that had to be impacted, but that would not affect her basic personality. An introverted pony simply losing his or her memory would still be an introverted pony.
“But for a personality shift at her level, it would have to be her cerebellum that was affected. However, that would not explain the amnesia, as the new personality should still have access to all the information stored in the prefrontal lobes.” She paused as she considered any other alternatives.
“What if both the front and rear of the brain was injured?” Filly asked.
“True, that could do it,” Chrysalis said, agreeing with the question. “The thing that makes this possibility unlikely with her, is that when both areas of the brain were impacted, the pony is very close to dying at any moment. Even if the pony were to heal up and be out of danger, there would still be hundreds of other tells that would point to such. However, those tells are completely absent in her.” The Changeling Queen paused, reconsidering the last probable case before laying it out for them.
“There is one other possibility that I can think of: that this is some other creature. However, even I find that hard to swallow,” she said, spitting. “Only a changeling could copy her form so perfectly. Except that no changeling could ever match the power we’ve seen her do. To be able to stand up to Mongo like she did? Or stomp on anvils and mold them into her own horseshoes?” Chrysalis looked up at the ceiling again, listening to the thumping coming from above. “One thing I’m sure of, that is definitely Celestia. I’ve seen her dance during my infiltration, and nopony else can be that uncoordinated, not even a changeling imitating her! Although I’ve heard that Twilight Sparkle comes in a close second.
“It’s very puzzling,” she finished, frowning in frustration.
“I really should have paid more attention to those reports about her after that Nightmare Moon purge incident,” she whispered to herself as she shook her head, recalling how she had failed her mission in Canterlot.
“What if—” Mack began but trailed off.
“You have an idea I haven’t already considered?” she demanded, snapping at him.
“Well, maybe,” Mack replied, steadily looking her in the eye. “You mentioned earlier that you both are sovereigns, and therefore have to keep yourselves on tight reigns. Only—here—she’s not, anymore—is she?”
The expression on Chrysalis’ face show that this was a new factor to consider.
“The—environment—has changed—!” she whispered in shock. “Dry Gulp. The town of Second Chances. Her bit, bridle, and reigns—they’ve not only come off, but have been burned up in fire and buried in that desert.
Chrysalis looked up in awe, almost on the verge of tears. “Then—perhaps—for the first time in her life, Celestia—is fully and truly—happy.”
“And—what about yourself?” Filly inquired. “Are you happier here?”
“My reigns—have not come off,” Chrysalis growled, quickly blinking away the moisture in her eyes.
“But perhaps they’re—a little looser?” she prompted.
Chrysalis suddenly developed a long-range stare and faced toward the east.
“Perhaps they are, at that. But not so loose as it would help,” she murmured. “They have reached Bugtussle.”
“You’re feeling them through that Hive mind we’ve heard rumors about?” Mack asked. “But didn’t you say your kind aren’t telepath or empathic?”
“You have little understanding of how our link works!” Chrysalis snapped. “It’s not like we communicate real thoughts across it, or even emotions. It’s more—an instinctive connection we have with each other.”
“So, how are they doing?” Filly asked, genuinely hoping for the best.
“They are…” Chrysalis began.
Fear. Rage. Terror. Desperation. The emotions of the four vibrated the lines they had connecting them to the Hive and her.
“…not happy,” she finished with a shudder.
********************
“I seriously FUCKING HATE parasitic soul-sucking emotivores!” Xerox screamed, slamming his hoof into the face of the creature he was fighting.
“I couldn’t agree more!” Doup LeQat yelled as she jammed the table leg through the chest of the one that she faced. “It goes double, for me!”
The changelings were all in the fight of their lives, isolated and forced into a corner of the cantina that stood at the center of town, so to limit the direction their enemies could attack them from.
“Try not to move, too much, Klauxn,” Phauxtaux told him as she finished bandaging him. She then turned to picked up her hammer and stood to join the rest of their comrades in the fight.
“You remember what the Queen told us! We’re all expendable,” Klauxn protested. “Leave me, if you must, but someling has to get through to Canterlot!”
“We’ve got better chances of surviving to get there if WE ALL go together!” Xerox yelled back as he lifted the gas-powered jackhammer. During one of the few lulls in the series of pitched battles, they had modified it so that there was a wooden stake in place of the normal steel bar. He revved it up and drove the tip of the stake into the chest of yet another vampire….
