Call of the Empty Courtroom

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The Lord of Ponydom, First Stallion of State, His Most Fiery Majesty, Attendant to the Moon, Supreme Ruler of the Lands of the Oldest Meadows, Overseer of the Courts Most High, First Place winner of the Biannual Hayburger Swallowing Contest for eight years running, Second Highest in the Courts of Discord, Tea, and Comedy, and Crown Prince of Friendship, was deathly bored.

He raised his hoof to catch the large red rubber ball he had just tossed against the pillar to the left of the single throne he was laying in, the one he'd had installed to replace the two that had sat here years ago.

He paused at that thought, kicking his hind legs idly as he held the ball between his front hooves. He then sat up and hopped off the large chair. He looked over the tall back, made of white painted oak and plush indigo cushion, then at the gold base.

Absently he scratched at his mane, long and flowing as compared to the previously rough-cut style he'd kept since being old enough to be bothered about it. The front of his mane, the part that he'd used to cut ragged in an effort to keep out of his eyes while trying to read, had smoothed out and began to wrap around his head in a way he wasn't sure he liked but also wasn't sure what else to do about.

"Hey, Spike?" he called out, startling the dragon out of a comic book.

"Yeah Dusk?" the dragon called back, his voice barely an octave deeper than it had been years ago. His voice was actually the source of some light teasing between the two brothers, even though Dusk Shine's own was hardly a couple lower.

"Do you think I should replace my chair with something more personal?"

Spike groaned loudly, running a paw down his face before grabbing the other half of his comic and burying his nose between the pages, pointedly ignoring Dusk.

"I know, I know," Dusk said, waving a hoof through the air as Spike raised an eyebrow, but not his gaze. "This one was custom made out of a mix of the Sister's thrones, Celestia's base and Luna's cushions. But, I mean, come on now. I'm not just a stand-in for those two, I'm supposed to be a Prince in my own right! I'm not just ruling because they told me to, but because they believe in me! Because-"

Spike blew a long, wet raspberry, his ribbon-like tongue flailing in the air like a party horn.

"Didn't you decide that it was because Celestia wanted to own a fishing boat?" Spike said with a wry grin. "And Luna wanted to, what was it, '"find her muse", aka go through enormous amounts of stone trying to perfectly carve her moon without having to stop to do stupid things like attending Court'?"

"Hey," Dusk said with a frown. "Celestia said that last part, I figure she just wanted an excuse to make dirty comments to the other mares in the community without getting in real trouble."

"Ah, right right," Spike said with a grin. "Still, my point stands. You're here because they didn't want to be anymore, according to you."

Dusk blew out through his lips, letting the pseudo-raspberry reverberate in the empty room for a moment.

"Regardless, I'm the Prince now," he said, rolling his hoof through the air in front of his chest. "And regardless of what ponies think, I'm not just a replacement alicorn for the Sisters. I'm here to rule, for the good of all ponykind."

"And you're bored enough that you're talking about changing your chair, again," Spike said, flipping the page in his book. "Even though we've both talked about how that would be a waste of money and time, on top of not actually doing anything for your image." He sighed as he let his arms go limp, resting on his legs. "I still say you should just paint it."

Dusk frowned, scratching the slightly, very slightly, longer fur on his chin.

"But what color?" he said absently, lost in thought once more.

Spike made a chuff noise, in the top of his throat, before returning to his comic again. "Purple," he deadpanned.

"Too easy," Dusk said immediately, Spike rolling his eyes. "Too... expected. Maybe... Maybe green?"

They both snorted in tandem.

"Dude," Spike said, closing his book. "If you're bored enough to get Rarity to try and assassinate you, you should go find something to do. We've got-" he glanced up at a clock, directly over the door, "about thirty more minutes to the day. Take off, I've got this empty room locked down."

Dusk Shine sighed, looking up at the clock himself.

"Are you sure Spike? I can make it, I guess I'm just getting antsy," he admitted, sitting on the heavy red carpet leading from the door to the throne.

"Well you're making me antsy, so beat it," Spike chuckled, taking a moment to get his feet under him and hop over to the bigger chair. "That system you worked out the second year works way too well, you know. If you're really this bored, you should think about asking them to let a few ponies through for ya."

Dusk sighed, letting his ears flick a bit as he thought about it.

"Yeah," he finally said, nodding. "I think I'll do just that. I'll talk to Mirror on the way to the kitchens, grab a snack, then head to the Lab. You got this?" he said, flicking his ears to Spike and giving him a thin smile.

"I got this," Spike replied, grinning.

Dusk nodded, standing. Stretching with a grunt, he popped his hips before quickly trotting up to the dais and giving Spike a quick hug.

Spike laughed, hugging Dusk back with both arms looping around his withers and squeezing for a moment, before smacking his paw against Dusk's shoulder. "Have the colts send me a snack, would'ya?"

"'Course Spike," he said with a grin, before jogging over to the door and pulling on the handle with a bit of magic. "Hit me up later if you'd like, you'll know where I'll be."

Spike waved a paw through the air, his nose already back in the comic.

Dusk slipped out into the hallway, nodding at the two guards who tensed when he poked his head out.

"Anypony coming up from the smaller courtrooms?" he asked one, a mare by the name of Gallant Mind he believed.

"No, Prince Shine," the mare said, dipping her head a bit before returning to her attentive pose.

"Good," he said, slipping the rest of the way into the hall and closing the door behind him. "Lord Spike is acting as regent for the rest of the Court's day; anything he says, within reason, goes. I'm heading towards the kitchens, then my lab. You two want anything?"

The second mare, Heartstrings, opened her mouth for a moment, before a sharp glance from her commander caused her to falter. "I believe we are alright, your highness," she said, instead of whatever her original request had been.

Dusk snorted, leaning over to stage-whisper, "Pot of coffee and two blueberry scones?"

Her muzzle burned bright red, Dusk chuckling as Gallant sighed.

"I'll have a chocolate muffin, if they have any left," she said, accepting her fate.

"Thank you, Prince Shine," Heartstrings murmured, abandoning her bearing to paw shyly at the ground for a moment.

"No problem," he chuckled, extending a wing to press gently on her shoulders. "Back to attention, though, before Gallant takes your head off."

With a smart clack of her hoofs, Heartstrings gave a quick salute before regaining her stance. Dusk took the moment to dip his head to both of the ponies, before making his way down the hall. "Don't drink too much, it's getting late," he called over his shoulder, chuckling at the crisp replies.

Dusk trotted happily along the plush, warm carpet he'd recently had installed. It had taken him a bit to synthesize the fibers he'd discovered, but the hooves of both him and the castle's staff were thankful.

He smiled at the familiar windows, depicting scenes of his friend’s and his victories and shining moments, including now that disaster of a coronation, the crown hanging sideways along his horn as his wings flared. He paused and ran a hoof over the first window that had him in it. He hung in the air, lifted by the magic of friendship, five mares surrounding and supporting him, all six glowing with power.

"How the time does fly," he said, wondering what exactly his friends would be doing back in Ponyville.

Considering it was a Thursday, almost all of them would be at work; Fluttershy being the only outlier, as her work took her all over the nearby forests at all times. Rarity, however, could be counted on being squarely in her boutique, likely with a customer at this very moment; perhaps in her designing room?

Pinkie was as traceable as she ever had been, but was hopefully at least in the area of the bakery's dining room. Cheese had recently moved in as well, the bakery doing well enough to have the Cakes move into their own cozy home, and he'd been learning more of the business from Mrs. Cake.

Applejack had recently moved Rainbow in her room, according to their letters to Dusk, the pegasus's cloud home newly anchored over the orchard fields carefully not blocking any sort of sun to the trees. AJ was definitely out among them, Rainbow assisting the weather team in between her Wonderbolts duties.

He paused at one of the windows he was passing, sighing when it looked into Canterlot instead of his adopted home of Ponyville.

It was hardly another moment before he reached the doors he'd been walking towards, the offices therein having been repurposed into the newly created Tiered Courts Offices, jokingly named TeaCo by many ponies and picked up by even more as they heard the name.

Dusk gently opened the door, pausing as the comfortably warm air washed from the room; scents of bergamot and chamomile and, heaviest of all, black tea, carried along through the hall.

The twelve ponies inside looked up from their desks, smiling and waving at Dusk.

"My liege," one of the ponies, one of a pair in the front of the room, called in greeting. The ponies in here did not share the enchantment on the guard and cleaning staff to uniform their appearance, this particular pony having a creme fur and chocolate mane. "How may we assist you?"

"At ease, my ponies," Dusk said with a smile around the room. Most of them nodded and returned to their desktops, each desk accompanied by a couple of chairs in front of them. "You have been doing a wonderful job, each and every one of you. A little too wonderful, as a matter of fact," he said with a small grin.

The creme pony frowned. "You want us to do... a worse job?" he asked, confused and worried.

"No no no! Not at all Pale Pages," Dusk quickly soothed. "It's just... Well, it's a bit boring over in the main courts at the moment, and I was wondering if you would, I don't know," he said, ruffling the mane over his neck with a hoof idly, "maybe go ahead and send the overflow to me?"

"Oh," the stallion said, scrunching his muzzle for a moment before smiling. "Of course my liege! Would you want us to screen them first, or just send them as they arrive?"

"As they arrive please," Dusk said, smiling gratefully at the gathering. "Or if they have something that's actually urgent, you can go ahead and send them on to me and Spike. Oh, but that's starting tomorrow, I'm heading to the kitchens now and then to my lab. Anyone have any requests?"

Collectively they declined, one of them requesting a snack until the time was pointed out, and Dusk returned to his walking the halls.

His mind turned to his recent experiments as he walked, equations and thaumic components surfacing and submerging as he strode through the stone archways that lined the castle. He picked up his pace a bit as he had a small breakthrough, a tiny path created by synapses that fired just so.

He was so immersed that he walked by the double doors of the kitchen, catching himself at an intersection and turning around, smiling sheepishly at the guard at the door.

"I'm heading to my lab a bit early today," he said, and the guard made a quiet, "ah," before using his rear hoof to open the kitchen. The chefs looked up from their stations, the head chef nodding his head in understanding before waving a hoof at an attendee and nodding towards Dusk. The mare nodded and abandoned their cutting board, wiping a hoof as she made her way to the Prince.

"Hello, your majesty," she said with a smile, dipping her head before cocking it to the side. "Dinner will be ready in an hour or so, but if you're here I'm thinking you want something to tide you over?" she half asked.

"Yes please," he said, blushing a bit as he returned her smile. "I'm heading to my lab, so something like a sandwich would be great. Oh, and could I have some stuff sent to the guards at the courtroom doors?"

He quickly conveyed the orders over and was standing in the doors for a grand total of a minute and a half before he was on his way once again, a nicely sized sandwich wrapped in brown waxed paper and a flat glass flask of juice balanced between his wing joints after having used a weak 'sticky' spell to keep them in place.

He was soon down the hallway where he had set up the teleportation portal. Nodding to the settings pony, the portal was quickly powered on and he was through, a brief prickling sensation playing over his hide as he walked from the gate in Canterlot through the gate in his personal castle in Ponyville.

"A bit early my liege," said a bored stallion without looking up from his newspaper.

"You know how court goes," Dusk said with a heavy sigh, taking his tiara off and tossing it at a hat rack next to the gate.

"Doesn't," the stallion said, flipping a page. "Do not disturb?"

"Uhm, friends only," he said, taking off the gold peytral and hanging it next to the crown. "But let messages through, I'm not doing anything that should be dangerous."

"Ten-four, your highness."

Dusk chuckled as he started to make his way through the more familiar halls of his crystal palace, taking a moment to stop in at the public library and make his presence known there before continuing the three doors down to his laboratories.

He poked his head in, a small class of ponies, griffons, changelings, dragons, yaks, and even a cat from Abyssinia looking up when he opened the door.

"Hey there Apple Bloom," he said. "How's class going today?"

As he finished his question there was a small popping sound, followed by the sound of breaking glass and the filling of the room with light gray smoke. The window was slid up by a pink glow, and the smoke quickly pushed out of the room to display a stone-faced pale yellow mare.

"Oh, its goin' alright," she said, her gaze wandering over the room until she saw a cracked glass beaker, a blushing green colt with lowered ears meeting her eyes. "Dunno how young Erlenmeyer here discovered how to make a smoke bomb out of vinegar and baking soda, but ah also never did figure out how Professor Sweetie Bell burns cereal, so ah guess life will retain its mysteries."

There was a quiet laughing in the room at the mention of their other mentor's cooking skill, the colt looking relieved as he joined in with the chuckles.

"Well class," Bloom said while clacking her hooves together, looking at a clock. "It's a bit early still, but if Prince Dusk Shine is here then he probably wants ta use his personal equipment, so we'll call it a day."

Dusk raised a hoof as he started to say that he could wait, but was drowned out by cheering as the class put away their equipment and stampeded through the door, several of the tiny creatures running between his legs as he let out several giggles from tickling ears and shifted to let some of the taller ones through.

"Ya'll be back tomorrow!" Apple Bloom called down the hall. "We gotta finish our classes on reactions ya hear!"

Only giggling chatter came back to her, and she sighed before looking up at Dusk with a smile.

"Well hey there, Prince Dusk," she said, something in her tone and eyes making Dusk sweat. "How nice to see your royal countenance today."

Dusk let out an awkward laugh, quickly broken off as he cleared his throat.

"I don't suppose you'd be lookin' for a," Apple Bloom pressed her chest against his, leaning on her back legs a bit for leverage, before fluttering her long, dark eyelashes up at him, "partner in today's experiment, are ya?"

He immediately craned his head away, his long horn scratching his back as he said to the ceiling, "You know your sister doesn't care for you teasing me, Bloom."

He listened to her laughter, clear and sweet in its joy.

"Ya, I know," she said, backing away from him and his thundering heartbeat. He sighed and made the mistake of lowering his head, freezing when he found her eyes bare inches from hers, her breath playing over his muzzle sweetened by mint and a touch of vanilla.

"It's just so easy," she said, giving him a quick peck on his nose and prancing down the hallway giggling.

"Tell Scoots and Sweetie I said hi," he managed to call out, his face crimson as she turned down the hall and walked away. He counted to three before he lowered his head between his elbows, breathing steadily and clearing his head before he walked into the lab, shaking off the last of his blush.

With a sweep of his magic he cleared away the table used for the classes held here, the legs folding under as the solid wood stacked itself on a far wall, as well as closing the window. With a turn of his hoof on a certain tile and a spark of magic, the floor lit before certain parts raised, his personal tables floating up and clicking into place. Beakers and papers floated out from each slot, organizing themselves on tabletops before the floor once more became solid.

He used his telekinesis to slide the food on his back onto what amounted to his lead desk, the same one Apple Bloom had been using. He felt himself flush again as he caught an errant whiff of her sweet perfume, one she distilled herself, before he shook his head and walked over to his current project.

As he moved his horn lit, in essence telling the room's magic what he had planned for the day. The tables arranged themselves as he needed, stacks of paper rearranging and components filing along as they came together in the center of the room. A crystal on the wall lit from inside, telling Dusk that the magic inside was recording his voice as intended.

"Alright," he murmured, looking over the last bits of the equations that appeared on a chalkboard at the head of the room. Nodding, he noted with surprise that not only had Bloom been able to conjure the equations somehow, but she had added notes on some of the chemical components he'd been using. Swiftly checking them over, he found them sound, and once again had to shake his thoughts from his head.

"AJ would kill me, then Mac would bring me back, then kill me," he muttered under his breath. "Plus she's probably only teasing me, plus plus she's in a sort-of-thing with Scootaloo and Sweetie Belle," he finished.

He glanced at the whiteboard again, semi-consciously floating over the flask of juice and sipping it before shaking his head again.

Turning his attention to the table, he bundled his reagents and floated over a professional distillation kit. Adding in a certain batch of ingredients to a glass flask, he took an absent bite of his sandwich before lighting the can of jellied alcohol and cracking the window once again for ventilation.

Swirling the mix in the flask, he used a bit of magic on the particles floating in the liquid to imbue them with a temporary thaumic register before placing it on a wire stand over the burning jelly.

Checking his notes, he watched the combination fully merge as the magic dissolved.

He waited for a full minute, carefully watching the clear mixture, before taking a live seed from the table. Taking a deep breath, he raised an aura shield in front of him before dropping the seed into the mixture.

Holding his breath, he felt his heart pounding again, his pulse racing as his entire concentration weighed on the crystal flask.

And then the seed burst, slowly, brown tendrils slipping from it and creating a network as a single sprout pushed out from the top. It pushed, pushed, pushed out, growing two leaves, then a bulb, then blooming out into a fully formed Gardenia.

Carefully Dusk lifted it from the stove, swirling it gently in the air as it cooled.

As he watched, the fluid remained clear, and as it cooled, the flower retreated into its bulb, the bulb returned to a stalk, the leaves returning, then the roots, and in a minute he once again had a full seed, still living.

He watched this part very carefully, for a full few minutes, before sighing and placing the flask back on the stove.

"Fluid does affect the flow of time as hypothesized," he said aloud, picking up a quill and recording the final results. "Flower was recorded to fully bloom when the liquid is being heated, with the process reversing as the liquid cools."

He paused, letting that sink in before a large grin broke out on his face and he started prancing in place.

"I've done it!" he cried, flinging his wings out as he cried, "I've created liquid time!"

He then frowned at the flower, once again growing out of its seed.

"Fluid seems to be supporting the subject's nutritional needs as well as augmenting its growth speed," he noted, looking down at the notes he was taking. "Further experimentation needed to determine the sources it's pulling from, as well as how far forward the subject could reasonably and sustainably grow."

Dusk set down his notes. He gazed out of the window as he let his thoughts filter through his mind, and let his magic unwrap the sandwich on the table. He took an absent bite, his ear twitching at a crystalline chime he heard.

Wonder if that's from another class, he thought absently, taking another bite before he dropped the wrapped food on the desk.

"Further experimentation should also test different materials," he dictated to himself, glancing at his notes before nodding at the clear script. "Possibilities include stone and wood, and should include testing on what happens as the material is moved back in time. Do they also return to their starting point? Do they go further, becoming pieces of unworked stone and living wood?"

He glanced to the side, looking a large, distended flower bulb right in its petals.

"What would happen to living organic material, such as a common lab mouse?" he asked the bulb, watching as it spread its petals to display dark, slightly glowing pollen. "Would it revert to a single cell?"

His brain kicked itself in the shins, and his eyes widened.

His eyes rocketed down along the stem of the flower, following it down into the glass flask, the liquid inside having reached a roiling boil. The seed had grown a massive root network, filling the glass and spilling out the fluid, which was rewinding the time it fell through before splashing on the desk, the wood there sprouting up tiny saplings that wilted before growing more than half an inch.

Dusk watched in horror as the spaces that the droplets fell through, while themselves were unaffected, seemed to start affecting anything that passed through them. He watched as one of the saplings made it just higher than its brothers before suddenly reaching one of these pieces of affected air, and turning instantly into dust, aged beyond existence.

"Oh buck," Dusk Shine murmured, reaching out with his magic unconsciously, reaching out with a spell he'd been practicing, a quick clean-up spell he'd been trying to make.

A spell that rewinds the last few seconds of time.

His magic touched the liquid in the flask, the liquid concoction of time he'd created, and everything he knew was white and noise and power.

He felt himself being blown backward, flying through the air blindly as his eyes flashed glimpses of color in between the white, of the same power he'd harnessed with his friends to vanquish Nightmare Moon, vanquish Discord, vanquish Chrysalis. He watched as it formed an orb around him, a cannonball of sorts.

And then it shrunk in on Dusk Shine before the walls collapsed and faded away before a sharp pain struck his spine and all he knew was darkness.

***** ***** ***** ***** *****

Dusk Shine groaned, the noise instinctual and rough, his eyes almost cramping as they tried to shut themselves even harder than they already were. He licked his lips, tasting blood and stone and dust, before forcing his eyes to crack open.

He found himself in a familiar room, though it was swimming too much for him to truly recognize it. He shook his head before wincing and letting out another low moan.

He reopened his eyes, again, then rolled onto his belly to try and take better stock of the situation.

His back complained mightily, but he was able to move so it wasn't broken. He raised a hoof and touched the back of his head, wincing and looking at the hoof. Luckily it was still dry, telling him that while he'd had a head wound, it had stopped bleeding at least. Still tender, but not bleeding.

Wiggling all of his hooves, and listening to the scraping they made on the dusty stone floor, he sighed in relief before slowly, slowly starting to stand.

He found himself on his legs, looking blearily around the large room he'd landed in. Looking around at the walls, he focused as much as he could to stop the image from swimming. He narrowed his eyes, not believing them at first.

"Did I get blasted to the original Castle of the Two Sisters?" he asked the area, his tongue a bit sticky in his mouth. Possible dehydration? How long had he been out?

He looked around the room again, looking for the hole he'd had to have entered through.

Strangely though, the walls of the room were mostly intact, though there was some rubble lying around from some destroyed pillars. He looked up, seeing a dusky sky through the hole he'd come to learn had been caused by Nightmare Moon. Wondering what time it was, he stretched his wings before forcing them through the air, flapping them twice before actually lifting up into the air.

He broke out onto the roof, skidding to an uneasy halt while his world spun for a moment, letting out a dry gagging noise as he forced his sandwich to stay down. This feat accomplished, he raised his head, looking for the mountain in the distance and the city, his city, on its side.

He found the mountain, that was easy. But to his horror, the city that was supposed to be there, wasn't.

"Oh Celestia," he breathed, trotting to the edge of the roof and looking closer, "did I knock Canterlot off the side of the Canterhorn?"

As he looked closer, though, he saw something that made his blood freeze.

Ponies, crawling over the stone outcropping that formed the base of the city, its natural seat. Glancing to the east, his eyes swept the horizon a few times before being forced to admit that the Ponyville clock tower, as well as the towers of his castle, just weren't there.

His mind whirled, going over the few seconds he remembered after seeing the flower growing out of the flask, going over his spell-form as he reached out to try and turn back the local time around the flask.

As the form was swept into the time magics swirling wildly, boiling in the flask.

"Oh buck," he whispered, his eyes gazing hard at the horizon where Ponyville should be.

Where it would be.

"No," he breathed, before chuckling. "No, it's not possible. Anytime now, I should be sent forward to where I was. That's the way the Starswirl time dilation spell worked, this shouldn't be any different. The duration may be longer, but it still shouldn't last much longer than a minute."

Dusk took the time to breathe in, forcing himself to relax and get a good look around while he had the chance to take in the past state of Equestria.

"Hey, there's the path the girls and I used to get to the castle," he said, following what seemed to be a large wagon trail. "Looks like it used to be an actual road, I guess for getting supplies into this castle.

"Oh Celestia, speaking of," he said, looking down at the Castle of the Two Sisters. "There's the hole I saw Luna blast into the castle when she missed Celestia."

Looking down into the room, he let out a small ah when he saw a large contraption in the room he'd missed, with a large marble orb on top of several fixtures. "And there's the vault she kept the elements on until they stopped working for her."

Flicking his tail, he sat still for another moment, then two, before sighing.

"I guess the liquid time concoction strengthened the spell beyond its normal constraints," he said, fluttering down into the room. "I might need a catalyst to get back to my time in that case. Time for some," he picked up a shard of marble, clearing away a patch of ground as he smiled, "diagnostics."

Using the rock he scratched sigils and arcane circles meant to capture and direct thaumic energy, setting up a complex spell network designed to let him know certain properties about himself.

Using his being, his essence, as a base, he set up the network to tell him when he would return to his time, and if he needed to supply anything to do so.

The spell fizzled, and he frowned.

"Alright, let's get less specific," he murmured, using his magic to heal some of the scrapes on the stone, now seeing if there was a shell around him, a tether to his time.

The spell fizzled.

Frowning, he erased most of the sigil and some of the circles, now just trying to reach an anchor into his own time.

The spell fizzled.

He stood, powering up his horn and attempting a simple divination spell, to when he and Spike were resting together in the throne room, what was less than an hour ago in his personal timeline. As he had first hoof knowledge of the event, it should have shown easily, like a memory.

The spell fizzled.

He slammed his hoof, indenting the marble he stood on, casting the spell and receiving the same result.

"It's happened," he said to himself, starting to pace on the carpet that was only recently starting to molder. "It has already happened, the only way I wouldn't be able to access that point in time is..."

He slowed, looking at the bare bones circle that should have returned the location of his time. Chewing his bottom lip, he made some more alterations before powering the sigils again.

This time, the spell did not fizzle but instead returned a result.

A negative.

"My time doesn't exist," he whispered. "It's gone."

Homesteading, or Squatting?

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Dusk sat, his legs more giving way than bending. His breath remained calm, measured, and he had to chalk that up to not really believing what the spell had returned to him. Just to be sure, he ran it again, praying to the sun that it would change.

After getting the confirmation that it hadn't, he changed the spell to make sure that it was working, focusing on the current time.

A positive, so the spell was working as expected.

"Okay, okay, so, what exactly does that mean," he said, speaking to himself. "The spell is working, confirmed. It returns that my time is no longer there. That means that whatever sent me back either erased any way I could have had back into my own time, or that it... it..."

He took a deep breath, working through the hitching to say, "It means that my time doesn't exist anymore."

He sat there for a long time, looking over the circles absently.

"Hey, at least I'm an alicorn," he said, sniffing and wiping away his tears. "If nothing else, I can just, like, wait until I get back. I mean, that's pretty much what Luna did, right?"

Flapping his wings, it took him a second to get them working together to generate enough lift, but soon he was back on the roof. Narrowing his eyes, he gazed towards the Canterhorn.

"So, I don't see any struts or walls," he said, chewing on his bottom lip. "That might be some foundation work, that slab there... So I'm looking at the first fifty years of Canterlot's construction, tops, which makes this sometime around..." He paused to run through his mental history. "thirty or so years after Luna's banishment. They're probably still living out of the canvas town that Celestia set up at the base of the mountain."

He licked his dry lips.

"So that should be, what, nine hundred and seventy years until Luna's return," he whispered, looking at the space Ponyville should have been, would be.

He gazed for longer than he cared to think about, glancing up at the sun and guessing that it was around five in the afternoon. Taking flight again, he cruised around the castle and looked over the area, taking in once again the sights of the area.

"Alright, it looks like the Everfree is just starting to reclaim the building," he murmured, flying low into the gulch that ran around the plateau the castle sat on. "The stream is still here, that's great as long as it stays pure." Tilting his wings, he flew along the wall until he came upon a cave opening. Glancing in, he nodded as he looked over the Tree of Harmony.

"There's Celestia and Luna's cutie marks," he said as he examined the tree, "but it seems as though my own has yet to grow into existence.

"It also seems as though the Elements have been returned to the boughs," he said as he looked over the branches. "Maybe as some sort of recharge after banishing Luna?" He reached up to touch his own Element, Magic, but frowned as it pushed away his hoof with a barrier. "I wonder if that's because it's charging, or if I've been detached as a part of being flung into the past?"

He sat there for a while, his hoof touching the trunk just below Luna's mark before he shook his head and returned to his patrol of the outskirts of the castle.

He returned to the courtroom once he finished, dropping through the hole in the ceiling and flaring his wings to hover to a landing. He looked over the circles once again before banishing them from the stone.

"Alright, so, all I need to do is wait," he said, glancing around the crumbling room. "Maybe I could hibernate? Is that a thing alicorns can do?"

He walked through one of the doors leading from the room, walking along a dusty hall littered with spiders until he found a decently sized room with a sturdy door. Walking through it, he took one look at the bed before teleporting it away. Utilizing a simple cleaning spell, he laid on his hooves and glanced around the room, before using a stray piece of rubble to chalk a circle around himself.

"Alright, since this is just a test, let's set it for, say, fourteen hours," he mumbled, setting sigils around the circle to keep him in stasis for that amount of time. "I should wake up nice and fresh in the morning, and I'll be able to see if that's a feasible way of passing the time."

Tossing the rock to the side, he laid his head on his forelegs as a pillow before channeling power into the circle. He was out before the spell finished, descending into a dreamless sleep.

**** **** Fourteen Hours Later **** ****

Almost like he was blinking, Dusk Shine returned to consciousness, taking a moment and starting to yawn before he flinched. There was a thick crust of saline sediment across both of his eyelids, and his mouth had also been cemented shut. Working his tongue he eventually built up enough moisture to lick his lips, parting them with a groan.

He swiped away the crust over his eyes with a hoof, blinking roughly and gazing around the room. His entire body hurt, from his cramping legs to his burning nose, and as he snorted he noted with detached horror that he'd dislodged a spider's web from one nostril.

His entire skeleton creaked as he limped his way to the courtroom, his wings as well as screaming as he took off into the morning sky towards the thin stream in the canyon.

He barely managed to lower himself fifty yards before his wings gave out, and he plummeted nearly seventy yards before splashing bodily into the water.

Luckily it was barely deep enough for him to stand in, and he took a massive breath once he breached the surface, coughing and hacking as the freezing cold water leaked down his nose and into his throat.

"Hibernation not viable," he croaked out, before taking a drink of the water he was immersed in. It was gritty in his mouth, but so much better than the dry desert his tongue had become overnight. He let the water flow into his nostrils before blowing them back into the water, cleaning them of any residual spider occupancy. Blearily, he looked up into the pale blue sky.

"No wonder Nightmare Moon was so mad at everything when she got… when she gets back," he remarked to the sun.

He remained in the stream for a bit, finding a place where the current was strong and standing there to rinse the dust off of his body, before he flapped his way back to the roof near the hole. Landing, he didn't bother trying to stay on his feet, instead letting the momentum roll him onto his back. Splaying his legs and wings, he sighed at the warm embrace of the sunlight.

His stomach took the moment to remind him that mornings were the time ponies usually broke their fast.

"Dusk Shine's field notes, day two," he said out loud to nothing. "Hibernation attempt did not actually put the subject into a true stasis, merely consuming magic for a period of fourteen hours to put the subject into a dreamless state. This resulted in the subject's form reacting accordingly, i.e. nutritional loss and normal bodily strain from remaining still and casting for so long."

Wincing, he stretched his legs as his stomach rumbled again. He ran a hoof over his chest, finding himself dry enough after his freezing bath.

"End field notes for the morning of day two," he murmured as he sat up. Getting to his hooves, he stretched his wings as well, making sure they wouldn't fail him again before he made his way to the other side of the gorge surrounding the castle.

Keeping his ears trained on the forest, he sighed as he looked over the low-growing greenery and detritus spread around the base of the trees.

"I hate the taste of grass," he muttered as he lowered his neck to begin grazing, trying to keep to the patches of clover but using the wild grass as filler. Taking the time to look for any other foodstuffs, he found evidence of young tubers and some not-quite-ripe strawberries. He even found some young wild carrot stems topped by tiny white flowers but shied away from a large patch of onions. He also took the time to gather a bunch of oak acorns lying on the ground for preparation later.

Looking at the acorns floating in his aura, he munched on a mouthful of grass thoughtfully before he used his magic to gather a bunch of the longer green blades. Concentrating, he attempted to weave them into a simple bag that Rarity had coached him through.

Letting the magic dissipate, he smiled a bit when it didn't fall apart right away, before 'sticking' it to his side with a spell and filling it with the acorns.

He grazed for at least fifteen minutes before the bland taste of grass finally turned his stomach enough that he couldn't eat anymore. Looking around, he found a dead sapling and pulled it up, splitting it into a series of staves and marking the various vegetables around so he wouldn't have to look for them again.

Walking back to the side of the gorge, he flew down and sipped from the flowing stream, no longer gritty from his landing in it. Smacking his lips to fight off the chill of the water, he looked around the gorge and sighed, looking up at the still morning sky.

"What am I doing?" he asked quietly. "I can't go into stasis, and I can't travel along a path that no longer exists." He glanced again at the sun, the body that had at one time been given to him. "Am I just waiting, just existing, until my time comes around again?"

He gazed down at the stream for a while, watching leaves and sticks flow past him, the occasional silver gleam of a fish's scales.

"Alright then," he said, standing and widening his stance, steeling the heart beating so erratically in his chest. "So be it. I will live and thrive until my existence comes back into the world, and I can go back to my friends and subjects, the little ponies that make life worth living."

Nodding, he took a moment to use a hoof to process the acorns in the bag, shelling them and breaking them into small pieces, before he used his sticking spell to connect the bag to a side of the small river. He then spread his wings, catching the air with them and shooting into the sky and dropping into the hole in the ceiling with a single beat of his wings.

"First, I need to secure a place to grow some of the food I found in the forest," he murmured, trotting through the opening that led further back into the castle. "Luna's gardens should still be in the center of the castle’s walls," he muttered to himself, "maybe they left behind the tools I'll need to set up something sustainable."

He found the area where the garden had been, and even a shed leaning against one of the surrounding walls, but both were empty. A large water pump was situated beside the shed, the head covered in such rust that he wasn’t sure it would work at all. The ground itself was another nightmare, overgrown with weeds and a sprawling species of thistle that made his skin itch horribly when it pricked him.

Sighing, he began by taking the weeds by the root. He spent much of the rest of his morning pulling out the worst of the species and simply chucking them over the wall, making sure to pull the dirt off the roots first.

Looking up into the noon sun, he wiped his forehead with a wing joint and once again flew down to the creek, drinking his fill and checking his acorns before coming back to the plot to deal with the itching thistle. He watched, dismayed, as several seed pods fell from the trailing vines and immediately started sprouting where they landed.

He slowed his work, taking the entirety of branches in his aura and clipping them, levitating them over the gorge before dropping them to the stone below. He made sure that the seeds could find no purchase in the hard rock, before piling the rest of the thistle cuttings there. He returned to the single massive stem, pulling out the entirety of the remaining plant before bringing it to the pile and burning the whole thing.

Once he'd assured that the embers had been doused with a spout from the stream, he returned to the outside plot again and looked over what was left.

A large yard, spotted with pits and several dead spots that the thistle had taken over. Maybe the size of a couple of professional buckball fields side-by-side. Almost a rectangular acre, then.

"I'll have to use some of what AJ taught me, but it should work for just me," he murmured.

His stomach then cramped hard enough that he winced before flying off into the woods, doing what the bears do best behind a bush before flying back to his plot.

"Alright, so I need to either find a chamber pot or," he shivered, "a garderobe, or at least find a place for an outhouse. First, though," he murmured, looking around the plot and locating the rusty water pump.

Cautiously pumping the handle, he found that it screeched like a banshee but did eventually manage to pull water through the spout, though it was a dubious brown color and he doubted that it was safely drinkable. It didn't smell foul though, and the ground around the drain that it splashed on didn't instantly rot, so he hoped it was just muddy. Not knowing how to fix it, he made up his mind to simply drink from the creek for the time being.

Checking the sun, he figured he would spend the rest of the day exploring the castle and seeing what had been left behind.

As it turns out, not much.

His trip through what had been the library netted him a single book, abandoned on top of a shelf, in old equish. Giving it a quick and dirty mental translation, he guessed it was a fiction piece, seemingly about a mare that worshiped Celestia a little fervently and eventually withered away. Sighing, he started to return it to the top of the shelf, hesitating before he instead moved it to the large desk that had been abandoned by the staff.

Blowing away the dust on the desktop, he gently placed the book in the middle of it and used a simple cleaning charm to return the book to a pristine state.

"You'll be the first of my collection," he muttered, sealing the promise with a simple enchantment to keep the book at its current state. "A book about chasing perfection and falling short."

He gazed at the simple cloth cover before snorting, walking out of the library and returning to his search.

At the end of the look-through, he had a running mental tally of what he'd found.

The single fiction book in the library; a maid's diary in middle-common equish; a large bolt of simple undyed cotton, thick and probably used for quilts; a damaged spearhead; a small anvil left behind in a forge downstairs, as well as a couple of pieces of firewood; a vault that was barren of anything besides a couple of golden coins; the two secret chambers off of the library he’d known about, containing the Diary of the Two Sisters and the Inspiration Manifestation, which he left alone after a brief mental tug-of-war; and the sealed rooms of Celestia and Luna.

For a long time he stared at those seals, wondering what would happen if he dismissed them. Celestia probably put them up herself after all, and she might have alarms attached to the spell-work.

In the end he left them alone and returned to the rooms of the servants, left dusty but well cared for after the thirty or so years since abandonment. Using the quilt material and some errant clouds, he made a mattress for himself and placed it in the room that had a sturdy door and well-kept shutters.

Opening said shutters, he used his wings to start moving the air around the room before using his horn to direct the air current, creating a vortex and using it to eject the insects and dust from the room. Plopping his mattress into the middle of the room, he levitated the wardrobe out of the room before using magic to open the doors.

Peering inside, he used the same vortex to blast away the same type of debris before replacing it in what he was now thinking of as his room.

"Alright," he said, laying on the overstuffed bed, looking around the bare room. "Could use some art, and probably some insulation spells before true summer hits, but it’s nice. Cozy."

He looked at a large bare wall, considering making a tally mark to signify how many days he'd been here, but discarded the idea when he realized that would likely just serve to drive him insane. Instead, he returned to the area where he'd discarded the weeds from his new garden and used a spell to synthesize a few sheets of basic paper.

His stomach growled again as he used some of the grass in the area to create a string for binding the bundle together.

"Looks like my magic should be conserved until a steady supply of nutrition is secured," he said with a frown, floating his new journal through the window back to his room. "On top of that, I should locate some hemp for my plot, as it can be turned into paper easier than most other plants."

He took a moment to consider some of the other uses for similar plants, taught to him by a certain yellow pegasus after seeing one of his mini-breakdowns, but he discarded the thought.

For now.

Shaking his head, he flew out to the forest and used the rest of the day to graze from the clover and grab some likely candidates for his burgeoning garden. Eating his fill, he found a downed tree and used his magic to form a few tools from it, most importantly a canteen and a cask he could fill from the stream.

The rest of the wood was formed into various handles and rods, with some nearby stones melded together and turned into the heads of the tools. At the end of the exercise he had a shovel, a rake, a large flat blade, a water bucket, and a simple plow.

Flying his items over to the plot, he placed the roots and vegetables inside the castle along the floor, and stored all of his tools easily within the leaning shed.

He glanced over the plot once more, taking a moment to run his hoof through the topsoil and smile, before he flew down into the ravine and filled his cask and canteen. Pulling his acorn bag out of the river, he tried a piece, his mouth smacking as he took in the… flavor. Flying back to the castle, he stopped at the forge for a moment to scrape up some of the carbon burnt into the stones.

Returning to his room, he used a small amount of his water and the soot to create some ink, snacking on the tasteless acorn pulp. Plucking a few of his own loose feathers, he sharpened the largest one’s barrel into a tip before dipping it into the ink and bringing it to the first page of his journal.

Journal of the Crown Prince Dusk Shine, once-attendant to the Sun and the Moon

The writing here marks the end of my second day, here in the past ages of a great country I knew as Equestria. As far as I know this is still Equestria, currently under the leadership of Princess Celestia, First of Her Name, Last of Her Name. I say past ages, as I was initially born in the nine-hundred and seventy-ninth year of the Golden Age of Celestia.

Indeed, I am a traveler of time, though there is no longer a time for me to travel forward into. If I must hazard a guess, I would guess that my arrival here in the past served to sever the timeline I traveled into from my own, creating an alternate existence for me to live through.

How immodest that must sound.

I found a way to shatter timelines, and instead of feeling any sort of elation or sense of achievement, I feel only loss.

I have mistakenly left behind a family, a group of friends that may as well have been family, as well as the entirety of a country that had been entrusted to me by the Royal Sisters.

Yes, both of them. Luna returns at the thousandth year, though I cannot tell if Celestia meant this to be or stumbles across the knowledge of it through some act of divination.

Regardless, that is obviously not the case anymore. At the moment I reside within the abandoned castle, left behind by Celestia after the banishment of her sister. While the Everfree forest does become dangerous and overgrown in the coming centuries, at the moment it is not uninhabitable. For the foreseeable future, I will reside here.

I spent most of the first day poorly, I will admit. After a brief examination of the grounds of the castle, I secured a water source before holing myself into a safe room and attempting a magical hibernation.

It did not go well.

Most of the second day was spent foraging, where I found some root vegetables and berries to augment my diet of clover and wild grass (which still tastes of vapid green water, ugh). I weeded an area that used to be a royal garden, as well as digging up a thistle plant that seeded and grew duplicates of itself rapidly. The first sign of the Everfree's corruption, perhaps? I burned the plant on the stone of the gorge.

After foraging and once again eating my fill of clover, I took some samples of the wild vegetation in the area and synthesized some tools. I suspect much of tomorrow will be taken up with planting and some stretching of the Earth Pony magic that resides within my body.

For the moment, however, my eyes grow strained from attempting to write by horn-light. Consider this the end of my second day.

Rubbing his eyes with a hoof and taking a sip from his canteen, he made motions to set aside the journal and quill, before scribbling in a last note.

PS, I suppose; I found no sign of a garderobe, thank Celestia, but also no other sign of a bathroom. I suspect the castle mainly functioned off of a chamber pot system, but no such pot remains. I will make some attempt at an outhouse, away from the castle walls, but for the time being, am relegated to using the bounty of the forest.

Ah, toilet paper, I will miss you so.

With that last note, he set aside his writings, before heading back out to the forest one last time before bed.

First Contact

View Online

Dusk Shine slung the hoe over his shoulder, letting out a breath and swiping at the sweat just under his forelock, before the beads could gather the steam they required to get into his stinging eyes.

Before they could gather into the stream, if you will.

He chuckled at that thought, before he groaned as he realized that he'd laughed at his own extremely lame joke. Not for the first time, his gaze turned towards the edges of the forest, wondering at the small settlements that he was sure to be on the outskirts. Earth ponies gathering from the bounty of the forests and planting from it, pegasi assisting where they could with their atmospheric magics, unicorns enchanting tools like he had to make them cut easier or just last longer.

Sighing, he shook his head and turned back to his garden, smirking at the green tops already growing there. Big Mac's point when he had told Dusk to get his hooves dirty every now and then hadn't been lost. Something about just having his hooves in the dirt calmed his sometimes panic-twisted mind, on top of getting his earth magics into the plants.

Still, the last couple of days hadn't necessarily been pleasant.

The first thing he'd gotten sorted, after another trip out to the forest, was finding a promising area for his outhouse. After that he'd grabbed some of his scrap wood and, thanking the stars and sun for Granny Smith's willingness to talk the ears off of any pony within her (narrow) range of vision, began digging and fortifying the hole that would be his septic tank.

After digging down to his shoulders he set up the frame to keep the dirt from collapsing. He then built a platform to sit on top of the whole ordeal, along with a plank-and-grass-twine toilet lid.

He looked around the platform, before shaking his head.

"It needs at least some sort of canopy," he murmured, "but it'll wait until I can get some food in me to help the magic along."

The rest of that day was used to get his plow through the ground, tilling as much of the old garden as he could stand before he started sowing the plants he had recovered from the forest, as well as some of the wild grains he didn't quite recognize but thought he could process later.

This was more backbreaking than it needed be, mostly because he planted the way he'd been taught by Applejack and her family instead of using his magic to place everything. The upside was that he was able to work in each and every plant, using his more innate earth magic to help along with the rooting process, so he was sure that each and every cutting and seed took to the earth completely and without issue.

After setting up some simple thaumic fields to act as a sort of scarecrow system, he'd eaten what had felt like his weight in berries and roots before draining his canteen and flopping into the mattress in his room. His journal received a terse update before he passed out for the night.

He awoke to the smell of hot, sweaty pony, and sighed before he gathered some cloth scraps and flew down to the stream with his mattress and cask. Using the scraps as rags, he wiped himself and his mattress down and refilled his cask before flying up to his room to drop off the unnecessary items, his skin shivering in the chilly springtime air.

After taking care of his morning business (and setting up a scent enchantment on the toilet lid, pine needle) he stood in his field, feeling conflicted.

On one hoof, his small field of food stocks had taken off overnight, no doubt due to his hooves-on approach to their planting and care. They grew in even lines, and some were already tall enough to tickle his shins.

On the other, his field was spotted with bucking weeds, and he could even spot a couple of the stunted and short branches of the bramble he'd thought gone.

Growling, he'd approached the weeds like an old soldier; with both a willingness to erase them, and tools to do so.

Which lead into the middle of this third day, with Dusk standing on the stone of the ravine and once again watching the black smoke rise off of a bramble bonfire, his hoe on his shoulder and the fire twinkling dangerously in his eyes as the sun gazed down on the scene.

Waiting until the entirety of the plants had been reduced to ash, he used a siphon of magic to quench the area before nodding smartly and flying back up to the field.

He worked for another half-hour or so before he heard the flapping of heavy wings, freezing him on the spot.

"Ah, horse-apples," he muttered, before he panic-cast a standard disguise spell that he'd learned from Celestia, something simple but too taxing for a normal unicorn to keep up for long.

In a second's time his form became malleable, soft, before the spell fed the specifications into the thaumic pattern; his size was compacted, becoming a hoof or so shorter than Big Mac was/had been, but just as stout an earth pony as he'd been; his coloring became a darker mulberry, his mane losing the streaks and lightening a shade or two with his tail doing the same; and his cutie mark becoming that of a sheaf of wheat and a shovel over a golden sunburst pattern.

The magic dispelled just in time as a massive pegasus, almost at the same build as his new size, flapped its way over the wall and into his line of sight.

The blue mare wheeled lazily through the air a couple of times, taking in the field and him before coming to a hover just over some of his newly growing crops and, to his shock, evacuating herself right over the field!

"Life for your crops, mud trespasser," she giggled, before letting out a squealing laugh. "I wondered who'd be dumb enough to be settin' fires in the forest. Guess I'm not too surprised to fin'a dirt eater. What the buck you think you're doin' in the Castle of the Sistahs, huh? Squattin'? Pulling out what life you can from the shitters of royalty?"

"Uhm," Dusk managed to start, before a hawking noise had him look up just in time to receive a muzzle-full of snot and spit in his eyes.

"Tell ya what, mud boy," he heard her say thoughtfully above him still, as he reached a hoof up to scrape at his face, "ya give me a good enough reason, an' I won' report ya to the eeyoop."

"The wha?" Dusk asked, flicking the phlegm away from him.

Huffing, the pegasus raised her voice, shouting, "The EEYOOP, dimlight! The Princess' new guard!? Ears full'a rocks, muddy!?"

Dusk shook his head, ears ringing. "The E.U.P.?" he asked.

Scowling, the mare flared her wings before swooping low over the earth, forcing Dusk to bodily roll out of the way of one of her hooves as she attempted to bat his nose, hard.

"You look here, dimlight," she said, leveling out, "you talk down to me, an' I don't care that your bones are made outt'a the rock you climbed outt'a, I'm takin' your skull home. Now, you give me two reasons I don't rat ya to the guard!" she squawked at him.

"Uh, I don't have much," he said, waving a slightly slimy hoof at his field. "I'm just getting started here. What do you want?"

She landed, looking him over from down her nose and sniffling haughtily. "Well, I hear you mud ponies are built tough'fer and, heh, sturdier, if you know what I mean," she said with a wiggle of her eyebrows.

He did not and opened his mouth to tell her so when she let out a loud huff and stomped a foreleg. "I want you to dick me down, mud boy," she said, batting his muzzle roughly with a large wing.

"Oh," Dusk said, blinking twice before he sighed heavily. "No," he said, before dropping the illusion spell.

The pegasus had about half a second to gasp and let her wings drop to her side before Dusk shot her with a temporary paralyzing spell, causing her entire body to go rigid and immobile.

He eyed her, looking down over the pegasus, unmoving but for her wildly flicking eyes.

"Calm down," he said, gently. He settled himself on his rump before he said, "Now, I'm sure you're not normally such a nasty pony, yes?"

Her eyes vibrated up and down, almost disappearing.

"So I'm going to let you go," he continued, nodding slowly as she eyed him. "Unfortunately, I can not let my existence be known outside of these walls, so I'm going to have to wipe your memory first."

Her pupils constricted, and from the ammonia he was suddenly smelling, she had also watered his field.

He cocked his eyebrow, scrunching his face before using his magic to release just her head. "I am an expert mage," he said, giving her a look. "It's not going to hurt you, maybe a tickle at most."

To his continued amazement, he watched as her face collapsed in on itself, fat tears falling from the creases of her eyes.

"I know the truth, ya magnificence," she said in between huge, wracking sobs, "I know tha truth, I've seen a unicorn oblit'rate memories before, it leaves the pony a useless lump of flesh and I deserve it, for talkin' so to one of your standing sire, please mercy sire-"

After that point Dusk was no longer able to understand her blubbering. Something about making it quick?

"Hey, hey," he murmured, reaching out and gently turning her muzzle up to look at him. "Do I look like any other unicorn?"

Confused, she shook her head gently.

"It's not gonna hurt. Look, I'll prove it," he said, before looking side to side quickly and leaning in, whispering the worst word her knew into her ear.

She gasped, looking at him with a blush, before a strangled giggle worked its way out of her mouth. "Never expected a royal to even know that one," she said.

"Right?" he said. "And now," he said grandly, his horn winking briefly as he cast a very minor Mind Fogging spell over her memory of his utterance, "you don't even know what I said, do you?"

She frowned, opening her muzzle to repeat his word, before confusion ran over her face. "But... But I didn't feel anything?"

"That's what I'm saying," he said, with a quick wink.

She looked at him, unbelieving. "But I shi' on your field," she said, tears still falling.

Dusk frowned heavily. "I care more that you called me a mud pony. Many times," he said, reaching out and gently batting her nose with his wing joint. "Earth ponies provide a very valuable service to the good of the kingdom by growing much of the crops that feed our civilization, and creating the wonderful foods and materials that make up the backbone of our society."

"Valuable flesh dildos," she muttered, Dusk's ears flicking as he looked at her, unbelieving. "Look, yeah, I un'erstand they grow all our stuff for us, but that's 'cause the unicorns make 'em do it! If they had free reign they'd be buckin' each other all day, in between shoving their faces full of all that food they grow!"

Dusk sat down, feeling the wrinkles setting in from the frown on his face. "I thought that Celestia outlawed the owning of other creatures when she and Luna ascen-"

"Beg pardon, my liege," the pegasus snorted, blinking away the remnants of her tears, "but the Great White Ass ain't left her new plot since she started building on it when the Nightmare took her sister from her," she said. "Ponies are going back to the not-so-old ways, an' quick."

Dusk Shine grit his teeth, narrowing his eyes as he looked up and towards the edge of the forest again, this time with the sinking feeling of his guts telling him his country needed him.

"What is your name," he snapped, standing to his full height and slipping into his I-am-the-leader-of-this-courtroom voice.

"L-Lily Sights, my lord," she whispered, flinching away from him.

"Lily Sights, I have a task for you," he commanded. "I am going to erase your memory, but implant an impulse within you. You will be friendly towards me, in any body that I take, and you will be willing to take on any task I ask of you, within reason. In addition, any time you use any slur, your tongue will become heavy with the taste of earth, and any food you taste for the next hour will have the flavor and texture of mud. This is your punishment. Do you accept these terms!?"

Blinking, she bowed her head, sniffling and nodding slightly.

"Very well," Dusk intoned, before waving his horn over her head.

She sagged where she stood, falling to her belly with an oof. Her ears waggled, as she looked up at him. "I thought you were gonna blast my mind out'a my ears?" she half-asked.

"I have need of information, first," he said, sitting down and gesturing for her to right herself. "I am not from this time. Tell me, what does your currency look like? Are you on the bit standard yet?"

"The wah?" she asked, slowly raising herself to sit on her haunches. "We use coins," she said, reaching into a wing to pull a purse out of the feathers and opening it. "Here, it even has the Princess's face onnit," she said as she offered a coin out.

He heard her whisper, "Never heard it called a bit before," as he looked over the coin. It had Celestia's face on one side, just as it always had, and when he flipped it over it still had Celestia's sunburst icon.

"And the silver?"

She dug through her bag again, pulling out a silver and a copper piece. "I only got three different kinds," she said as she traded the two coins for the gold one. "Hear tell there's a fourth, but a pegasus like me isn't likely to ever see a Platinum piece. From'at I hear, it has Platinum's face on one side, en' her crown on t'other."

Dusk nodded as he looked over the copper piece. "It was such in my time as well," he murmured to her, flipping the coin from the phoenix's head to the recognizable tail-feather. "Copper, Gold, and Platinum are all the same, but the silver bit..."

He flipped it back over to it's face side. It wasn't marked as Luna's coin, as it had been upon her return from the moon, or even as a Royal Guard's helmet, as it had been before she came back. Instead it showed two unicorns, one who was quite obvious from his beard, while the back showed a hooded stallion's face that Dusk was pretty sure belonged to Clover the Clever.

"Lots of horns on these coins," he muttered, frowning as he passed the money back over.

"Tha's what happens when unicorns are the ones controllin' the flow," she said, a bit sourly. "More'n three quarters of the royalty 'ave horns, an' then they own the other quarter an' tell 'em what's good for them. From wha' I hear, Equestria's been a real hole eva' since the Nightmare ate Luna, er whateva' it did."

Dusk blinked a couple of times in confusion before he caught on to the intricacies of what she was saying.

So that's the story Celestia circulated.

"So what happened with Celestia?" he asked her. "She and Nightmare battled, Celestia vanquished her, then what?"

Lily scratched her head for a moment, frowning at the dirt as she absently traced shapes into it. "That's a unicorn question, my liege," she muttered. "From what ah hear though, she refused to leave her personal quatahs for a year or sumthin, then she put out the ordahs that she wus lookin for'a new place for her capitol. Settled on tha' mountain shelf," she said as she waved a leg at the construction site on the Canterhorn. "Somethin' abou' crystals growin' in the caves there."

Dusk gazed up at the mountain for a bit before he snorted.

"Alright then, I only have a couple more questions," he said, looking down at Lily. "The first is, do all ponies talk like you?"

She immediately scowled at him, blushing hard and looking away. Clearing her throat, she slowly said, "I am a part of a flock that travels around the world. I use what words I have learned in the way I wish. My birthplace, north of Griffinstone, has had a lot of bearing on my current speech. Lot'sa bugbear, ya know?"

Dusk's ears had folded down, and he was looking at her apologetically. "You must hear that often, then. I'm sorry, I wasn't judging you, I just wanted to be sure to speak like the common pony if another came across me."

She shrugged at him, with a small frown. "Ya speak closer to a unicorn than an earth pony, but most'll prolly think you just got a stick up yer..." She paused, blushing a bit, before rolling a hoof through the air. "Y'know. Yer ass."

Dusk snorted, keeping his mouth in a tight, straight line. "Alright then. The second question would be, who's actually in charge? Who's the unicorn pulling Celestia's strings for her?"

"Oh, uh, dunno 'is name," Lily said with a frown. "But most ponies know that it's the Blueblood family that keeps itself on top, with the Silverstreak family bein' their most competition." Her ear twitched, and she followed up with, "From what ah've heard though, Platinum's main line comes up every now and then, especially when it crosses with one of those two."

Dusk snorted, smirking. "What year is it again?" he asked.

Lily's ears flicked again, and she frowned before they perked up. "Oh yeah, you said you weren't from aroun' this time. Hibernatin'?" she asked.

He opened his mouth, his mind attempted to summarize what exactly had happened, before he shrugged. "In a very rough way," he lied, before he waved a hoof at her. "But really, year?"

"Oh, uh," she murmured, looking down at the dirt and scratching a few lines into the dirt. "I think I wus born aroun' eight aey el, aft'ah Luna, so it's prolly aroun' thirty-four or five. A unicorn coul' tell ya, they care more abou' time than ah do."

"Alright, okay," Dusk said, calibrating his internal calendar to Thirty-Five A.L. until he could confirm the year. "That's about what I figured. Alright, how about locally? I don't suppose you have a local map on you or something?"

"Oh aye, 'cause buckin' paper just grows anywhere," she snorted, rolling her eyes.

Dusk frowned down at her, before grabbing a few errant blades of grass, enough to weave together into a two-inch square. With a simple spell, he converted the mass of the pulp into the paper, using some of the moisture inside of the blades and a bit of the cellulose to create a sticky patch of glue on the top of the strip.

Taking the thin sheet in his hoof, he waved it under Lily's widening eyes before sticking it to her nose.

"Gah," she squeaked, pawing at the blank note for a second before pulling it off and looking it over. "By the great teats, never though' I'd live to see actual, processed paper," she muttered, holding it up and watching it flick in the breeze.

"What about reed papyrus, or cotton rag sheets?"

"Earth ponies use reeds, but most of us fliers don't see much point to writin' everythin' down," she said with a shrug. "If it's that important, we'll borrow some reed paper from a groun' poun'a-"

She stopped suddenly, gagging lightly as she shoved her tongue out of her mouth, flapping and drooling as she mewled and pawed at it with a hoof.

"Told you," Dusk said, raising an eyebrow. "That's a Clean-Your-Mouth-Out enchantment, but I replaced the taste of soap with the taste of soil. That's a bare fraction of what an earth pony feels when you say horseapples like that. Now put your tongue away," he said, waving a hoof at her mouth.

With a slight cough and an extremely wrinkled muzzle, she slowly pulled her tongue back in, shivering as she looked dourly up at Dusk.

"No no, the eyes aren't going to get you out of it," he said, frowning at her. "Now, if I gave you some paper and something to draw with, could you make me a map?" A thought flashed into his head, and he perked up. "Actually, since I'm gonna blast your memory anyways," he ignored the slight whimper this time, "I can just do this."

With a bit of magic, he pulled up a clump of grass and weaved them into a much larger piece of paper before fusing them together. Looking around, he reached into his food stores magically and pulled out a few dark, barely ripened blackberries. Squeezing them and catching the juices, he used the fluid to draw across the page, printing out a copy of the map of Equestria that he remembered, without any of the labels.

Giving it a look-over to make sure that it was as geographically accurate as he could remember, he spread the page out on the ground and weighted it down on the corners, gesturing Lily over.

"Alright, this is the map of Equestria as I remember it," he said, gesturing to the page before tracing Equestria itself. "Tell me what's wrong, from what you can remember, and I'll edit it."

"Weyll," she said, before smacking her mouth a bit, continuing on a bit clearer, "These towns ain't there, first," she said as she pointed at Ponyville, Manehatten, Apple Loosa, Dodge City, and the twin cities of Baltimare and Fillydelphia. She nodded when Dusk swapped out the basic houses and buildings with forests.

Tapping three places just to the north of Ponyville, she said, "The hills here are where the main groups of earth ponies have settled, the ones who don't move around much. Above them, in the clouds, we pegasi have started bringing houses and buildings together into the largest cloud settlement to date. I think some of the big wigs are starting to call it Cloudsdale, after the valley it's hovering o'va, but I have'n been there in'a bit.

"The unicorns have mostly moved into Celestia's mountain of tents, under the castle she's havin' built," she said, jabbing at the base of the Canterhorn. "Some of them have started construction on their own places though, the richer of them, and there's some basic city planning stuff from what I've flown over. Can't move roads in rocks like you can in the clouds, eh?" she said with a chuckle.

"Maybe you can't," Dusk muttered, looking over the rest of the map.

Lily's ears flicked before pressing down to her skull.

"What about the Crystal Empire?" he asked, pressing a hoof to the northernmost part of the map.

"Celestia stopped telling that tale years ago," Lily said, shaking her head. "It used to come right after the tale of the founding, but that went to pot when Luna died. It stopped being a remind'ah about how they vanquished Sumnumbera and just started being a remind'ah about how Luna was gone."

Dusk hummed quietly to himself, nodding as he looked over the changed map. "His name is Sombra. And the Griffons? The Dragons? What of the other creatures of the world?"

"What about them?" she sniffed. "Griffons stay across the ocean, pillaging and making war with the bugbears of the north, and the dragons continue to randomly fly here from wherev'a an' take what they want before flying home."

"The griffons are fighting with the bugbears!?" Dusk said, his eyes widening for a moment before narrowing. "Wait, wait, you said it's only thirty-five years after Luna?" She nodded, and he scowled as he wracked his brains for the tiny tidbit of information he'd read once, pressing his hoof against his chin as he thought. "I believe that means they have a few generations more before the winged versions become more prevalent than their four-limb-ed versions, and even longer before those species start to develop their extra arms..."

His ears perked as Lily cleared her throat, asking softly, "My liege?"

He lifted his head as he realized that he had started muttering to himself, his chin and hoof slowly tucking into his chest as he thought aloud.

Lifting his hoof from his chin to his lips he cleared his throat gently before nodding to Lily.

"Sorry, I get lost in thought sometimes," he said with a small smile and a gentle blush, only one of which he was in control of. "But as far as you know, the Griffons are still united in a kingdom?"

Lily gave him a long look before she asked, "You're not from the past, are ya?"

Dusk kept the smile, though his eyes slackened and grew distant. "It's not important anymore," he whispered. "Either way I cannot return."

Lily watched him for a long moment as something calculated in her brain, before she took a step closer and gently leaned into him, her forelegs and wings coming out to pull him into an embrace.

His muscles stiffened before he leaned into her, his own legs coming up to wrap around her barrel as well. He gave her a gentle squeeze and a sigh.

After a moment he sniffed and said, "Thank you Lily, I appreciate it."

"Not a problem, sire," she murmured from somewhere around his neck.

He relaxed his grip and waited for her to pull away. After a moment, he instead felt something warm and slightly damp move across his ear, before he then felt her gently nibble on the tip of his ear.

"Lily, that's not comforting," he whispered, unable to help the tiny smile as she paused.

Snorting when she started chewing his ear again, he put a hoof on her barrel and pushed her away, smiling a bit when she tipped over and onto her back, his hoof still on her chest as he raised an eyebrow down at her.

"Sorry," she said, holding her shaggy hooves up beside her head in surrender. "It's, uhm, that time of year righ' now."

Dusk snorted again, before offering her a hoof up. "No worries, I suppose, but I'm not interested in anycreature right now, so please do cut it out."

"Righ', of course majesty, sorry," she murmured as she used his crooked fetlock to help herself up.

He used his wings to dust her back off as she did the same on her flanks. After the dusting, she glanced up at the sun. "Uhm, apologies my liege, but I was expected to fly back to the settlement if there wa' nothin' wrong here. There might be a coupl'a guards on the way if we don' wrap this up quick," she said, her ears flicking back.

Dusk sighed, nodding. "Alright then. Are there any requests for what you and the earth pony talked about?" he asked as he took a few steps back, his horn lighting as he readied the twin spells he needed.

"Can we 'ahve... well," she said with a slight blush and a wiggle of her brows.

Letting out a ragged sigh, Dusk dropped the two spells and cast a 'cooling' spell on her, her gasp and rough groan signifying the relief her body felt it had received. "There, horndog," he said, recharging the spells. "My name will be, uhm, Onyx Hooves, and I'm a settler who's a descendant of one of Celestia's gardening staff, here to reclaim some bit of his grandfather's works. After your, uh, 'quenching', you agreed to come back in a week to maybe purchase some of my crop in exchange for some basic materials. Sound good?"

Taking a deep breath, she braced her hooves in the ground and nodded. "Alright my liege, I trust ya'. Whenev'a ya ready."

He nodded, before reciting the last couple of steps for the memory spell and letting both forms complete. Even as his body returned to its earth pony form, Lily's ears flicked and her eyes fogged over, her head shaking side to side as she attempted to clear her sight as she looked up at his new form with confusion, before a salacious grin slipped over her muzzle and she pressed her chest to his.

"Hmm," she murmured under her breath, fluttering her eyes up at Dusk. "That was one of my bettah romps, lover-stallion," she said, gently rubbing her snout against his throat.

"Ah do mah b-best?" Dusk stuttered, blushing at the attention. "Good enough for ya to consider comin' back an' tradin' with me in tha future?" he continued in a rough mimicry of AJ's accent.

She gazed up into his eyes, fluttering her eyelashes for a moment before giving him a quick grin. "Yea, al'right," she murmured, leaning up and giving him a quick peck on his lips before taking a couple of steps back. "What'cha want me to bring then?"

"Uh," he said, blinking away his blush while his ears flicked to wave away some of their heat. "Well, a variety of good seeds woul' help me plant more crop, so bring me what ya'll like an' I'll grow it. If'n ya' get me some wood," he ignored her giggle, "ah'm pretty good at buildin' wit mah hooves, and ah coul' prolly get tha' wagon left in tha' shed working, and ah coul' start makin' deliveries out to ya's instead of havin' ta fly all the way here?"

She hummed, rubbing her chest against his as she thought. "I kin prolly get'cha all tha," she said. "But tha' merchents supplyin' are prolly gonna want more than crops for tha wood. Ya got bits?"

Of course he didn't, but he could fix that easily enough considering that there wasn't a royal treasury yet to check the validity of coins.

"Ah migh' 'ave a couple," he said thoughtfully, walking over to the shed and pretending to check something inside. "'Ow many, ya think?"

He shivered when she approached and ran an overly-friendly hoof across his flanks, slowly.

"Ah, I kin prolly secure ya enough for a whole wagon, if ya got me, hmm, twenny gold," she said, her other hoof coming up to slowly run over his other haunch.

Whinnying gently and shying away, he quickly transmuted a cloth bag from some tarp in the corner and twenty-five pieces of gold from a large hunk of wood, first forming them into discs and then alchemizing them into gold. He let enough magic into each piece to have them last for about a year before finalizing the spell and turning around with the bag in his mouth.

"Sorry, 'm a bit ticklish," he said, before quickly setting the pouch on the ground in front of her. "Here go, tha's wha' gold ah've got, bu' a wagon shoul' be worth i'."

She picked it up and stashed it in her wing without bothering to count the coins.

"Al'right lovah-stallion, ah'll get tha' all gathered up for'ya and be back for roun' two," she murmured, touching her nose to his before winking and turning around, slapping his muzzle with her tail gently before taking a couple of long strides and hopping up into the air, her long wings flapping twice before she used her hind legs to propel her off of the wall surrounding the garden and she was out of sight for two seconds before she shot up and back over the forest.

Dusk watched her go, before sighing and setting his chameleon enchantment into a more permanent form that would sustain itself. He stretched his invisible wings and took off into the forest, looking for another downed tree and a large stone that he could begin transmuting into the basics of a wagon.

Beginning to Teach, Himself and Others

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It was almost a week later when Lily returned, and it was just in time for Dusk's first major harvest. The bushes of berries and beans had started to produce the day before and were ready that day. His carrot's roots weren't quite ready but the greens could be nibbled with a little care. A couple of his squash vines had little buds on them. His pequin peppers were starting to turn that dangerous shade of red at their tips. His wheat hadn't yet put out their heads but were tall enough to tickle his barrel. The two tree fruits he'd decided to try and grow had sent up leafy sprouts.

He'd even been able to find some long-stemmed sativa he could use for paper. Mostly.

When she and the other large pegasus landed, he'd just gotten started picking the riper berries and placing them into some simple woven bags he'd made earlier. He glanced up at the mid-afternoon sun and wiped the sweat away from his eyes as he moved out of the field and towards the landing point, carrying his half-filled sack of berries with him.

Lily bounced up to him and nuzzled into his chest when he placed the bag aside. Snorting and blushing, he gently hugged her in greeting before moving towards the other pegasus, who was carefully unloading the wagon that had been strapped beneath them.

"H'lo," he said, holding out a hoof. The pegasus glanced at him, at his hoof, before shrugging and tapping it with one of his own.

"So you're the squatter," he said evenly, glancing at Lily. "Sissa' told me a bit about you."

"Good stuff?" Dusk asked carefully, moving around the wagon and helping the pegasus move some of the heavier pieces out of what was basically a crate.

"Too much of tha', honestly," he said, giving the blushing pegasus a meaningful gaze. "Name's Clover Sweeper. We appreciate the coin, even if ya are just usin' us as couriers. Although," he said, meeting Dusk's gaze carefully, "I would like to know where a ground pounder like ya' got so much coin."

Dusk paused, gazing into Clover's cold eyes.

"Understan', most earth ponies with that much coin jus' laying around are thieves," he said, continuing to unload the planks out of the crate. "An' if you're gettin' mah Sissa off, I wan' to make sure you're not the type to slit her throat for her gold."

Lily made some harsh noises of disbelief, but Dusk just cocked his head to the side before nodding. "I'm not a brigand or bandit," he said. "That's all the bits I had, beside some copper."

Clover's gaze narrowed. "Lily's been calling them bits too," he said softly, clipping his voice up at the end and making it a question.

"Family habit," Dusk said, shaking his head. "After when they used to be made'a bits of iron."

Clover kept his eyes on Dusk for another few moments, a short staring contest, before he simply nodded.

"A'right," he said, nodding and relaxing a bit. "I don' think you're tellin' the whole truth, but I believe you're not tryin' ta hurt Lily." He shook his head a bit and glanced around the garden. "You've been busy," he said, his tone looser and inquisitive.

"Ya, las' time ah was here ya barely had anythin' comin' up!" Lily chirped, jumping up and flying low over his field now that the stallions were acting less tense.

"Can your earth ponies nah do the same?" Dusk asked, moving the rest of the largest hunks of wood out of the crate.

"Wha, grow crop out'a nothin'?" Clover asked back, chuckling. "Not qui'."

"Well, I di' gather all these from tha' bounty of tha forest," Dusk said with his own chuckle. "Didn' pull 'em from 'tween mah cheeks, or nothin'."

"You'll wanna be careful wi' tha," Clover said, gazing out over the wall towards the canopy surrounding them. "Hear tell tha there's monstahs movin' in to tha woods, comin' from somewhea' deep in'a middle o' it."

Lily cleared her throat "But still, as I was sayin'. Even the best earth pony out thea canna' grow a bush out of a berry in a week, and you've got a whole crop."

Dusk laughed nervously. "I guess my Gran knew what she was about when she taught me," he muttered, before trying to busy himself with sorting out the pieces of fresh cut wood they'd brought him.

He heard Clover shift and start whispering to Lily. He did his best to ignore the muted voices, but he still whipped his head around when Lily loudly said, "Yea, I'm sure Onyx isn' a bucking sorcerer, Clover."

Clover's head whipped around and met Dusk's gaze.

"Sorcerer?" he asked, before reaching up and touching his forehead. "Didn't know I grew a horn last night," he said with a forced chuckle.

"An' besides that," Lily said, reaching out and grabbing one of the blackberries he'd just been harvesting out of a bag, "you know all those magic things they try'n grow taste like dirt. Here, ta'se this," she said, shoving the berry into Clover's lips.

With a small noise Clover drew away from the fruit, but paused when his tongue instinctively shot out and tasted the stain left there. His eyes narrowed, he reached out for the berry and popped the whole piece into his mouth. Dusk watched his jaw work, slowly, and he watched Clover lick his lips again before reaching out and taking another blackberry to pop into his mouth.

"How dedicated are ya to the idea of stayin' here?" Clover asked, giving Dusk a firm looking over.

"T'was one of my paw's final wishes to see these gardens growing again," he made up on the spot, praying to the spirit of Applejack to understand.

Clover slowly nodded. "A'ight," he said, before sighing and looking back at the bag. "Then would you mind payin' me an' my sissa to bring these to market for you, while you build that wagon o' yours? These're delicious, an' I kin see anypony workin' with you gettin' a fat purse before all's done with."

"That good?" he asked, placing a small smirk over his surprise.

Clover nodded, sighing heavily again. "That's one of the best fruits I've eva eaten, hooves down," he admitted. "You're gonna hav'ta worry about apprentices and mares cu'min after ya." He gave Dusk another glance over. "Evin if ya're a bit on the shor' side for a groun' poun'er."

Dusk noted Lily's sour expression with some satisfaction. Pretending to think it over, he slowly nodded to Clover. "I don' mind making you two my go-to pegasus for flyin' stuff in to town," he said with a nod. "'Ow 'bout five percent of the coin, apiece, an' you don' let any pony know I'm here?"

Clover blinked before chuckling. "I guess I ain't too surprised you kin do maths as well," he said as he offered out a hoof. "I'sa deal for me."

"Here too," Lily said, putting her hoof into the pile. "If you're only a pegasus, I'd hop int'a tha' line meself," she muttered.

Dusk smiled as he reached out and tapped their hooves with his. "For tha bes' then," he said, putting some melancholy into his tone. "Not lookin' for herdmates ri' now."

The brief conflict on Lily's muzzle turned into disappointment, then she wiped it off with a sigh.

"S'pose I unnerstand," she said. "Still, me'be you kin help me out next year again," she said with a wide grin.

Dusk thought about it for a half second before the memory of her shitting his field resurfaced, and he dismissed the idea without another thought.

"Mey'be," he said aloud, before glancing at the field. "I won' have a full delivery ready for another day 're so, but if you wan'ed to take a bag of the berries to give samples out of, you coul' get the ponies excited for the first crop."

"O yea'," Lily said, pronking over to the crate and jumping half-way into it, surfacing with a small sack and tossing it to Dusk, who caught it with a hoof. "Those're the seeds you said you coul' add to the garden. I's mos'ly my own favorite, spin'ich, but there's a'so turnip an' cauliflower seed in the'e. Tha 'nips do well in tha earth pony circles, and the horn-heads like the cauli'."

"Oh, thank yo-" Dusk started to say, before opening the bag and seeing the seeds inside all mixed together. It was reminiscent of a bean-bag, but filled with finer grains.

"Thank you," Dusk said again, slower, before drawing the bag closed and placing it between his shoulders. "I hope my bits covered the costs?"

"Oh yea," Lily said, nodding. "They'rd be change even, bu' I had to pay Clovah to help me with the crate," she said, jabbing a hoof into Clover's ribs."

Clover 'oof'ed at the hoof, but looked entirely unrepentant at the other jab.

Chuckling, Dusk waved a foreleg through the air dismissively. "The deal we jus' made is more than what the coins were worth, I'm sure," he said with a smile. "Besides, i's nice talkin' to ponies again."

Clover nodded his head, before glancing at the sun. Grabbing a berry-laden bag in his snout, he moved it over to the crate and lowered it in. "While I do appreciate the chat," he said, gesturing to the sun with his snout, "it is gettin' late. C'mon Lily, le's get these to the settlement before all the ponies get to bed. An' I'm sure Onyx here has some more crop to ten' to, now."

"Alas," he said, heaving a giant sigh, "ah do 'ave more pickin' ta get ta."

Lily huffed before coming to to Dusk and placing her nose onto his neck, pushing lightly into him as her ears tickled his jaw, before she took off and started circling the castle.

Clover watched her for a moment before he sighed and jumped onto the crate, strapping himself to it once again.

"I 'preciate you not leadin' her on," he said as he worked the straps onto his torso. "She knows in her heart it woul' be suicide to strap herself on'ta an earth pony, but she lets her cunt guide her more often then 'er head."

Blinking internally at the language, Dusk slowly said, "I was bein' honest 'bout not looking fer herdmates ri' now. If I were, your sissta' seems like a lovely mare."

Clover glanced over, eyeing Dusk while finishing up his rope harness. "Onyx, 'cause i's you I won' pound ya for tha. Surely you know tha herdin' up with a ground pounder would get Lily excommunicated from the flock at the least, and if the ol'er ones get riled enough, it ends with the pegasi stoning the earth eater."

Dusk shivered at the mention of the old practice of lifting boulders into the sky to drop on ponies.

He took a measured breath before straightening his spine, gazing up at Clover. "I j'es believe that, if a pony loves another pony, they should be with them," he said. He even let some of his Court tone into the proclamation.

Clover paused, setting his hooves on the points of the crate to look down at Dusk, before he smiled.

"Y'know what?" he said, his tone lighter than it had been the entire time he'd been conversing with Dusk. "I think I do too."

And with that, he spread his wings and took off into the blue, circling and passing his sister before they took off towards the northwest.

Dusk watched the duo for a moment, letting a peek of hope into his heart, before he sighed and dumped the seeds out of the pouch and started sorting them.

***** ***** ***** ***** *****

Lily turned out to be a common sight over the next few days, showing up early in the mornings to watch Dusk till the soil for the new seeds and listening as he gave a slow, gentle lecture about the magic he swathed the seeds in as he laid them to the fresh earth.

"Wai, 're you sayin' that earth ponies have magic?" she asked, looking doubtfully at him.

"Er'ry pony does," he told her, reaching out and using the magic flowing through the frog of his hoof to gently twitch her ear. "We earth ponies gotta grab stuff too. An' besides tha', dun'chu use yours to shape the clouds and walk on'em?"

Lily snorted, shaking her head. "We can' really shape the clouds, nah anymore," she said, flicking her ear as though bothered by a fly. "We just compac' em and build on top of 'em. Some of the older pegasi families still have cloud mansions, but most of us just use sticks and leaves for our huts. Even compac'ed cloud dips unner stones."

Dusk gazed at her long enough for her to blush and look away. "But-but..." he stuttered, forgetting his accent. "C'mere, lemme see your hooves."

Her eyes crinkled over her small frown, but she still offered out her forehooves. He took them gently, brushing the fragrant dirt away, before pressing his soft pads to hers and closing his eyes.

He reached out with the thaumic field every pony had in their hooves, born with it underneath the soft leathery pads they called 'frogs', and gently tangled his magic with hers, producing a gentle pinprick sensation in both of their hooves. He ignored Lily's giggling as he carefully went over the thaumic pathway that led into her hoof.

He frowned heavily at the almost minuscule pathway he found. It was definitely present, but severely underdeveloped, almost like a newborn foal's.

Using his own thaums he gently pulled and stretched on her pathways. He felt her shiver and heard a light gasp, but ignored it for a moment to allow her natural magics time to fill her hooves.

"Alright," he said after a moment, dropping his hooves and blinking his eyes open. "Go up and bring a cloud down, and maybe I can show you how to form it. Like clay," he said, coughing out that last part quickly when she cocked her head at him. "I assume i' forms like clay," he echoed, forcing his accent back into place.

She gazed at him strangely for another moment before she jumped up into the sky, grabbing an errant cloud and pulling the small mass of vapor and moisture down in front of him.

"A'righ," he murmured, gesturing at the cloud with his hooves and forcing them through the body of condensation between them. "For now, try condensing it inta, say, a brick, or meybe a disc if you like."

She did as he asked, reaching out and gently compressing the cloud until it was a smooth orb, vaguely egg-shaped.

"Now, give i' some sor' of definition. You coul' try an' make channels in i', or ya could give i' wings, or anything else your min' can conjure."

"How, exac'ly?" she said, pressing her hoof into the surface gently. "Do I jus-"

She interrupted herself as she pulled her hoof away, looking at the chunk of cloud still attached to her hoof. "No way," she breathed, gazing at the hoof in wonder.

"Yeah," he chuckled. "You kin' flex the magic, an' with enou' practice, you kin' make it so that you kin' pull away smaller bi's. Tha's how you make channels, and tha's also how you kin' make stuff like, ah, doorknobs and such."

As they watched the puff of the cloud on her hoof, they both noted some of the vapor starting to drift away.

"Now, wha' I did with your magic was basically a short-term cheat," Dusk told her as her face lost some the amazement. "Tha' said, you can get y'self back up to that level, naturally. Jes gotta do tha' work. I's like a muscle. The more ya work it, the stronger it gets, the more it works for you."

They both watched as the cloud vapor dissipated in her hoof, until it was barely covered in a low dome of mist.

"Tha's your starting point," he said, nodding to the dome. "Keep workin' it, and you'll get bettah ova time. I'd start with combining dense bricks, so that you kin use the muscle and get something out'a it a' the same time."

She nodded before resolutely turning back to the orb of condensed cloud still lingering on the ground.

It was starting to get a bit rough around its edges, but with some firm pats she had it back in shape in no time. Using her other hoof she started taking small bits of the orb and smooshing it onto the other hoof, slowly building up a brick as she took more cloud and compressed it on.

After she'd fully formed the first brick, she took a larger chunk out of the cloud and formed it into a rectangle before pushing it together, starting with more of a brick than she had before.

After he'd watched her combine the two bricks and made sure they'd stay together, Dusk gave her some advice about building that Granny Smith had laid on him (simple stuff like offsetting the bricks to make the construction stronger, and using a thin layer of cloud between to make them look more like bricks and less like giant cinder blocks), and then continued his work with the seeds and the field.

At the end of that day he'd sown pretty much the entirety of the bag she'd brought him as well as doing a weeding sweep, and she'd turned several clouds into a meter-long wall three bricks high. There was clear improvement, the bricks visibly even and closer in size towards the end of the wall.

As he trotted over Lily turned and, releasing the clouds she'd been holding in her hooves, grabbed Dusk by the neck and laid a very long, tongue-y kiss on him.

Breaking away and taking a breath, Lily's sparkling eyes gazed up into his startled ones.

"You migh' 'ave just helped me reclaim a central par' of my society's culture, you beautiful stallion you," she whispered huskily, before wrestling him down onto the ground and laying on several more long sessions of locking lips.

Eventually Dusk was able to roll the two of them and he tore his face away from hers, both of them laughing a bit giddily.

"You," he said, tapping her snout before getting up and prancing away a couple of steps, "need to work on using your lips for words instead of trying to pin mine," he said, wiping a bit of saliva away. "Still, you're welcome I s'pose. My gran-mare was a smart one, full'a tales an' legends. Might's well pass them on, since I can't pass them down," he said, the twinkle of an idea forming as he glanced down at the ground.

He listened as Lily moved over to him, shuffling her hooves.

"What'cha mean, can't pass 'em down? Ya ain't a gelding, ah know tha's not it."

Choking down a coughing fit, his voice was adequately strangled as he said, "I don' shoot straight, 'cordin' to the unicorn doctah my wife... My ex-wife took me tah. Mah swimmahs don' swim."

He risked a quick look up into Lily's muzzle, and only saw misty confusion.

"Ah can't make foals," he said, and Lily mouthed an 'Oh' before her expression fell.

"Trus' a unicorn to tell yah in the mos' round 'bout way he coul'," she said softly as she gently moved in beside him and lifted her leg to pull him into a hug. "Ah'm sorry to hear about tha'."

He let her gently pull him into the hug, squeezing her gently and hamming up a sniffle.

"I's a'right," he murmured, giving a last squeeze before letting her go. He noted with an internal grin that she let him go easily this time. "I's been a while now, an' I've made peace wit' the idea. Ah prolly would'na made a great Pa anyways."

"Ah'm sure that ain' true," Lily told him, sounding decidedly less sure than her words said.

"Maybe," he said, wiping the smile off his face with a hoof before lifting his face to hers. "I'm sure ya brother's waitin' for ya to get home to ya flock. Why don'cha bring yer bricks to Clover an' show off a bit, huh?"

"Yea, yea, that soun's like'a plan," she murmured, looking over at her work and back to him. "Ya gonna be okay?"

The question caught him off-guard, the answer more still. Regardless, he smiled and nodded.

Lily shuffled her hooves, staring at the ground for a moment, before giving his cheek a quick peck and trotting over to her wall. Testing it's weight, she soon had it loaded onto a thicker cloud, and waved as she started pushing it towards the edge of the Everfree.

He waved back, watching her absently for another moment before snorting and returning to his garden, his weeding more vicious than it had been.

At the end of the day he'd had enough weeds to synthesize a canopy type covering for his outhouse, so as long as it wasn't windy he wouldn't be subjected to too much weather while taking care of his business.

Getting started on his wagon, he'd went ahead and formed some of the rocks into tiny round orbs, and put together a couple of slats he'd formed to make a sort of ball-bearing system to keep the rod that connected the wheels easy to turn, and hopefully easy to pull. Getting them to turn at the same time was harder, but he was able to fake another bar into the system that kept them at the same angle with a bit of magic 'glue'.

With a lot of experimentation, he discovered a way to attach the whole affair to the bottom with a pivoting peg, finally allowing him the ability to turn, at least a little. He had some issues with the wheels hitting the sides of the wagon, and eventually just shrunk them and lowered the entire ordeal to just below the wagon.

Hitching himself to the wooden fork that served as the tongue, he practiced by walking around the castle. About halfway around he'd had to stop and disassemble the mechanism to find the source of the splintering noise that had him flinching to a stop. He sighed in relief when he discovered that it was a superficial issue that he fixed with some magical sanding and beveling.

Once he'd completed another lap and a half, he nodded to himself and put the wagon in his shed to await a covering against rain, before he made his way down to the stream with his rags to rinse away the sweat and dirt of the day.

Once he was back in his room he picked up his journal, hesitating and gazing at the cover for a time before opening it and writing out a dry description of his day. Pausing at the end, he sighed before starting to record a more emotive account of his interaction with Lily.

Lily asked me today if I would be okay, after I told her the lie about being sterile. I knew that would force her to lose some interest, but she was noticeably distant after I told her that. I wonder if it's from her losing interest in me as a mate, or just not knowing what to say or do? I did want her to lose interest in sleeping with me, but I didn't... I didn't want to drive her away completely, journal.

He snorted at the last sentence.

I suppose if I'm talking to you now, you're a diary then. Well dear diary, what do you think? Is the thought of not being able to sire foals what drove Lily away? Just the abruptness of the information? Will she be back tomorrow?

He paused, gazing down at the pages before sniffling.

I'm being morose. Probably just because I let the day run so late on me. I hope it's just because I'm tired, anyways. I'll see if some heavy sleep helps. I hope Lily comes by tomorrow. She can be a bit vulgar, but she remains as my first new-

He started to write acquaintance, but slowly dipped his pen back in the inkpot as he considered his meaning, his feelings behind the word.

She's my first new friend.

I hope I see my new friend tomorrow.

He smiled a bit at the childish sentiment, his heart warming as he realized how much he still meant it.

PS: I hope Clover gets nice and jealous of her efforts earlier today. It would lift her spirits, and as long as it stays friendly, a little rivalry could kick off the revolution Cloudsdale needs to modernize itself.

Blowing lightly on the ink until it dried, he made to place it back down on the short table he'd made to hold it while he wrote, before pausing. Lily might show off her work, and if any number of pegasi showed up tomorrow, somepony might come across his diary and read through it.

Looking around the room, he sighed before using his magic to wrench one of the stones out of the wall before scooping away a hollow into it. Fitting the journal and ink set into the new hole, he placed the stone back into the wall and gave it a solid kick to reseat it.

Sighing, he moved the squat table back to the far wall before laying down for the night, gazing up and out through the window and taking note of the slowly dancing stars before he fell asleep.

The Long Walk In

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Dusk forced the muscles on his back to shiver roughly, the harness he'd strapped into settling further into place as he shifted from side to side to get them to lay just right. He'd been able to fake some padding with the leftover cloth scraps, but he was running low on the bolt and had skimped a little to stretch the material (a joke he'd been told by Rarity).

He'd created some rope from the fibers of the sativa he'd managed to locate, and with his earth magic had plenty enough to fake an actual harness, though the strands and fibers were far from smooth or comfortable.

It was strong enough to connect him to the cart at least. Using some of the leftover fibers he'd made some... Well, he couldn't call it thread. Some very fine rope? Cord?

Cord.

His ears flicked, and he realized he'd been staring up into the sky, once again lost in thought. He'd wrapped his rope in cord, then used very fine cord and a rock needle to sew the cloth over the entire affair. It wasn't comfortable, but at least it wouldn't rub his hide raw.

Plus it would pull his cart. So, you know, it would do what he'd made it for. That was nice.

He snorted, pawing the ground and looking ahead of himself.

"You're procrastinating," he muttered, staring out. "I know this is a big risk, and possibly could result in a bucking temporal paradox if something goes really, really wrong, but what are the chances of that?"

His mind almost started on the math for that probability, but he shook his head and took a step instead.

"Besides, you're at the stage where you're not only talking to yourself, you're answering back."

He stepped out onto the heavily worn and grassy cobblestones making up the large roadway that used to lead into the castle. Still led across the ravine, at least. He made sure to take heavy, stomping steps, trying to listen for any signs of the bridge giving way underneath his wagon. He'd inspected all sides of the bridge, including the bottom, but he wasn't an architect and had no idea what it was supposed to look like.

There were no cracks in the bottom at least. As he made his way across there weren't any sounds of distress either. No grinding of stone on stone, no falling pebbles clattering off the floor yards below him, nothing.

Only the sound of the wooden wheels clattering over the stone, and the shifting of the baskets in the bed of it.

Still, he sighed in relief once he reached the far side of the chasm, then lifted the ropes off of the pegs he'd made on the fork of the wagon and went back to the far end to lift the fabric sheet. Inside of the four foot by eight bed were several baskets he'd woven from jute, each one full of its own selection of the crops he'd managed to turn out in the month he'd been here.

Over the last two weeks Lily and Clover both had been a constant source of society for him, as well as a pair of students for him to teach the apparently lost art of cloud shaping (a fact he was deeply worried about).

Lily had proved quite competent at the creation and had progressed far enough that she was teaching herself how to create stable curving structures out of cloud.

Clover was, unfortunately for him, terrible at the practice of using the magic of his grip on the clouds. And that was unfortunate for Dusk as well, as Clover proved to actually have quite the developed thaumic fields and could easily gather hoof-fulls of the substance. But instead of being able to gather the clouds, he ended up using so much force that he inadvertently crushed the vapors into little discs.

While exciting at first, Clover quickly lost patience with his inability to create the smooth bricks that Lily was able to at the end of the third day of their practice. Still, he was at least as stubborn as his sister, and within a week of almost constant practice could make a relatively steady wall in a few hours.

Lily had been growing bored with only making bricks, and had pestered 'Onyx' until he showed her how to make a basic bowl with some clay from the river.

While he couldn't actually fire it without a kiln, he did his best with a basic wood oven that had been built into the wall of the kitchen in the castle, and it was more the shaping of the clay that was important for Lily anyways.

"Ah don' think you coul' bake tha cloud, but maybe you coul' just keep compressin' it?" he had said to Lily, who had nodded and done just that. At the end of the project she'd had what was basically a bucket without a handle, but it was light enough for her to lift easily and dense enough to hold water, so they'd called it a success and moved on with Lily's mostly self-teaching.

The past two weeks had largely been the two pegasi practicing while Dusk worked his field, sending his magic down through the earth and into the roots of the plants, where it acted as a fertilizer for the crops. They'd been astonished by the almost visible results of his tending, making many comments about how certain stalks and vines were longer or taller when they were leaving than when they got there.

Dusk had always chuckled and insisted that any earth pony could do it, same as they could with the clouds, but their continued amazement had sown doubt, and he was worried what he'd find once he got to the village in the hills.

Dusk had known that per the history books that no name had been given to the conglomeration, and it had just been known as Canterlot since they had intended to move everypony into the mountain town together, but some sort of intuition had him ask Lily and Clover if the village had its own name.

"Well, tha unicorns had some horse-apple suggestion that they just go along with Canterlot, since tha's what they're calling the new capital," she had told him, "but the ponies in the shadows at the base had their own idea, and call it Haysdale, after their crop."

"An' wha's your flock callin' ya' place again?" he asked, stretching his brain to their conversations. "I thin' I remember you tellin' me it wa' Cloudsdale?"

"Tha's been finalized," Clover said, his tongue licking his top lip before he lowered his head even closer to his project, an attempt at a perfect brick like his sister had made five days ago. "Didn' really have a name for it before that, but I'd heard it called the Nest a couple of times. Ponies thought that was a bit simple though, compared to Haysdale and Canterlot."

"They had a point," Lily murmured, giving her vase a final once-over before nodding and placing it to the side. "I know we got wings n'all, but Tartarus, the Nest?"

Clover shrugged before moving on to his next brick. "Better'n hay town," he said, smoothing over his next piece of cloud to get it ready to be added to his wall. "An' what's Canterlot even supposed to mean, anyhow?"

"Well, the Canter is a dancing style from the older times," Dusk said passively, pulling a long weed from in between furrows of hemp stalks. "And a 'lot' was what the crown called the pieces of land that it either gave to earth ponies to farm on, or what ponies claimed before the crown could and kept ownership of over the years. So it's like, the Dancing Land, or the Place of Dances, depending on which historians you ask."

Dusk worked in silence for a bit, before noting it and looking over at the pegasi gawking at him.

He chuckled once before scratching at his neck, underneath his mane. "Ah learned a bit from my ma an' pa, they had a lot of their own. At one time," he said, flicking his ears back and along his head.

Lily's ear copied his and she turned back to some fresh clouds that were to be her latest project. Clover, though, stared at him a moment longer, his ears remaining perked forward towards Dusk, before turning slowly back to his wall.

Clover had been quiet since, while Lily had increasingly turned out minor artwork after artwork, vases and bowls and sculptures, all made out of cloud. She'd apparently made a name for herself selling her pieces, and had a number of ponies hounding her and asking how she'd managed it.

And it was this talk of sales and markets that finally had Dusk readying his wagon-load of baskets full of food and simple pieces of pottery. Mostly bowls that he'd 'glazed' with super-fine sand and a bit of magic, along with spoons he'd oiled to keep them from soaking up foodstuffs and falling into pulp right away.

Those were the first things he checked on the other side of the chasm actually, making sure the leaves he'd used as packing material were still in place and cushioning the stacks of bowls.

"This is crazy," he muttered to himself, again, before walking back up to the fork of his wagon and hitching himself back in.

He took one last, lingering look at the castle, before sighing and activating the 'alarm' spell he'd set up yesterday to let him know if anyone at all set foot anywhere within the castle walls. It wouldn't make any sound here, but it would let him know with a pinging sound directly in his ear.

He stayed there for a moment, his heart lurching as he looked over the castle he'd become so attached to over the last month, before he forced himself away and down what had been a hard-packed dirt road, and was now a wide grassy lane.

He took slow steps in the beginning, stopping to look at every other weed growing up from the path, straying from the sides that grew tall enough to tickle his belly.

After he made it around four hundred yards away, though, he felt his ears perk up, and a surprising spring flowed naturally into his step as he looked around at the large trees lining the thoroughfare. He watched as a fat red bird flew over his wagon, and he laughed at the feeling welling up within his barrel.

Apparently some sort of fear had been hovering over his mind, some internal thought that if he left the castle the world would break in half with a bolt of fire and lightning that he'd just proven wrong.

He felt free, for one of the first times since he arrived in this time. He was alone, and didn't have to worry about changing the fate of the coming ages by misspeaking or placing the wrong brick in the wrong place in the castle.

He was out in the wilderness, in a forest that would overtake this path. He didn't have to worry about anything!

He heard a branch break somewhere in the forest to his left, and his head whipped to gaze at that side, his ears pointed and trembling as he watched for any movement. After a moment, he sighed before trotting on his way, pulling his wagon quickly down the overgrown ruts of the road.

***** ***** ***** ***** *****

He made it through the forest in roughly an hour and a half, with no more of those sounds or any other traces of something following along, and he'd managed to relax to the point of not having to look all around himself constantly. He rolled up to the break in the lines of trees quicker than he'd expected, and was gazing out along the road that used to lead into the forest before he noticed with a twitch a certain small lake he recognized.

Looking down at the paths that met, he traced the dirt lane that wound in front of the forest and found that it matched nearly perfectly the placement of the train tracks that were supposed to crop up in a few centuries.

There it is, he thought to himself. The lot that springs up Ponyville.

It was with some strange sense of pride that he looked down onto the field, a large flowery meadow that sat in the crook between what was the Everfree and what would become the White Tail Woods and the stream that ran down from the Canterhorn mountain and became the creek that created the Ghastly Gorge.

Turning away from the meadow, he gazed straight down the road, the one leading from where Appleloosa would be and heading towards the mountain.

He sighed, undoing his harness from the fork of his wagon and walking around to pull a bundled tomato sandwich from its bed. Unwrapping it from the large leaves he'd used to keep the bugs off of it, he leaned against his wagon as he stared up at the mountain, idly taking in the tiny spots that would have been pegasi workers flying along the lot being built as he chewed.

Finishing the snack he tossed the leaves aside and strapped back into the cart, settling himself for a long walk before leaning forward into the harness.

As he passed over the road and through the place where Sweet Apple Acres would be, he glanced into the open, gently rolling fields, and let a wave of nostalgia wash over him as he chuckled over the memories of the first time he was harnessed up, to a snow plow instead of a wagon.

"I was so scrawny then," he murmured, his eyes twinkling as he looked along the gentle slopes and figured where exactly he had been stuck in the snow. "I mean, even Rarity had more muscle at the time."

A bird flew over his head, a flitting song here and gone again, and he followed its trail through the air as he found himself at the shallow crossing that didn't yet have a bridge. He followed the flight as he splashed through the ankle-deep waters crossing the silty creek, smiling to himself when he heard a chorus of tiny peeping sounds from the nest the bird landed on.

"Even before she moved onto the lot," he chuckled, gazing ahead again as he pulled the wagon up the slight incline away from the water.

"Even before who what?"

Dusk shrieked (a little) as he jumped and turned his gaze back to the road, now blocked by a trio of ponies.

The leader was smirking down at him, a stocky earth pony with a long straight mane and feathering to match, the long strands nearly covering his hooves completely. He also had a hoof-long braid dangling from his chin, though the rest of his facial fur seemed well-trimmed.

And to Dusk's dismay, the stallion towered over him by more than a couple of hooves, his ears topping out to where Dusk's horn would've tapered to.

Dusk glanced at the other two stallions, a pair of dappled palominos with short manes, one of which had several glass beads woven into a long braid in his mane. With a sinking in his chest, he noted that they had short-shafted spears strapped to their sides, and a glace at the stocky clydesdale revealed a shining pair of metal horseshoes, the thick style favored by hoof-to-hoof fighters.

"Very sorry to startle ya, miss," the lead stallion snickered, the other two watching on hungrily, "wasn't on purpose."

Dusk's ears and legs straightened, pulling him to his full height. "Miss?" he asked thinly.

The stallion's eyes widened, as did his grin. "Ah, well then, just a runt of a stallion," he said with a chuckle. "Makes this easier. You hand over your coin, we both walk off without broken legs. And this close to the forest, you won't be dragging your corpse far."

The two stallions behind him broke their stony expressions to grin wickedly, their teeth gleaming in the sunlight.

"Oh, you just want my gold?" Dusk said, letting out a relieved breath. "Alright, deal."

The clydesdale's grin dipped as Dusk detached himself from the fork of his wagon before spinning around and reaching into the top of the covering. After a moment of shuffling, he turned around and tossed the flat purse over to the stallion, his two coins clinking together as they hit the dirt.

"Unfortunately you caught me heading to market," Dusk said as the stallion picked up the purse and frowned into it. "I don't have anything right now."

The stallion cursed and threw the bag down into the lane, grinding one of his back hooves into the dirt before sighing. "This one's a bust, boys. Haydale knows we ain't merchants, and we can't eat bucking cloth." He cursed again before stomping off of the path, the other two glaring at Dusk before they moved over to comfort the stallion.

Dusk cocked his head, looking at the backs of the stallions and noting with a pang that he could clearly see their spines and the ribs of the bigger one. He bit his lip, before walking around to the back of his wagon and peering under the tarp and counting his baskets.

After moving several of the larger bundles off the back and covering what was left of his cargo, he glanced over at the group and whistled.

"Here," he said, pushing forward one of the three baskets. "Carrots, turnips, and a basket of wheat. You find a mill and pay them out of the coins, I'm sure you could get flour to make enough bread to last you a while."

The lead stallion stared at him for a few moments, before using his hoof to tell the other two to stay where they were.

Walking over, he looked carefully down at the woven baskets and their complementing lids. When he didn't move towards the baskets, Dusk reached over and slowly opened one. The stallion flinched away as though he expected it to explode, before looking down at the full container of carrots.

Reaching out he grabbed the other lid and tilted it open, glancing at the sheaves of wheat stalks held together by jute twine, before he looked over at Dusk.

"Why?" he asked, his eyes steely but confused.

Dusk glanced between the three of them, before slowly saying, "I can see you're starving. I don't need the coin these would get me more than you three obviously need food."

The clydesdale looked down at the basket again, before glancing back up at Dusk, his eyes watery and slit beneath wrinkled eyebrows.

"But we tried to rob you," he said softly.

"You did rob me," Dusk pointed out, smiling before he gently reached out and laid a hoof on the stallion's shoulder. "Sometimes when they're put in a bad place, ponies do bad things. That doesn't make them villains, though. It just makes them desperate ponies. And why shouldn't one pony help out another?"

The stallion gazed down at Dusk, utterly speechless before the first tears splatted the ground beneath his muzzle and he grabbed Dusk around the withers, pulling the surprised stallion into a bone-creaking hug.

Dusk let out a little 'oomph' before returning the hug, glancing over the stallion's shoulder and gesturing for the other two to come up.

As they looked into the baskets, each one took out a large carrot apiece and started scarfing them down, taking massive bites and barely chewing before swallowing.

"Hey, slowly," Dusk said, patting the stallion on the back with one hoof while waving the other at the two palominos. "If you eat too much too quickly, you'll just throw it up," he said, patting the stallion's shoulder with the second hoof.

The clydesdale sniffled heavily before leaning back, swiping at his nose before nodding. "Oi, you two, he's right. Slow down or it'll come back up as quickly as it went down."

The two looked at each other before taking another twin bites out of their food, being sure to slowly and completely chew up the chunks of vegetables before swallowing and taking more bites.

The clydesdale chuckled before turning back to Dusk, straightening his spine and swiping at his eyes with a hoof.

"Thank you," he said, looking down at the trio of baskets. "It's been... at least four days since we saw food. We've been grazing, but the grass doesn't have anything beyond empty calories, ya know?" He glanced down at the meadow beside them. "We were starving with food all around us."

"Hey, it's no big deal," Dusk said, patting the stallion's shoulder. "If you want, I got some cookware and spices in the wagon, I could make you guys some stew before I head on along?"

Both of the palominos shared a look before slowly reaching up to their shoulders, and the short spears holstered there.

Glancing back when Dusk sighed, the large stallion frowned before stomping a hoof.

"No," he said strongly. "I would not repay a kindness with a sword. That's a unicorn thing to do, and I will not lower myself so."

Dusk's ear twitched, but he kept his silence.

The stallion sighed as the other two nodded and turned back to the carrots, before he himself turned back to Dusk. "Sorry, they're just hungry," he said, holding a hoof out. "I'm Iron Heart, and those two are Flicker," the one with the beads in his mane waved, "and Flynt," he said as the other one nodded his head. "Tell you what, you make us your meal, and I'll make sure you and your wagon make it to the dale in return."

"Oh, thank you," Dusk said in surprise before he turned to his wagon and started fetching out several wooden ladles and bowls before pulling out his pride, a bronze cauldron he'd pulled from minerals down in the crevasse around the castle. He'd planned on seeing if the town had similar objects before trying to sell it, but he figured he could pull some information from these stallions about such things while they ate and walked.

Iron Heart chuckled as he picked up the cauldron and looked it over while Dusk pulled out some small packets of spices wrapped in vegetable leaves.

"Ain't seen a cauldron like this since my gran's," he said, glancing over at Flicker and Flynt. "Campfire, boys, if you would," he said before walking down to the stream and filling the pot with water.

Dusk pulled out a stone knife and cut a few of the carrots out of the basket into one of the wooden bowls, before doing the same with a few turnips. While he diced everything the others busied themselves with getting a fire going beside the road, Iron plopping the cauldron onto the fire and using a ladle to stir the clear water as it boiled.

Once the water was boiling Dusk added the veggies, letting them stew until tender and ready to go before he tossed in the spices and served up the dark stew to the other ponies.

The three of them hesitated until Dusk started taking heavy spoonfuls of the food and shoveling them into his mouth before they each took several bites, looking around at each other with strange expressions.

"What'd you spice this with?" Flynt asked, his voice quiet and coarse.

"Uhm," Dusk said, trying to remember the spices he'd packed. "Coriander, cumin, allspice, ginger, some black peppercorn. Why, is it bad?"

"It's..." Flicker started to say, even his voice similar to Flynt's, "It's strange. I don't think I've ever tasted anything like this before."

"Reminds me of the foods down along the badlands," Iron Heart said, before taking another bite off of his spoon. "Warm, sort of harsh, and inviting until you've gone too far into it and it burns you."

Dusk glanced at the stallion worriedly as he gazed down into his broth.

"That sounds heavy," he said, startling Iron out of his reverie.

The stallion chuckled before draining his broth and settling the bowl in front of him. "I was stationed down there during my conscription."

"Conscription?" Dusk said, setting his bowl down and frowning. "Was there an emergency?"

"Nah, my enlistment was pretty quiet actually," Iron said, reaching out and getting another ladle of soup. "Flicker and Flynt were sent up north by the horned bastards though, they saw some skirmishes with the Griffons over near Hollow Shades while posted up near there. Unicorns keep pushing the borders, even if we don't have the stallion-power to keep the land, ya know?"

Dusk kept his expression blank as he worked through the nuances of what he'd just been told.

"Anyhow, I think we've finished your soup," Iron said, scraping the belly of the cauldron and glancing into it. "We should be on the way soon if we're walking to the dale before nightfall."

"Ah, yeah, yeah," Dusk said, shaking his head before grabbing the cutlery and wandering down to the stream to run the wet silt through the bowls.

He glanced over at Iron as the stallion brought the cauldron down and began rinsing it.

"Flicker and Flynt are taking care of the fire," he said while he rinsed out the cauldron in the stream. He glanced meaningfully over at Dusk. "You're not a deserter, are you?" he almost whispered.

"No, no," Dusk said, shaking his head. "I guess my sire's homestead was hidden away well enough, but I never was called to draft, nor my da'."

Iron nodded with a sigh. "Alright. We can deal with a dodger, that's far different from a stallion leaving his friends to fend for themselves," he said, turning the cauldron over to drip into the clean grass. "The brothers had a deserter almost kill their company after leading a group of griffons back to their location, and they still hold the grudge. Used to be three of them, aye?"

Dusk sighed heavily, his ears folding back as he nodded. "No, no, I didn't abandon anypony, I just never served."

"Alright," Iron said with another nod. "I'll get this back in your wagon then."

Dusk watched the stallion pick up the cauldron and walk back up the hill with it, his heart going out to the brothers and wondering what brought the three of them together.

"I need to figure out what's going on around here," he said, before putting the bowls and spoons on his back and making his way back up to the wagon, where he helped the other three reload his wagon and get it ready to go.

As he latched himself into the fork and started pulling the wagon forward, he cocked his head to look over at Iron. “So, scrawny runt, huh?”

He heard the brothers chuckling from their places on either side of the wagon as Iron Heart’s ears folded back.

“Well…” he said, trailing off when the other three started laughing outright, joining in after a moment.

After the laughter died down, he nudged Dusk with an elbow. “You are scrawny, though.”

"Says the mountain," Dusk grumbled.

He expected the three of them to laugh again, but they only looked at each other before Flynt said, "Iron's not that big, son. He's, well, average height."

"Wait, really?" Dusk said, looking up at Iron's muzzle. "Huh, I thought I was," he stopped himself from saying 'big' and finished, "uh, average. Must be the different climates thing, I come from the, uh, south."

Iron shrugged. "Not a unicorn, not interested in a pedigree, am I right?" he said, the other two nodding. "But, yeah, you're a small one."

Sighing, Dusk nodded. "I'll keep that in mind," he mumbled, looking down the road. "So, where do you guys come from?"

The rest of the walk was quick, as time spent in conversation tended to be. After cresting a hill, an hour and a half after their meeting, the trio paused and glanced at each other before Dusk caught up, turning to look over his shoulder.

"We probably shouldn't come with ya into the city," Iron Heart muttered, scratching the back of his head. "We've got a bit of a reputation, and I'd hate to attach you to it."

Dusk wanted to argue, but he also felt the weight of the goods he'd been carting across the country. "Are you sure?" he asked, sighing when they nodded. "Alright. Where are you living, then? I'll take your baskets there and drop them off."

Iron looked at Flynt, then Flicker, both of which nodded slowly to him. "You ain't gotta do that," he started, before Dusk stomped the earth with a grunt.

"You three kept me safe and gave me company on the road," he said, snorting, "that alone is worth the weight of the baskets. Now, are you gonna take them here, or am I gonna deliver them somewhere for you?"

Iron Heart slowly smiled, chuckling. "A'right, a'right," he said, "you can take my share to my dam's house, on the 'skirt of the town." He described the place before Flynt and Flicker described their own dwelling.

"You give Iron's dam as much as she'll take first though," Flicker said. "He's got a little brother, and he'll need the food more than us two bags of bone."

"I gotcha," Dusk said, nodding. "Well, see you around?"

"Yeah," Iron said with a smirk, offering out a hoof that Dusk met.

The three of them walked into the forest, Dusk presuming to walk around and enter town from a different direction. Sighing, he turned his head and walked the rest of the way up the hill.

"Oh my Celestia," he said quietly, looking down on the village in the dale.

Going to Market

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Dusk took another breath, flinching at the smell before he again muttered, "Oh my Celestia."

He was almost literally stunned as the light breeze caught up to him, and the heavy smell of the town below cuffed him on the chin again.

He'd never seen a real shanty town before, not unless Klugetown counted. And from the smell, he'd say it didn't. Klugetown may have been many things, but it had smelled of the sea and the heat of the desert.

Not piss, shit, and rot.

The town below him was the very definition of squalid. The huts were actually stacked on top of each other in some cases, and all of them seemed to have been made from local clay, straw, and mud bricks with wooden supports. They were boxy and mostly windowless structures with simple wooden doors that were less doors and more wooden slats nailed together.

They all seemed to be on the tops of the rolling hills of the plains, and Dusk could smell why. The sewer 'system' seemed to be a series of ditches that flowed down towards a river that wound its way down from Canterlot and away from the mountain and village. A bridge led to the other side of the river, and a field of coppery wheat beside tall green hay.

There even seemed to be bridges between the settlements, at the bases of the hills, so that ponies wouldn't have to trod in the soggy creases between the hills.

Checking around himself, Dusk made sure no one was around before completing a simple nose-blocker enchantment, leaving himself without scent and thanking every star in the sky that he knew that one.

He started down the hill slowly, walking along the winding route down.

"At least I know why Iron Heart described his door now," he mumbled, looking over the blocky houses. Some of them had painted doors, others had carved symbols and icons into them, and others had settled for writing their names on theirs.

As he neared the town he heard some activity from around the corner of the housing complex he was closest to, before he saw a thin pony rolling down the hill, bleeding from several cuts and heavily bruised.

"An' stay out!" a harsh, gravelly voice called, before he heard a door slam into place.

He watched the colt tumble to a stop, before lifting himself from the slope of the hill and spit bloody mucus up towards the door before limping off towards the center of town.

His tail tucked itself between his legs, and he slowly made his way along behind the colt, now since disappeared over a bridge.

As he wound in between the mud and brick buildings he found himself in the middle of the grouping of hills, where they allowed enough flat space between for a market of sorts to be put up. Only two spots had actual stalls, the rest of the market situated around the two large tents in between them. Most of the goods on show were placed on large blankets or directly out of the backs of a few wagons.

"Ye a lollygaggin part of tha caravan?" a gruff voice asked, and Dusk quickly glanced at a bored-looking unicorn in greasy, dirty plate armor. He was the only pony in attendance wearing anything, and his gorget was imprinted with a spiraling horn silhouetted by the sun. He held a small journal bound in heavy papyrus paper in the hoof that didn't have a spear leaning against his shoulder.

"No sir," he said, dipping his head. "Just a homesteader with some extra food to sell. How do I go about setting up my wagon?" he asked.

"Ye find a space and open up the back," the unicorn said, holding out an empty hoof. "The crown expects some compensation as tax, for allowing the sale," he said, bored.

"Oh, uhm, I was sort of robbed on the way over?" he said with a small smile. "Could I pay after I sell?"

The unicorn snorted, his eyes narrowing as he looked Dusk over before he grinned. "Aye, that's fine, but the crown only takes coin. If you can't pay in coin, then you'll pay with service, unnerstand?"

Dusk swallowed dryly, nodding. "Yes sir."

Chuckling, the unicorn turned back to his book, waving a hoof at Dusk. "The tax is a silver coin. Have it, or else."

Dusk nodded with a bit of concern, looking over the market and seeing that there were no foods to be had. There were plenty of tools and pottery around, and he did spot a blanket covered over with sparkling gemstones and some silver-work, but it took until he could see inside one of the tents before he spotted anything consumable.

He blinked a few times, wondering what the stacks and stacks of the brown bricks were, until the unicorn tending the desk floated one over and took a bite.

Military rations?

He glanced around for an empty spot near the tents and set the brake on his wagon, walking to the back and looking around the near-empty market. There were plenty of ponies, but most of them were dressed for the road, and he assumed that they were the caravan the guard mentioned.

The rest of the ponies were undressed and walking almost listlessly around, glancing at a few of the iron goods and pottery utensils, before moving on. He watched a single sale and sighed as he prepared himself to be forced to make a silver coin out of sight with magic.

Pulling down the back of the wagon, he took a moment to attach two cords to the plank and slide it into a slot on the wagon to make it into a table of sorts, before he pulled forth the first basket of grains and started piling up independent sheaves.

"Is that wheat?" he heard someone ask behind him, and he turned to a passing pony gawking over his shoulder.

"Aye ma'am, homegrown einkorn wheat," he said with a nod and a smile. "Ah also have carrots, some few squash, a couple of baskets of beans, and some peppers. Would ya like-?"

"How many ya got?" the mare quickly asked, pulling an almost flat purse from her mane and pulling out three copper coins. "I'll buy what I can," she said, pushing forth the money.

"Oh, uhm, alright. You want anythin' in particular?" he asked, taking the coins and pulling his own flat purse out.

"Wheat an' carrots," she said, glancing around and keeping her voice down. "Please."

He pulled out two sheaves of wheat and two clumps of carrots that had been tied by twine looped around the green tops.

"Ya have bags?" he asked, placing the items in the empty saddlebag she offered to him.

"Sun bless ya," she whispered, before buckling the bag down and nearly sprinting away into the residences surrounding them.

With a sinking feeling in his gut, Dusk turned and pulled out the entire basket of grains and carrots, reaching for the basket holding the beans before he heard a few gasps around him. Steeling himself, he pulled forth the beans and the small basket of peppers before he turned around, eyeing the sudden crowds of eyes all around him.

"Alrigh' now," he said, putting his diaphragm into his voice and layering in some of his old court tones, "I've plenty, so we're gonna keep this civil, right?"

There was a cough in the mob, but otherwise, everypony was silent.

"Good," he said, holding out his hooves and indicating two spots in front of him. "Two lines, no pushing, no violence, or I leave. Got it?"

There was a bit of shifting and many, many glances before the mob settled into two barely distinct lines.

"Great," he said, smiling widely. "Now, what can I get you two?"

***** ***** ***** ***** *****

It was barely two hours later, and Dusk was sitting on the tail of his cleared wagon, holding only the baskets he'd promised to Iron Heart, and to Flicker and Flynt. He jostled his purse, full of copper and a couple of silver coins, glancing over at the bored-looking unicorn at the rations tent.

At the end of the day he'd even sold to her and the guard, both of them taking some wheat apiece and some of the ripe fruit he'd bundled along. He’d even paid off his silver to the guard when they bought from him. He was pretty sure he'd seen nearly the entire town by now and even received a few smiles that he'd held tighter to his heart than any coin he'd made that day.

"Excuse me, sir," said a voice below him, startling him out of his cloud-gazing.

Smiling down, he saw a small colt, obviously one of the caravaners by the worn scarf and road scared boots.

"I was wondering if you had some more of those fruits sir, that the unicorns bout," he asked, reaching into one of his tiny saddlebags and pulling out a tarnished and bent copper. "I caught the smell of one of them, and it's been a while since I had anything like them."

Looking back, Dusk pulled the basket close and looked into the empty, densely woven carrier. Glancing back at the tiny colt, he ducked his head into the basket and used his horn to teleport one of the pieces he'd left behind, holding the stem between his teeth.

"Here you go my colt," he said, grabbing the fruit with a hoof and tossing it to the young pony. "And you should go ahead and save your copper, get a real sweet some time," he said with a wink.

"Thanks, sir!" the colt yelped as he caught the fruit, scampering off to one of the spreads covered by brass tools.

Dusk smiled when he saw the colt take a couple of bites of the pawpaw before offering it up to the stallion with a dirty white mane behind the spread, who took a bite before hoofing it back.

"So where'd you get all this stuff then?"

Jumping a bit, Dusk turned to look at the guard he'd sold to earlier, the one he'd already paid one of his silver coins to. Screwing his eyes up a bit, he cocked his head as he said, "I, uh, grew them? I've got a small field of my own over near the White Tail Woods."

The unicorn narrowed his eyes, the spear strapped to his back lighting up in a magical aura as it was pulled from its holster.

"You're not selling us magical crop grown from that Deer sorcery, are ya?"

"Whoa, no!" Dusk said, raising his hooves. "No, just my own magic and two hooves!"

The unicorn squinted up at him and he felt a clumsy, fumbling mix of magic tug on his mind. Dusk immediately threw up a non-magical ward of looping thoughts, but after a few moments of fumbling found that even that wasn't necessary as the magic grip faded away. He noted a couple of drops of sweat under the unicorn's fur, running down his forehead from his horn's base.

"Alrigh'," the guard said, nodding. "As long as it ain't ensorcelled by their dirty magics, then I've no problems with ya selling here. How often you plan on swingin' by?"

Frowning at the jab, Dusk said, "I'm not sure, I sold most of my reserves today. Maybe in a couple of weeks?"

The guard frowned. "Couple weeks? It only takes ya a couple of weeks ta grow all this?"

Dusk felt a tingle of intuition, and murmured, "Ah, well, I have the field on rotation, so it grows in waves...?"

The unicorn frowned again, but Dusk didn't feel the fumbling mental magic this time. "Sounds pretty smart for one'a you ground pounders. I thought tha' smart ones of ya stayed in the military."

Dusk frowned a bit harder. "My da' had better plans for me."

The unicorn gazed up at Dusk for a moment, both of them frowning at each other until the unicorn snorted and shrugged. "If ya ain't got the balls to stand up to your 'Da'," he said dismissively, before looking around the market. "Be careful on the way home," he said as he turned his back. "You migh' have some of these tinkers at your throat for the coins you took from them."

Dusk straightened his spine, taking a quick stock of the ponies around him through his peripheral and sighing at the number of glaring eyes he had on him.

Hopping off of the tail of the wagon he pulled out the tail and slid it back into place on the back of the wagon's bed. Tying the simple tarp covering with a series of complicated knots, he stashed his newly filled purse in his mane before glancing around the marketplace.

Eyeing the nearby selections of quilts, he started working his way around the market, finding a surprising number of, well, he supposed they could be called Quality of Life goods.

He bought a couple of heavier looking quilts from the first spread, then a few contraptions that were made to mimic unicorn magic for earth ponies (a lighter for instance), then some home-made beeswax candles and jars of honey and comb (expensive, but one of his guilty-secret snacks), some pewter bowls and silverware, and a slew of other things he could make excuses to buy from the ones he'd noted glaring at him.

At the end of the circular trip, he stopped by the tent, making a show of pulling out his last coins and glancing sadly at the unicorn in the tent.

"Alas! I only have these two coppers left! Will that, perchance, get me any food?"

The unicorn looked at him, boredom never leaving her face as she sniffed before floating over two blocks and slapping them on the counter before taking his last coins.

"You're terrible at acting," she said, before returning to the book she had propped on the counter.

Muttering to himself, Dusk grabbed the two blocks before stomping over to the wagon and chucking them in the back. Walking around to the front, he paused when he saw the pony with the dirty white mane from earlier leaning against the front of his wagon.

"She's righ', ye're terrible at actin'," he said lightly, looking up and meeting Dusk's gaze. They kept the look for a long moment before he shook his head. "Ya come in, feed the entire town for pennies, then spread them all aroun' mah caravan."

He gave Dusk a steely look.

"We're not the kind to take charity, 'specially without knowin' who it's comin' from and what the strings are."

Dusk stared at the pony for a moment, before scrunching his eyes closed and massaging his temples. "Look," he said, eyes still closed, "no strings, no charity. I gave coins for goods, just like everyone in the market who bought from me."

He cracked an eye, staring at the pony.

"I'm just a backwater nobody who knows how to grow things the earth pony way, with more food than I know what to do with and a soft heart. I saw some of, well, I guess your ponies giving me the evil eye, and I don't have a use for this coin on my farm right now so I decided to pay it forward."

"Wait," the stallion said, cocking his head and leaning in. "What do you mean, grow things the earth pony way? What way is there besides sowing the seed and tendin' it?"

Dusk narrowed his eyes, shaking his head slightly. "No, you don't just plant it! I mean a unicorn or a pegasus would have to, since unicorn magic leaves that nasty taste on food, but we," he tapped his chest and gestured at the stallion, "we know how to get our hooves dirty, right?"

"Well sure, but how's that grow anything any faster?" the stallion asked, leaning further in.

Frowning, Dusk looked at him before using the tip of his hoof to burrow a bit into the dirt between them. Concentrating, he focused on a sprig of clover and pushed a bit of earth magic into it.

The caravan pony's eyes widened as he watched the clover sprout and grow before he quickly stomped a hoof down on the plant and glanced around.

"You inbred fool," he hissed, eyes wide and searching, "that's Deer magic! You're a buckin' druid, practicing that here!"

"What?" Dusk asked, frowning. "No, druids are, like, high priests of the Deer. This isn't their magic, it's ours! It's earth pony innate magic! Like how we use our hooves to grab things!"

The caravaner's face frowned in thought, before he shook his head. "Look, I don' care what sort of sorcery it is, I just know it'll get'cha a spear in the skull, so none of that around the unicorns." He glanced around again before sighing. "Look, we earth ponies have'ta look out for each other, so I won't tell no pony about you bein' a druid or whatever type of sorcerer you need to be to get that fruit so damned good. But ya can't go showin' off around unicorns, or they'll start a witch-hunt that ends with you hanging from a tree. So spread your craft carefully, aye?"

And without another word the stallion left, tucking the fat coin-purse into his mane.

Dusk watched him go before he leaned against the front of his wagon and pressed a hoof against his temple, massaging his pounding headache back.

"I should've paid more attention in Pleasant's classes," he muttered. "I'm not made to be naturally stealthy, and all of this skulduggery is giving me a migraine." Sighing, Dusk glanced around for more surprise conversations before strapping himself into the wagon's harness and trotting for the opening to the marketplace.

He nodded to the unicorn as he tried to pass, but found the haft of a spear across his chest. Sighing, he just started massaging his head as the unicorn chuckled.

"Y'know, that was a mighty generous tip ya gave me earlier, but-"

Dusk didn't even let him finish, simply quickly glancing around to make sure no one was looking at him before his horn glowed through its glamour and a bolt of magenta magic hit the unicorn in his temples.

Blinking, the unicorn glanced at him curiously, before his eyes slowly wandered over the tents and blankets of the bazaar, before slowly rolling up into the sky as a wide grin stretched over his face.

"Whoa dude," he whispered, blinking slowly. "That cloud totally looks like Celestia's plot."

Letting out a rush of breath and a chuckle, Dusk nodded. "Yeah dude, absolutely. Just make sure not to stare into the sun, she hates when you do that."

The unicorn's grin straightened out as he nodded seriously, before the grin slowly slide over his muzzle again.

Quickly trotting away from the unicorn, Dusk glanced around at the houses and their doors as he wandered around the settlement. After five minutes he found one of the places he was looking for, the house of Flicker and Flynt.

Untying himself, he pulled down two of the four baskets he'd held back and placed them next to the door before knocking on the doorframe, not trusting the door itself.

He heard some scraping inside of the mud shack, before the door swung open and a thin stallion poked his head into the narrow gap. "What?"

"Uhm, hi," Dusk said, a bit off-kilter. "On the road here I was stopped by a couple of stallions-"

Sighing, the stallion stepped away from the opening. The door opened wider to show a dappled palomino pony who's spots were a couple of hues darker than the twins had been, and longer of coat. His mane was long and unkempt, his cheekbones heavy against his taut skin.

His back left foreleg was also a wooden peg, the flesh ending just above where the knee would have been.

"What did my sons do this time?" he asked, reaching into his mane and pulling out a nearly flat purse out. "You're still walkin', so I don't think they beat the coins out'a you. I can't replace much-"

"Whoa there, elder," Dusk said, holding up his hoof. "They robbed me, yeah, but after that I made them a deal, and they asked me to pay you instead of them."

The stallion looked at him, frowning.

"I know how it sounds, but they did escort me through the woods here, and I pay back my debts," he said, waving a hoof at the two baskets. "And while I didn't have more than three copper, I did have some baskets of food they said they'd take as payment. So here it is; one basket of unmilled grains, and another basket of mixed turnips and carrots, for keeping me company on the trip."

The stallion looked at the baskets, stumping over to them and looking in their tops and glancing at Dusk, a flinty tone to his gaze.

"I'm not accepting charity just cause I'm crippled," he growled, turning his back and making his way back into the shack.

"And that's not what these are!" Dusk quickly said, sitting and holding up his hooves. "I don't even know ya, sir, how could I even know about your leg? I'm new to town, fresh from the market, I don't even know your name! I just know that your sons care enough to send these," he waved a hoof at the baskets, "your way."

The stallion paused, his shoulders in the doorframe. Dusk couldn't see his face, but he did see the shoulders tense and hitch once before hearing a sigh.

"Can ye help me bring'm in?"

Dusk quickly grabbed one of the baskets in his teeth before he slowly nudged the other one before him, following the thumping thuds of the stallion's wooden peg.

"Company Daise," the stallion called, catching the attention of a very ashy-gray mare sitting at a table in the hut, which had been divided into sections by furniture instead of walls.

The main area was dedicated to a fireplace made of baked mud bricks and two sitting chairs before it. The chairs were wide enough to allow easy movement from the fireplace to the table behind them, and Dusk saw an iron stand over the fire that likely held cooking pots as a camping tripod would. Dusk counted four chairs at the table, though two of them looked dusty.

"Ma'am," Dusk greeted, dipping his head. "D'ya happen to have a pantry, or should I leave these next to the fire?"

The mare looked between the two of them before looking to the stallion. "Steel?"

The stallion shook his head. "The twins sent us some food. Helped this stallion along the roads after robbin' him, of all things."

The mare's muzzle scrunched as she looked at Dusk.

"They robbed you, then helped you?"

Chuckling, Dusk set the basket of wheat in his mouth down. "I can be real convincin' when I need t'be," he said with a small smile. "It helped that I gave them some food when they didn't kill me once they found out I was on my way to market and didn't have any coin yet."

"Fools," Steel quietly said as he picked up the basket of vegetables and walked them slowly over next to the standing basin near the table. "Never did have enough sense."

The mare bit her lip, looking at Steel, before turning to Dusk and asking, "Did they look well?"

Steel glanced over his shoulder at her, before looking to Dusk as well.

"Ah, well," he started, blinking, "they looked a bit thin, but otherwise they seemed healthy."

"That's good," the mare said as Steel nodded. "I'm Daisy, and this is my husband Steel. I'm sorry our foals gave you grief, but ah'm glad to hear any news about them."

"They ain't come home in a couple of weeks now," Steel said, picking up the wheat basket and walking it over to the kitchen as well. "We were startin' to get worried, but I guess they're just tired of hearin' me tell them to get their act together before the unicorns get theirs."

"Well, if I see 'em on the way out, should I tell them anything?" Dusk asked, itching to get home.

The other two glanced at each other, before Steel lowered his gaze to the floor. "Tell 'em I'm sorry," he said. "An' tell 'em to come home soon."

Dusk nodded before trotting out, closing the door behind him and rubbing his temples a moment before hitching himself back to his wagon. He glanced once more at the door before moving on to try and find Iron Heart's dam.

Heading to the outskirts, he looked around for a few minutes before finding one of the larger huts that matched the description he'd been given. There was a colt sitting in the dirt in front of the house, drawing in the earth with a stick until he caught sight of Dusk.

"'Lo there," Dusk said, dipping his head. "Would you happen to be Iron Heart's little brother?"

The colt narrowed his eyes and nodded slowly. "Da' says he ain't family no more though," the colt said in a small, raspy voice. "Says Iron is doin' the family wrong with his actions."

"Maybe I can change their minds, a little," Dusk said with a small smile. "Would you fetch your Ma for me? Your big brother sent ya some food."

The colt stood up and trotted to the door, opening it and disappearing inside. Dusk unhooked himself again and walked around to the back of the wagon, pulling the last two full baskets from the back and walking them towards the door.

After a moment a clydesdale mare appeared in the doorway, a mellow gold coat made striking by her white mane and fetlocks.

"What'cha want?" she demanded, her form firm and unyielding as she glared down at Dusk.

"Ah, well, I met your son on the road," he started, but stopped when she snorted and spat on the ground between them.

"I'm dam to no highway robber," she snarled, her nostrils flaring. "I won't pay you back for what that foal took from you, whatever it may have been."

"Oh, I only had two copper at the time," Dusk said dismissively. "But that's not why I'm here. I had a chat with Iron, and after a meal, he agreed to escort me to town safely. He didn't want the food I offered him in repayment, an' told me to bring it here." He watched the mare's eyes wrinkle in confusion. "Wanted to make sure his little brother was eating enough."

The mare looked at the two baskets, then behind her. Dusk watched as her eyes softened, before she turned back and nodded sharply.

"I accept the repayment of his debt," she said, cocking her head. "What did he send?"

"This basket is full of unmilled einkorn," Dusk said, shaking the basket gently with a hoof. "And this one's got beans, turnips, carrots, squash, and a small pouch of peppers."

The mare's lips quirked into a smile for half a second, before she nodded. "Very well. I'll go get some sacks."

"Ah, no need," Dusk said, moving the baskets forth. "These're easy enough to weave, and I've got plenty of jute. Consider them part of the payment, if ya please."

The mare paused, then nodded. "Very well."

Dusk walked the baskets up to her, and paused before scratching the back of his head. "Uhm, I also talked with Daisy and Steel. They had a message for their sons, and I could...?" he trailed off.

The mare's eyes narrowed, and she chewed on her bottom lip for a moment before sighing. "If you see that foal, tell him that his dam is grateful, and his sire would take him back if he would actually apologize and go to the field as he should."

Dusk smirked a bit at that, wiping the expression when the mare's glare returned. "Sorry. Understood, ma'am. I'll be on my way, then."

She kept the heavy frown for another few moments, before she nodded smartly and moved the baskets into the hall beyond the doorway. Dusk turned his back and started the walk back to his wagon, before he heard the mare clear her throat.

"Will you also tell Iron I miss him?" she asked in a whisper. "And let him know Cherry Heart is growing into the smart stallion Iron knew he would?"

Glancing back, Dusk gave her a warm smile. "I will," he promised, before reattaching himself to his empty wagon and walking towards the woods he'd come through earlier the same day.

The New Normal

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Dusk had a quiet walk home. Physically quiet at least, as his head was spinning with thoughts and memories of the squat mud village. It didn't take long for him to decide that the earth ponies were likely being forced to live there, after seeing the unicorn guards. He just wasn't sure how forced they were; he wanted to believe it was just political coercion, but he was afraid it was less insidious and more overt.

But that led him to wonder where his mentor, Princess Celestia, was. Was she in the tent city of the unicorns, ignoring the world below her as she built her city? How long would she continue to ignore the plight of the earth ponies after the completion of the castle?

And what would he do if she wasn't there? He remembered from his history books that Celestia disappeared from Equestria for a short period after instructing her staff to move the capital to the half-built castle she'd been intending to make a trade center until Nightmare Moon, but none of the books mentioned exactly how long she'd been gone. Fifty years is relatively short in the eyes of history; was she still on her trek?

His thoughts looped and twisted in on themselves, leading to no insights and a tension headache.

In the end, he dismissed his thoughts as he neared the entrance to the Everfree, shaking them vigorously out of his head. Glancing into the sky, he figured it to be about three in the afternoon, leaving him plenty of time to get through the forest before nightfall.

When he reached the bridge, he smiled over and across the gently swaying wooden planks before his hackles raised.

Looking behind himself, he listened for any noise coming from the forest before turning his head back to the castle, ears tilted forward and perked as high as they could go.

Slowly moving over the bridge, he scoured everything all around himself for any source of anything out of place, but there wasn't even a blade of grass out of place. As far as he could see everything was exactly as he'd left it.

"Lily?" he called, his ears trembling as he listened for any return. "Clover?"

No sound returned beyond his echo.

Moving around the castle he put away his wagon, checking over his alarm spell and finding it as he'd left it. Dismissing it, he grabbed some of the crockeries he'd bought as well as some of his food stores before heading into the castle's kitchen.

Throwing some quick dinner together, he sent a quick pulse of magic through the castle and found nothing beyond the spiders and beetles.

Grabbing a bowl of the vegetable soup, he shook his head as he tried to dismiss the nervous pulse running still along his spine as he made his way to the room he'd claimed.

"You're losing it, Dusk," he muttered, shaking his back as he reached his door. "Overstimulated, I'll bet."

He opened his door and peered around the empty room suspiciously, even lifting the mattress, but found nothing out of place. Hrmph-ing to himself, he settled down onto the foot of his bed and pulled his diary from the stone wall, eating as he described his foray into town.

It wasn't until Lily came screaming into his room the following morning that he figured out what had been making him uneasy.

As soon as he heard the news he tore out of the servant's quarters, rebounding off a couple of walls as he galloped down the halls at full speed. He nearly jumped completely over a couple of stairways, hearing only the beating of his heart in his ears as he ran.

He skidded to a halt in front of an open door and glanced around the emptied room, before he said, "She did come back last night! This was her room, she must have emptied it when I wasn't here..."

Dusk turned to the panting Lily and grabbed her, pulling her into a sudden full-body hug.

"She's back," he said, releasing the blushing pegasus and returning her wide grin. "She can start fixing things!"

Lily's smile slipped from her face, her eyes suddenly distant. "Yeah," she said, faintly. "Yeah, I hope so too."

The following week was full of Dusk cheerfully wandering through his routines, chatting animatedly with the siblings while he was farming or tinkering with the stuff he'd bought in town, and even finding it in himself to create a cake from scratch with a bunch of leftover fruits he had for sweetener.

Throughout the week he'd been trying his best to wring news out of Lily, but the pegasus had both been quieter than usual. After a few days, they stopped even appearing, Dusk's mind buzzing too vigorously to wonder why.

Eventually he decided that he'd need to head back into Haysdale to find any real news.

Early in a morning about eleven days after he'd last made the trip, he loaded some of his fresh produce onto his wagon and started the trip into town.

He paused as he exited the Everfree, looking up at a veritable storm of activity around the city on the mountain, a host of pegasus flocking over the stubby stones where walls would be. Smiling to himself, he made up stories of how Celestia had excommunicated the unicorn nobles that had been standing on the others for so long, and how the new pegasus nobles had formed an air guard around her new city.

He reached the outskirts of Haysdale and paused on the trail, looking at a new stretch of brown mud wall erected around the village. Parts of it still looked wet even. He looked both ways along it before shrugging and heading towards the obvious gate.

"She's really concerned about security all of a sudden," he murmured to himself as he walked through the gate and started heading towards the center of town.

As he walked through the empty lanes, his trotting gate slowed as he reached the outskirts of the market and saw it was empty beyond the tent that had sold dried food-stuffs when he was here the first time.

Trotting over, he glanced at the window of the tent to see the same unicorn mare that had insulted his acting. Instead of being nose-deep in a book this time, she was scanning the area with a pair of sharp eyes that widened when Dusk poked his nose around the side of the tent.

"'Lo there," he said, looking around as he moved up to her table. "Is the town out on the field right now?"

She blinked at him, her eyes softening as she looked him over. "You don't know, do you?" she asked softly, before lifting a whistle from a necklace around her neck. Dusk tilted his head as she gave three sharp blows on the glittering silver piece before it dropped limply from her lips. "I'm so sorry," she said, giving him one of the most sorrowful looks he'd ever seen.

"Wha-?" he started to ask before he heard the sizzling sound of magic flying through the air.

Panic widening his eyes, his brain took less than a fraction of a second to tell him it was a stunning spell. His wards absorbed the impact that would have hit the side of his head, and acting on instinct, he dropped limply in the harness, playing at being stunned.

He listened as heavy, metallic shoes approached from behind him.

"Good job, quartermaster," came a strong masculine voice. Dusk felt his head swing limply to the side as a cold horseshoe pressed on his shoulder and shake him gently. "Is this the stallion?"

"Yes colonel, this is the farmer who appeared at the same time as the caravan, but separately," the mare reported. "He proceeded to nearly give away his wares to the town, then spend what money he'd made at the caravan buying seemingly random goods. A few reports from the townsponies also state that he gave away more food to two families, both of which are related to known brigands."

The stallion beside him snorted. "How charitable," he said hollowly, before whistling with his lips and walking away.

Dusk felt his body pull away from the tent, then hooves pulled him from the wagon and started dragging him away, to the north if he hadn't gotten mixed up once he'd closed his eyes. After a few minutes, he felt the sun on his coat disappear, before he heard the swinging of heavy iron hinges and the clang of a door.

He waited for a few breaths before he cracked his eyes, glancing around before sitting up.

He looked around a dirt-floored cell, surrounded on three sides by black metal bars and cobbled stones on the fourth side. He moved to the front of the cell and looked out at the full jail he'd landed in.

He looked to the left and saw the leader of the caravan, staring dully out of his door. He looked to the right and saw Daisy, Flynt and Flicker's dam, laying against the back wall of her own room. The rest of their cells were empty.

Glancing around and seeing that there wasn't a guard stationed inside the place, he moved over to his right. "Pst, Daisy," he whispered, walking back and leaning down to talk to her. "What happened?"

Her ears flicked, and she glanced up at him for a moment, before she turned over and tucked her head between her front legs.

"The Princess happened," he heard from behind him. Perking up, he looked at the caravan leader.

He glanced at Dusk when he trotted over, before returning his gaze to the door. "Celestia, highest of the lords and ladies of Canterlot and ruler of Equestria, has fucked off," he said bitterly. "After a generation without her damned sister, she broke and ran.

Celestia's left Equestria, and the unicorn nobles slaughtered any earth ponies and pegasi who could stand up to them." He chuckled hollowly. "Welcome to the new Equestria, slave."

Dusk's ears fell back, and he felt his head fall forward and come to rest on the bars.

After a moment, he lifted his chin and looked around the jail.

"Are they keeping the colts and fillies separately then?" he asked. "And where's Steel, and Cherry Heart?"

He turned when he heard a dry sob from the mare behind him. The leader snorted, his expression wavering. "Oh aye, they're keeping them all in the same place," he whispered. "They're all in the White Plains now, though I've no doubt they still have the bodies of the ones who fought back still swinging on the gallows they built overnight."

"No," Dusk whispered, shaking his head as he backed away from the bars, slumping on the stone wall he bumped into. "No, they couldn't..."

The caravan pony snorted harshly. "Not until the great white coward fled. It's their country now."

Either out of anything to talk about or just out of energy, the stallion turned away and laid on the dirt floor with his back to Dusk.

Dusk forced himself to ignore the tears that threatened to drown him, coming from all around him, as he shut down everything but his mind, bending himself to what had happened in the span of ten days, and how he could possibly fix his country without showing everypony what he actually was and destroying the flow of time as he knew it.

***** ***** ***** ***** *****

"Wake up, muddy."

Dusk jolted as a wooden haft shoved at his jaw, instinctively rolling himself away as he woke up from an uneasy sleep.

The dark green unicorn on the other side of the bars quickly pulled the stick out of the cell, before snorting at Dusk. "Enjoy that nap? Be your last one for a while, muddy. Now, let me see that cutie mark."

Dusk mutely complied, displaying the mark he'd crafted for Lily; a sheaf of wheat and a shovel, over golden sunburst.

"Laborer," the unicorn said over his shoulder, where the noise of a scratching quill on paper came. "Small, but decently built. C'mere, let me see your teeth," the unicorn said, waving Dusk closer with a hoof.

Dusk looked at him like he was crazy. "Wha—"

The unicorn's horn lit up, and a metal stick lifted off of his back before becoming suffused with his amber aura.

Looking warily at the rod, Dusk moved up to the door and opened his mouth. The unicorn smirked as the metal rod fell onto his back before another small stick whizzed up and moved Dusk's lips out of the way as he inspected Dusk's teeth.

Dusk noted with a shiver that the stick was already damp.

"Stallion's age appears to be just over twenty years," the unicorn said blandly. "Teeth are in great condition, and the gums seem to be healthy as well."

The unicorn stepped back and withdrew the stick, seeming to mull over his thoughts for a long moment.

"Congratulations muddy," he almost drawled, smirking. "I'm going to give you a choice. You can either go to the fields and work there until Her Majesty's larders are using you for fertilizer, or you can join the ground pounders being sent up north to guard us against the filthy carnivorous Griffins. What's your choice, muddy?"

"I already served, what are you talking ab—"

Dusk's question was almost literally bit off as the metal rod from before whipped around, lighting up as the unicorn prodded him with the end.

Every muscle in his chest tensed, his legs and jaw following suit as the unicorn watched on as magical electricity was pumped into Dusk for what felt like a lifetime.

The unicorn pulled the rod away and Dusk collapsed in a heap onto the dirt floor, his vision white with black dots spinning through the void.

Panting, he barely heard the unicorn above him click his tongue. "This one sure does want to chatter. Send him north." And then the sound of iron horseshoes moving away became silence.

Dusk eventually got his heart under control and forced his right foreleg underneath his barrel. Pushing and grinding his hoof into the dirt, he forced himself upright and spit a mouthful of blood out of his mouth, his tongue stinging from where his teeth had been forced to clench around it.

"Congratulations, altruist," said a hollow voice to his side. "You're coming up north with the rest of the able-bodied stallions."

Dusk glanced to his left, unable to control the bloody drool leaking from his mouth.

The caravan leader gazed at him from the floor where he laid on his side. Dusk's eyes widened as he saw several burnt circles on his chest, and the unnatural angle half of his left rear leg laid at.

"What a joke," the stallion said, glancing down at his rear. "He told me that I wouldn't be any use here and that I should be healed up by the time we get to Fort Trotting. Your choice was exactly as much of one as mine was."

He snorted. "Ah well. I'll be bait, and then I'll see Sand Hollow and our baby again." He smirked, before closing his eyes and laying still.

Dusk watched him for a bit, absently listening to the plop of blood at his forehooves, before achingly turning and looking at Daisy's cell. He couldn't decide whether he should be glad that she wasn't in there or not.

He heard a noise from the other direction and glanced to his left to see the unicorn in front of his cell again.

"Catch your breath yet?" he asked before a ring of keys floated up from inside his uniform. Levitating the lightning rod again, he unlocked the cell before nodding his head to Dusk's left. "C'mon then. You get to drag his sorry carcass to the transport wagon."

Dusk gazed at the unicorn for a moment before forcing his back legs underneath him, staggering to a stand and clipping one of the bars with his head. He leaned against it, waiting for the spots to vanish before he slowly walked out of the cell and into the one to his left. He nudged the stallion's nose gently before he pushed a leg beneath his neck and pulled him up into a stand.

The stallion grit his teeth and let out a harsh breath as his leg jostled before he leaned against Dusk and let himself be led out of the jail.

The unicorn lifted a hoof and pointed at a large wagon, drawn by four large earth pony stallions. Dusk's heart sank as he recognized one, though his long mane and chin hair had been roughly shorn and a large metal band had been secured around his neck.

Seeing the glint of metal, Dusk realized that all four of the ponies had been collared. Glancing into the back of the wagon, he saw more stallions and more collars.

As he got nearer to the wagon he heard a whistle beside him. Looking to the right, he paused as he looked at the unicorn escorting them. The unicorn nodded to the pony following behind him with a scroll levitating in their magic. Nodding back, they pulled two long bands out of their saddlebags and approached Dusk.

"Not bucking likely," the caravaneer whispered into Dusk's shoulder, before roughly pushing him away.

Not expecting the shove, Dusk rolled onto his back, flailing for a moment before righting himself and reaching out a hoof. "No!"

But it was too late. As soon as he'd moved, the unicorn had levitated the bar of metal up from his back. But instead of prodding the stallion with it, he brought it through the air with an almost thoughtful expression.

Dusk winced at the noise of the bar meeting the stallion's skull, a dull cracking thud that sounded like someone breaking wet bark on a tree.

The stallion fell limply, his legs twitching as his spine contracted and jittered.

The unicorn moved over, looking down at the earth pony stallion twitching in the dirt before the bar swung again through the air.

It only took one swing, but as Dusk looked away and gagged up bile, he heard another, and another, and another.

After the last wet, smacking thud, he heard a sigh before the unicorn said lightly, "Collar the other muddy and get him on the wagon. He'll be the last, now."

Dusk barely felt the cold steel choker wrap itself around his throat before he was pulled to his hooves by it. A hoof placed on his croup shoved him forward, and he stumbled his way to the wagon and up its steps. His neck tingled as he passed the low walls surrounding the flatbed he collapsed onto.

He heard a dull chuckling behind and now below him before a few shouted commands rang through the air and he felt the wheels below him began to turn.

End of the Road

View Online

It took three days to reach the coast from the hills, though it was hard for Dusk to tell the time accurately since he spent most of the journey curled up on the floor. It took two prods from a lightning rod to get him out of the carriage near the end of the first day when they allowed the ponies in the wagon a stop at a creek and switched out the pulling team.

He awoke in the middle of the first night to a flurry of whispers.

"I'm doing it," the young stallion was saying, nodding to three other ponies that looked about the same age. "If we all jump out at the same time, they won't catch us all. We can run and get some help, try and find some of the outlying farmers like this one, and—"

"Don't cross the wagon walls," Dusk said, reaching out and grasping the leader's foreleg. "Those collars are enchanted, and I don't know what'll happen if you cross the border with it on."

Scowling, the young stallion (barely old enough to have a cutie mark, Dusk thought) shook off the hoof.

"Whatever it is, I can take it. It took three of their magic sticks to get me the first time, this can't be much worse," he said, hunching and getting his rear legs beneath him.

"Wait," Dusk tried, attempting to sit up, but it was too late.

The young pony's legs tensed and he leaped towards the back of the wagon, his front hooves coming together before him and turning his body into a spear, as though he would break through whatever magic they had through sheer power.

The wagon didn't stop him from jumping out, but all of the ponies in the cart heard a sizzling of magic as the collar passed over the wall before they heard a rolling thud noise, followed by another smaller thud.

The unicorn escorts started chuckling before the driver pulled the reins of the four pulling the wagon to force a stop.

One of the escorts stepped into the darkness for a moment before returning with the collar across her back and something large in one of her forehooves. Pressing her other hoof against the wagon for balance, she lit her horn before impaling the head of the jumper on one of the studs that used to hold a cover on the wagon.

"Looks like your friend took a tumble," the mare said, smiling at the group in the cart. "Here now, he's pretty secure then?" she asked, tapping on the top of the head with a hoof. "Shouldn't happen again."

And then they were forced to just sit there, in the darkness, as the blood of one of their own trickled into the cart.

The next day they only stopped to change out the ponies harnessed to the wagon, letting the prisoners sip from muddy waters held in a nearby ditch after rain that had passed who knows how long ago.

The unicorns ate and drank from their own canteens and rations as they took turns riding on the bench over the team of stallions pulling the wagon, leering at the ponies grabbing a few mouthfuls of grass as they drank, something that Dusk stayed away from.

As it turned out the grass, while sweet, was of some breed that seemed to disagree with most of the stallions, and soon the bottom of the wagon was covered in filth as the unicorns ignored the urgent cries of the ponies holding their cramping stomachs. Dusk risked poking just his nose over the sides of the wagon just to get away from the smell.

At the end of the second night, the unicorns apparently got tired of it as well. Pulling onto the side of the road near a green-covered pond, they pulled the earth ponies out of the cart and dunked them all under the water to get rid of the mess before blasting the filth out of the back of the cart.

Dusk was chosen to pull the wagon this time, and he lost himself in the bends of the dirt roads as he tried to keep with a pace that the other three ponies could maintain.

He walked all through the night, the only light coming from the stars that glittered coldly above them.

When they started to disappear, and the sky in the east began to tinge pink, the drivers pulled the wagon over for the last time and allowed the ponies out for a meadow break, blithely watching the group graze and water themselves in puddles.

After everypony was back in the wagon, the unicorns paused before starting a headcount.

The largest unicorn turned from the wagon and yelled into the meadow, "We're down one! I have about thirty seconds worth of patience, and if you get back to the wagon before I reach zero, we won't punish you!"

He waited for five seconds, before starting to count down from twenty-five. He paused when he reached ten, looking around before shrugging.

"Your head then," he said, before turning back to the wagon and lifting a hoof to the enchanted field on the wall.

"Wait!" came a panicked voice as one of the friends of the first pony bolted out of the woods. "I'm sorry, I had to crap, I'm—"

The unicorn ignored him and tapped a couple of runes Dusk couldn't see.

He heard a humming and saw the collar begin to light with an emerald green hue before he tucked his face into his barrel and covered his ears.

He couldn't block out the sharp sizzling, or the thud as something solid impacted with the side of the wagon.

"Shame," the stallion said blandly. "He almost made it back in." Turning, he motioned to one of the other guards. "Go ahead and dump this one off the main road, so anyone else passing by doesn't have to look. Wouldn't want a lady to have to see a ground pounder, eh?"

There was a round of chuckling before Dusk heard the tingling of magic and a crashing of undergrowth as they threw the corpse into the woods before they tapped on his flanks as a signal to get the wagon moving.

The last stop they had was comparatively uneventful, and Dusk eagerly laid down in the back of the wagon as his hooves pulsed unpleasantly from the walk.

He gazed up into the night sky, well on the way towards midnight, and looked wistfully at the shape of a mare's head still on the low-hanging moon. She may have been a bit strange at the beginning of their companionship, but Luna had quickly become just as a stalwart of a friend as Celestia had been, and he missed her nearly as much as he missed her sister.

He sniffled before wiping at his eyes, concentrating on his breathing for a bit before he straightened and looked over the wall of the wagon, towards the north-east.

"Can ya smell the salt air yet?" a small voice whispered beside him.

Looking down, he saw the last remaining colt of the trio that had been so harshly trimmed away over the last two days.

Lifting his muzzle, Dusk breathed in, and indeed felt the tang of a warm breeze under the cooler currents of the land, the wilder salt-green smell fighting heartily with the wildflower pollen in the air.

"Yeah," Dusk whispered. "I can smell the ocean."

The colt sniffled. "My da' died out there, on it," he said, not bothering to wipe at the muddy tracks flowing down from his eyes. "He served out of the fort we're headin' to now, and the griffons got jumpy one day and sunk his ship." He scowled down into the darkness of the wagon. "Only the unicorns survived to tell tha tale, 'course."

Dusk swallowed dryly, trying to come up with any words to ease the ache in this colt's heart and having to relegate himself to using a hoof to gently rub his back as his quiet tears turned into sobs.

After another hour or two of jostling the unicorns started to whisper among themselves and clean up their gear. A few minutes later the wagon rounded a turn in the road and began a sharp climb up to a squat square fortress on a cliff. Dusk was able to hear a harsh clashing of waves against the stone wall of the cliff and idly wondered if the fortress would still be there in his day.

Then he reminded himself that there wouldn't be any earth ponies then at this rate.

He struggled with his internal impulses; between saving Equestria and righting the imbalance in power, and keeping himself hidden. The way he'd wiped Lily's memory had been bad enough; he didn't want to have to do that to an entire platoon of ponies.

But would the deaths of their, well, slaves, be any better?

Looking up at the large walls as he passed through the open space he started planning. Barely noticing the large metal lattice slamming into place behind the cart, he perked up enough to look over the walls of the wagon and apply some of the mental math he needed.

I'll need components, but with this many unicorns around it shouldn't be a problem.

He paused when the wagon came to a stop. The unicorns in the seat hopped down and a moment later he heard the magic runes being used.

The tail of the wagon dropped and he saw a quartet of fully armored unicorns brandishing spears behind heavy helmets that allowed their horns to poke out of the top.

"Come on then, out with you," called one of them, gesturing with a spear. "Nice and orderly, two rows, hup now."

A few of the others in the wagon were slow to move, but Dusk was among the first few that slowly clambered down and into a couple of shoddy rows between the spears. The rest followed after the two front spears thudded into the bed of the wagon menacingly.

"Right then," called the same unicorn as the four ponies from the front of the wagon wandered around it to join the lines. "You've been conscripted for service in her majesty's northernmost navies. You'll be trained in marine warfare, maintenance of your vessel—"

Dusk ignored the drillmaster as he droned on about what was expected of them, instead taking careful measure of the walls and yard with his eyes.

"We'll start tomorrow," the drill pony said, tapping his spear on the ground. "You have mostly free reign here, as everything sensitive has been hidden behind the runes that react with your collars. If you try and start anything, every unicorn here has agency over punishing you through said collar. If you wander too far from the walls, your collar will activate.

"Questions?" he asked dryly.

"Princess Celestia won't allow this," whispered one of the ponies near Dusk.

The guard's ears perked up. "What was that?" he asked, waving a hoof after a moment. "Go ahead, what did you say?"

"Ah said Princess Celestia won't allow this treatment of her subjects," the older stallion said, standing a little straighter. "Ah know she's roving right now, but when she hears—"

The guard lifted his visor, displaying dark emerald eyes and no expression whatsoever.

"Haven't you heard?" he drawled slowly. "She's back. Has been for a couple of weeks or so now." He leaned forward, getting closer to the stallion who'd spoken. "And she hasn't done anything yet, has she?"

The stallion was quiet for a moment, before saying, "Y-you're lying..."

The unicorn snorted, shrugging. "Believe what you want to, I suppose," he said blandly before stepping back to address the group again. "Canteen is in the northwest, bunks are on the northeast side. Three meals a day, Reveille is thirty minutes before sunup. If you're late, you'll be punished. The rest of today is yours."

The guard smirked. "Rest up," was his last words as he turned around and trotted away with the rest of the unicorn guards.

Dusk watched them walk away before he began trotting towards the northwest.

"Hey, wait," yelped the young pony he'd been trying to comfort earlier. "We should stick together, as a group—"

"It won't matter," Dusk said, looking over his shoulder. "Either we'll just be a bigger target, or we'll annoy the unicorns and they'll zap us until we break apart. If anyone wants to join me, I'm sure that the gruel here will be better than that gut-grass some of us had on the road."

He turned back and started trotting forward again, hearing some grumbling behind him before a few sets of hooves joined him.

The food in the canteen was indeed better than the grass on the road, if not much more so, and they at least had fresh water. Dusk ate his ration quickly, dropping the heavy hardtack into the bowl of watery oats and letting it break apart before wolfing it down. He turned in the bowl at the kitchen and made his way towards the barracks.

He found it already half-full of stallions, most of them weathered and beaten-looking. He spotted one idly turning over a polishing kit in his hooves.

"I was an officer, until about ten days ago," he said when Dusk neared. Glancing up, he looked Dusk over before nodding. "You're a bit small, but ye're solidly built. You'll do well enough out here."

Dusk swallowed heavily, glancing around the room full of ponies. "I appreciate that, sir, but I was hoping—"

"Don't," the ex-officer interrupted, sighing. "We're stuck here, until—"

"Until tonight," Dusk whispered, stepping closer. "Look, I get that you've probably been through some of the worst of it, but I'm busy trying to do something, so please?" Dusk asked with eyebrows raised. "Do you know of somewhere I could disappear off to for, say, an hour? Where they won't see?"

The stallion sighed again, before shaking his head. "You wanna disappear, you talk to the right unicorn the wrong way. But if you wanna hole up somewhere for a bit, then the young studs coming in used to hide in a closet near the officer's quarters. There's a cubbyhole in the back with a few stones that've been moved.

"It's about your size if you want someplace to hide," the stallion gave him a steady look, "but if you're gone at lunchtime, they'll lock down and search for ya, so get whatever it is out of your system by then."

"Thank you, sir, that's all I needed," Dusk said before turning and wandering out of the barracks, ignoring the muttering voice behind him as he left.

Dusk found the closet easily enough, just out of sight of the two unicorns that glared at him when he looked up the hallway towards what he assumed to be the officer's quarters. He'd slipped into it easily enough and found a couple of soft brooms, a larger stiff broom, a couple of wooden buckets, and a patched-up back wall.

Sighing as he used his magic to make one of the bricks temporarily see-through, he smiled thinly when he saw that the hollow was still there and had just been covered over.

Casting a small spell, he set up a marker of sorts behind the wall before making himself invisible.

Walking out of the closet, he made his way around the corner before poking his head around it. The same unicorns were there, talking quietly between themselves and laughing every now and then. Dusk looked behind himself before he used his hoof to tap the ground, making a firm thud-ing noise.

Both guards looked his way for a moment before one of them shrugged and started talking to the other again.

Trotting up as quietly as he could, he got to about ten paces away before he pulled his secret weapon off of his back; one of the buckets, also temporarily invisible.

Cocking his hoof back, he chucked the bucket towards the other end of the hallway, the missile becoming invisible to him as soon as it left his hoof. After a couple of heartbeats, he flinched as it loudly clattered down the hallway and impacted the wall.

Both unicorns jumped as well before their horns lit up and they both took up position. To Dusk's surprise, they didn't both look down the same way, but they put themselves back-to-back looking up either way.

Dusk shrugged and waited until one of them started calling down the hallway before moving up towards the door, pressing himself against the wall to skirt the stallions in the middle of the hall, before opening the door a sliver and slipping inside. Closing it, he put his ear to the wood and waited until he heard a singular pair of hooves move up the wall before he heard a pony sit directly against the other side of the door.

That makes things a little more difficult. Glad I hit the closet first, he thought, before turning around.

There were only two other ponies in the room, and one of them was lowering his head back onto his cot. The other seemingly hadn't even lifted his, as he was still snoring away.

Waiting until the first stallion had returned to sleep, Dusk quietly lit his horn in a simple divination spell.

Letting his head turn, he saw a lock-up at the other side of the room and shook his head before returning to gaze at the wooden door with a large bolt and padlock on it.

Makes it easier, he thought as he snuck across the room. Investigating the lock, he found that it had been linked to a few different magical signatures instead of a key. Giving it a couple of different frequencies with his horn, he shrugged before just teleporting the entire ordeal away and quietly moving the latch and opening the door.

Inside he found exactly what he'd been hoping for; spell components. Chalk, powdered gems, specifically treated herbs, and a few other things he didn't need but grabbed anyways, snatching up a cloth sack and filling it with anything that caught his eye.

Walking out of the room, he closed the door and the latch before teleporting back to the closet, securing the bag behind the bricks, and walking back to the earth pony quarters.

Walking into the bathroom (little more than a hole in the floor that he presumed led to the cliffs outside) he dropped the invisibility and made sure that his disguise was in order before walking out and taking up an open cot until lunch.

"I see you made it back in time," the officer he'd spoken to earlier murmured, sitting beside Dusk at the table. "You get it all out of your system?"

"Not yet," Dusk said back, taking another spoon of the boiled corn grains they'd been served.

"You better cut it short, then," the officer whispered harshly, stomping the floor threateningly. "If they get wind of whatever you're doing, you ain't the only one going down, they'll punish all of us."

Dusk snorted and pushed away from the table, turning his back on the stallion and taking a step away before he felt a hoof on his flank.

"I ain't done talkin' to ya," the officer growled, pulling Dusk back by his coat.

"Well I'm done listening," he said back, pulling away from the stallion and trying to walk away again.

"You're gonna listen if I gotta beat it into ya," the officer yelled before tackling Dusk, the two ponies wrestling in the dirt floor of the canteen until a pair of unicorns ran up either end of the aisle, waving their lightning rods and yelling at the duo to separate.

They had to prod the pair a few times before they could pull them apart with their magic, both panting from the exertion.

A minute later the two of them found themselves in a darker hallway on the southeast side of the fort, and Dusk watched as the unicorns threw the officer into one heavily bolted and reinforced door before he was thrown into the cell next to him.

He heard the unicorns trotting away before the gruff voice of the officer came echoing under the steel door.

"Ya happy, new blood? Hope you ate enough lunch. They only feed the solitaries every couple of days," he called before Dusk heard him spitting. "Least now you can't do whatever fool thing you were planning."

Standing up and rolling his neck, Dusk sighed. "Actually, now I can do it much easier. Thank you."

He heard the other stallion scoff. "What the tartarus you gonna do in here? You must've been dropped on your head right outta the womb. May the horns take you, you damned idiot."

"Ya know," Dusk said, shaking the illusion off of himself and lighting his horn, "you're not the first pony to accuse me of that. Not even the second, though you might be the third." With a nod towards the wall they shared, his horn shimmered as he turned translucent and walked through the rough stonework.

The stallion was laying on the ground with his snout pushed against the crack in the bottom of the door, away from Dusk's entrance.

"You deserve it, you damned wanna-be upstart," he called through the crack. Dusk couldn't help but see the small smile on the stallion's face. "Comin' in here and stirring up trouble." The pony was quiet for a moment, before chuckling and whispering, "Reminds me of somepony, though."

Letting the spell fade, Dusk waited and watched the despondent stallion lay on the floor.

"You gonna be quiet now?" the stallion called out into the hallway.

"No," Dusk said, letting his voice come up from his diaphragm and ring through-out the tiny cell. As the stallion jumped upright and spun, he flared his wings and straightened his neck, allowing a bit of mana channel through his horn for effect. "I do not intend to be quiet any longer."

The stallion squinted at him, rubbing his eyes before slowly moving towards Dusk.

"You're not real," he whispered, looking the alicorn up and down before shaking his head and reaching forward with a hoof. "The unicorns knocked me out, and now the corn grain is giving me some kind of nightmare."

Dusk reached out and let their hooves meet, channeling a little mana through his frog into the stallions, a trick Celestia had taught him.

"I'm no undigested spec of corn," Dusk said firmly, smiling. "Your eyes are open and do not deceive you. I am Dusk Shine, alicorn of Friendship and Magic, and I—"

He was interrupted by a hoof connecting to his jaw.

"You bastard son of Discord," the officer whispered as Dusk massaged his cheek. "You know how many of my soldiers I saw killed? You know how many of my friend's heads top the walls of this fort, where some of them worked—" The stallion's breath hitched, his voice roughening as fat teardrops started to fall from his face. "They worked to make this shithole livable, workable, and now they're dead.

"Why?" he asked, pleaded as he stared up at Dusk. "Why now? Why not when this started?"

"I couldn't," Dusk whispered. "I shouldn't be showing myself now, but I can't... I can't watch anymore."

The officer spat between Dusk's hooves, some of the spittle landing on his fetlocks.

"I hope it was enough to keep the guilt of hundreds, thousands of earth ponies' lives out of your dreams." The officer let a moment go by before he admitted, "No, I don't. What's the plan now?"

Interlude- State of the Country

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A white unicorn with a horn of unusual length sighed as he stretched his rear legs out from a rich velvet and pale wood chair, his hooves clacking heavily on a desk of the same material. "Do you know something, Soft Shoe? Ah, of course you don't, how could you," he chuckled, before smirking and proclaiming, "It is goodto be the Prince."

A pudgy caramel-colored unicorn across the desk paused in rifling through stacks of paperwork and looked up at the stallion. "Prince, Sir Platinum?"

The unicorn sniffed and flipped at his deep indigo mane. "Yes, Prince. Not like those mongrels that the House of Blood comes from; those whose title come from being descended from that traitorous winged freak. Luckily, the otherwinged freak so generously got rid of for us. Speaking of the freak in Question has been completely restrained?"

"Yes, Highness," the pudgy unicorn said with a nod and a reassuring smile.

"No, no, not 'Highness', that's what she was called. Call me, 'Your Majesty'! Now, continue your report."

"Very well, Your Majesty. The Striga Tincture was slipped to her upon her return, to immediate effect."

"Her return? Do you know whence she traveled?"

"No, your majesty. We found some clues in her saddlebags but they just seemed to be souvenirs from around the country. Some layered stones that we found to come from Ghastly Gorge, a bottle of saltwater that we assume to come from the lands of the seapony, and a bundle of enchanted wooden staves that appear to have come from the Deer."

"Hmm, I shouldn't be surprised that she would travel to lands of such witchery. Get on with it then, continue with how she was received."

"Where anything else we tried merely resulted in an upset stomach, the witchweed tincture rendered her unconscious in an amazingly short amount of time. Your most trusted Household Guards then bound her and carried her to the prepared chamber in the Crystal caverns below.

"Orichalcum chains and hobbles have been applied, as well as The Bridle of the Abyssinian witch Hydia. Through the Chains and the Chamber, we're applying a constant drain on Her Magic reserves, with the crystals of the cavern acting as batteries. We even figured out a way that we can tap them for boosted magical energy."

Soft Shoe's muzzle twinged down. "Though I am puzzled, Your Majesty. What does the Bridle add to your restraint on Celestia?"

He chuckled. "Soft Shoe, dear Soft Shoe. It is the keyrestraint. Eventually, she'll develop a resistance to the witchweed, and then we'll need some other way of keeping her unconscious.

"While the chains sap her magical powers, the Bridle will trap her in her dreams; dreams of her most desperate wishes and desires. She'll never even attempt to awaken. To do so she would have to realize that everything was a dream, and then destroy those things that make her the happiest." The unicorn snorted and tapped his forehooves together. "It's foolproof!"

"Of course, Sir. Forgive my impertinence."

"Forgiven, forgiven. Continue the report."

"Our household troops and the Guard units that we have managed to suborn—"

"Not suborn, just... Turned to the righteous way of thinking."

"Of course your Majesty." Soft Shoes gathered his thoughts for a moment before continuing.

"The Guard and your household Troops have managed to seize Canterlot, though not without significant leaks in the form of escaping mud hooves. Unfortunately, only a portion of the Guard forces stationed on the Border are welcoming of the restoration of the House of Platinum to the throne, though the good news is the others are staying neutral so far.

"The pegasi have remained silent so far, though if we can get a stranglehold on the majority of the mud hooves they'll have to acknowledge your rule or starve. The Bad news is that Prince Stonehoof of the house of Blood is currently commanding General of the third Equestrian Field Army section designated as the 'Stone Field' corps."

Prince Platinum let his rear legs fall to the ground as he clapped his forehooves against the desk. "What!? How did we miss this? His appointment should have made national news!"

"Rather than go through any of the usual court or military channels, Celestia personally granted his commission as commanding General of the Herd, and thus circumvented our standard intelligence channels. Considering his relationship with her, it is unlikely that Stonehoof and the herd will believe the story we've fed to the rabble, Your Majesty."

"Damn That sun-flanked winged freak! Even when everything goes my way she still bucks up my plans." He scowled down into the desktop, the filigree that had been pulled out of it still visible underneath the new varnish.

After a moment though, he snorted and switched back into a smirk. Leaning back in the chair, he flicked a hoof through the air.

"No matter. Let them rally against me. No army could stand against the might of Prince Spoiled Platinum, Ruler of the Sun."

***** ***** ***** ***** *****

General Stone Blood, known by the moniker of Stonehoof to his friends and his enemies, read over the letter again before lighting his horn with a simple messaging spell. Within moments his second in command, one Lieutenant General Steel Gaze, entered into his pavilion.

"Lieutenant," the light indigo unicorn said as greeting with a nod. "Do you remember the V.I.P we had in camp about two weeks ago?"

Steel Gaze smirked a bit, the cigar in the corner of his mouth bobbing as he said, "The 'royal messenger' who was heading back to the castle after her voluntary twenty-five-year field deployment? Did she get there alright?"

Wordlessly the general held out the letter in his magic. With a cocked eyebrow, the pale tan pegasus took it and started reading. As he did so, the flicker of laughter in his eyes cooled, until he reached the end and looked up at Stonehoof with his signature freezing glare. Looking back down at the document, he sniffed before tossing it on the desk.

"Abdicated, huh?" he said, spitting into the dirt floor before nodding. "I'm pretty sure I understand. What are we going to do about the fop?"

"That is the very reason I called you in here first," Stonehoof said, leaning back and pressing his hooves to his eyes. "I know he's a Platinum, even distantly, but he is here, commanding at one of the largest mixed corps in Equestria. If I call him in here and our little chat doesn't go well, are you okay with..."

Finding himself lacking any clear wording, he gestured to Steel Gaze's eyes.

Chuckling mirthlessly, Steel nodded as he said, "Oh aye, I could get 'em. You give the word, sir, and he'll be paralyzed in a heartbeat."

Sighing, Stonehoof nodded. Lighting his horn, he re-sent the summons from before to the other Lieutenant-General under his command.

After a longer wait than he'd had with Steel Gaze, another unicorn ducked through the canvas door of his tent, nodding to the pegasus standing beside the desk. After taking a moment to fuss with his mauve mane, the white stallion walked up to the desk and saluted.

"Sir!" the unicorn called in a faint, vaguely effeminate voice that had several rumors going around the camps at all times.

"At ease, Lieutenant General Pearmain Platinum," Stonehoof said after returning the salute. He noticed Pearmain's ears perk at the full title, and his empty little grin at the acknowledgment.

"Yes, General Stone Blood, sir. What might I be able to do for you, General? Oh, oooooh, are we doing another drill? Mayhap—"

Waving a hoof through the air, Stonehoof shook his head. "No no, nothing so droll. I would actually like you to look over a letter from the capitol for me, and give an opinion on its contents."

"Ah, yes General," said Pearmain as he took the letter. Upon glancing at it he perked up a little.

"Ah, a letter from coz Spoiled I see, from the hoofwriting," he said, smiling blandly. "It has been a while since... I heard..."

He'd stopped speaking as he read, and from the way his eyes flicked over the letter, Stonehoof could tell that he'd read ahead and was now devoting every bit of whatever brains he had to the content.

"Ah," he said after a moment, before placing the letter gingerly on the desk between them. "I believe I see. Just to be clear, General, that VIP we had a fortnight ago. She was...?"

Pearmain gulped when Stonehoof nodded slowly.

"I see, I see," he muttered, before sighing and sitting down. "Why, coz..." he whispered, shaking his head and closing his eyes.

Steel stiffened up a bit when Pearmain snorted before his eyes blazed open, his forehooves raising up to slam into the top of Stonehoof's desk as he raised himself to hover above the wood.

"I'll ready my corps," he said, all inflection gone from his voice. "When do we march?"

Stonehoof looked deep into his fiery eyes, and grinned.

***** ***** ***** ***** *****

General Iron Helm sighed as he looked around the circular table and the other four stallions currently bickering in their seats.

"Look, I don't care what that idiot says," the gray unicorn said, punctuating the remark by throwing the paper copy into the center of the table. "If she has truly abdicated, then Stonehoof should be taking the throne, not Spoiled Platinum! There are clear rules of succession in place from Princess Platinum's days, and they have only been changed once since the diarchy came to be!

"If both Princesses abscond from Equestria, then there are two options; either the throne is given to an heir of appointment or blood, or the tribes go back to their ancestral leaders! Stonehoof is grandson to Princess Luna, thus—"

"Oh, no one cares about what that abomination to nature shat out of her loins," called another of the Lieutenants across the table, waving his pale-furred leg through the air. "Every true unicorn knows that the line of Platinum should never have been forced off the throne."

A third unicorn, with a teal coat and black mane, snorted loudly. "Why-ever would any intelligent pony go with a line as in-bred as Platinum?"

Iron Helm glanced to his left, at the only other pony not currently yelling at everpony else; a young pegasus, Spear Heart, who was just gazing at the grain of the table with empty eyes. He'd looked like that ever since getting a letter from his home four days ago, three days after this 'abdication' news had arrived.

Iron Helm glanced across the table at the two lieutenants nearly coming to blows over a still yelling third one, and his blood began to boil.

"ENOUGH!" he yelled, slamming a hoof onto the table as he yelled loud enough to almost topple the three ponies across from him. Withdrawing his hoof from the massive crevice now arcing across the tabletop, he snorted at the other ponies.

"Listen here you bucking infants," the old unicorn said, leaning across the table with a nearly auditory creaking to his joints, "I don't give a demon's fart about who's on the bucking throne. We are here, in the furthermost reaches of our country, for one gods-blighted purpose: to protect those living in its border!

"We're here, on the outskirts, to keep out the griffons, the diamond dogs, the bucking dragons! The monsters outside!" He leaned back in his chair, glancing at his copy of the abdication letter.

"Not the monsters inside," he said, before using his hoof to shove the paper into the middle. "Orders as usual, and we work as usual. Adjourned."

Sighing, he nodded to the teal pony. "Next up?"

***** ***** ***** ***** *****

Lily staggered as one of her hooves slipped in the mud, nearly sending her crashing into the ground from the weight of the basket on her back. She caught herself at the last moment, weaving back into the line and hoping nopony noticed through the rain.

"Hey!" a voice rang out among the compound, and she flinched before stepping out the line obediently, her nose to the dirt.

"Good to see at least one of you cloud-brains has enough sense to stay out of the way of work," said a gravelly voice nearing her. She flinched again when she felt something metallic swat against her flank with a meaty thwack, followed by a chuckle.

"Look at that wobble. You know," the voice said, hot breath brushing against her ear. "I saw that fall you nearly had. But I don't have to report it, do I? Not if—"

There was a thudding noise before she heard the pony impact the ground beside her and a spray of warmth splatter against her face.

Glancing to the side, she grinned at the sight of a unicorn with a boulder lodged into his shoulders where a head had been. Shrugging against the loose harness, she raised her head to the sky to see every earth-bound ponies' nightmare.

A swarm of pegasus teams, flying with rocks and saplings that had been sharpened into spears.

"You limp pricks always forget," she muttered to the corpse as a flight of singular pegasi started swooping into the yard of the labor camp she and her brother had been pressed into by a group of overeager unicorns babbling about unlicensed flight in Equestria. She leaned to the side as one of the flight landed by her and used a stone knife to cut the basket and harness from around her wings.

"A Hurricane knows how to use the world around it," she said with a giant flap of her wings, pushing off of the earth and joining the flock above as the sky darkened under the cover of clouds, and a hundred wings.

***** ***** ***** ***** *****

Cherry Heart shivered as she watched the swarming pegasi over the camp where they'd taken Momma and Papa. The last thing he'd seen was a pair of unicorns coming together to levitate Momma between themselves, into the wooden walls surrounding the dirt field.

He jumped when a small blue pegasus, barely bigger than he was, landed beside him in the bushes he was hiding in. He curled up on himself and pushed away from her, but she just blew out between her lips and gave him a smirk.

"Hey, it helps if you hide your back and nah just your face," she said, before nodding her head at the flock and camp. "Ma and Pa are out there, freein' everypony in tha' place. You got kin in there?"

He slowly nodded, and her smirk unfurled into a full grin.

"C'mon then," she said, pushing the leaves and branches to the side. "We gots to work together, before the unicorns jam us all in places like that."

He slowly nodded, before reaching a hoof out to her. "I-I-I'm Ch-Cherry Heart," he said.

Still smiling, the filly knocked her hoof against his. "I'm Rain Shower," she said before she gestured towards the camp. "Let's go kick some dock, eh?"

Cherry flinched back as he heard an absolutely colossal crashing from the camp.

"What—!" he started to ask before a bubbling series of shouts started to sound from the same direction. Lifting his muzzle over the bush, he saw that the massive slab of wood that had been a door was now laying on the ground, and he saw dozens of earth ponies swarming around the hole in the fence.

"Oh, Iron must'a got it down," Shower said with a grin, spreading her wings. "Come on!" she yelled before she threw herself into the air and raised herself over the canopy to join her flock.

Cherry shivered for a moment, playing out a mental tug-of-war with himself until her sentence ran through his head again.

"Iron?" he whispered, almost forcing the hope back down into his torso before giving in and bolting out of the woods and down the plain dirt path. He slid a couple of times in the mud, and by the time he reached the door he was splattered.

"Iron!" he screamed out, standing to the side and trying to stay out of the way of the panicking, running earth ponies just trying to leave the camp. "Iron Heart!"

He pushed further into the door, glancing at the shoddy hinges that had been pulled into pieces.

"Iro—" he tried to shout again, but a mare with flared nostrils knocked into him as she galloped out of the camp, shoving him to the ground. Glancing up, he saw the sharp gleam of metal horseshoes and covered his head as he waited to be stomped by the heavy implements.

Instead, he felt himself scooped up into the air, and peeking through his hooves, he took in the sight of his savior.

The massive stallion was smirking up at him, a stocky earth pony with a long, straight mane and feathering to match, the long strands nearly covering the hooves holding Cherry completely. He also had a braid dangling from his chin, longer than Cherry remembered, though the rest of his facial fur seemed well-trimmed.

"Iron Heart!" Cherry cried, reaching out with his front hooves and hugging the stallion's face as their foreheads touched.

"Hey there little brother," Iron chuckled, before giving him a firm hug and setting him on the ground. "Ma and Da in here, then?" Iron nodded when Cherry did, turning back towards the camp.

"You should join the others grouping up outside," Iron said, rolling his neck with a series of cracks. "I gotta keep on these horn-heads. Flicker and Flynt are gathering up the ponies, and getting them ready to take back to the base."

"Base?" Cherry asked.

Iron looked down at him and grinned widely. "Ya think the earth ponies and pegasi are takin' this lyin' down?" He snorted and spit into the dirt. "The resistance is already off the ground and doing raids like this one on the slave rings. The horns forgot a very important lesson from the years before her Majesty Princess Celestia.

"If not kept in proper balance an' harmony, both the Earth and the Sky will move to swallow you whole."

***** ***** ***** ***** *****

"Luna, just what am I going to do with you," she asked with a quiet giggle, looking lovingly at the mare resting beside her.

"I do not know. Hmm. Let me see," her sister teased, before jumping a bit and giggling. "Place your hoof on mine belly, you can feel the foal kick."

"You don't mind if I do?"

"Not at all, sister. Not at all."

"... You could marry the sire, Luna."

"As much as I wish to do so, sister, I cannot. If I were to wed into the house of Blood, it would destabilize the fractious power balance of the court and the tribes. He has already sworn to declare this child his heir, and to never sire another."

This conversation meandered on until something in Luna's eyes changed, and they became sharper.

"Of all the monsters I've had to slay, sister, the ones that prey on the mind are the most horrific. The night terrors they give our ponies in their slumber... Those, sister, are the easiest to find and slay. The ones most cunning are the ones who have grown to feed on the dreams of our ponies.

"Those monsters can drain the very life of a pony in a single night. The worst of all of it is when I intervene in their feeding, I must take care that the pony they're feeding on does not fight me as I try to save them."

Shaking her head, Celestia frowned as she asked, "That is horrific indeed, Luna, but why tell me?"

"Because if you are seeing this memory, then the spell I've set in your dreams to protect you from such predators has been cast. If I have not intervened, then you must free yourself."

"Wh-what do you mean, sister?" she asked, trying to put her hooves around Luna only to find her sister not quite solid. As she watched the borders of her coat and the air became thinner and thinner before her sister was little more than a whirling storm of dark clouds.

"Ah," Celestia said sadly, watching on as a pair of serpentine teal eyes raised out of the mist. "This is a nightmare I know quite well," she whispered, before her eyes snapped open, blazing gold light onto the crystalline floor.

But even as her eyes blazed, she felt her resources being drained away from her. Chains rattled as she tried to force herself to stand, and she blearily traced them back from her hooves and into the shining walls. She tried to lift herself with a flap of her wings but found the feathers sopping with her sweat and bound to her barrel.

Even as she struggled she saw a pony rush out of the darkness of her blurred sight before she felt a wooden bowl press against her lips.

Twisting her head, she discovered a thick band around her neck as well and found that she couldn't do more than twist her head back and forth, away from the sweet-smelling potion.

Eventually, though, they plugged her nose and forced her muzzle into the bowl, and she was forced to either drink or drown.

Even as she drank she felt herself getting heavier and heavier before her eyelids once again drooped and she found herself smiling at her sister once again.

"Luna, just what am I going to do with you," she asked with a quiet giggle, looking lovingly at the mare resting beside her.

***** ***** ***** ***** *****

The mare sighed, wiping away a thick foam of sweat from her brow.

"She's waking quicker and quicker," she said, dropping the wooden bowl and looking over her shoulder at the mage in the corner, eyebrows-deep in a thick tome.

"She's getting used to the poison," he said lightly, flicking onto a new page. "It's nothing to worry about. The Bridle is doing its work, and soon enough whatever witchery she has to resist will fade, and she'll be stuck in her sister's fields forever."

The mare bit her bottom lip lightly, looking over the chained god before her.

"I am sorry, my lady," she whispered under her breath, before returning to the carafe and pouring more of the tincture into the empty bowl.

Preparation

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Dusk pressed the officer for a few more minutes, asking questions about the size of the fort and locations where the unicorns might have put up some magical defenses to reinforce the stone.

Telling them enough of the plan to get his support, Dusk enchanted a stone in the cell so that it would ping him if it was touched. He then teleported back to the closet and pulled out the supplies he'd secured earlier before turning invisible and walking outside of the fort, unable to lift his head above his shoulders.

With his nose in the dust, he scrawled symbols on the outsides of the stone walls, not bothering to hide them when he noticed that the unicorns weren't even patrolling beyond the tops of the walls.

After he'd placed the eight runic circles on the outsides of the walls, he teleported back to his cell and knocked on the wall.

"Any issues?" he asked, calling quietly under his door.

"No," the officer replied before saying, "Come on over here, so we don't have ta' keep yelling at each other."

Dusk phased through the wall again, wincing as his wing clipped a strut before facing the ground between the stallion's forehooves. "I finished the circles on the outside walls. Once I activate them, they won't be able to send magic past the walls of the fort."

"Good," he sniffed, nodding. "After they can't send help, we'll break out the rest of my corps and give those unicorns what they've been giving us."

Dusk flinched.

"What," the stallion spat. "You think they deserve better?"

"I think every creature deserves better than this, yeah," he said, narrowing his eyes and glaring at the officer. "An eye for an eye makes—"

"Says the pony with two eyes," the officer snarled quietly. Reaching forward, he started to grab at Dusk's muzzle and say, "You look here, you useless bucking—"

He stopped when Dusk's corona seized the hoof. Not painfully, but firmly enough that he couldn't move.

"No," Dusk whispered, straightening his spine a bit. "My sins are mine to remember, not yours. I will do what's best for this country, not what's best for your petty revenge. If you'll agree to that, then I'll take you with me. Otherwise?"

Dusk's eyes, still slowly leaking saltwater, raised to gaze into the stallion's own.

"You can stay here."

The officer's tail flicked twice, hard enough to make an audible smack against his flanks before he gave Dusk a small smile.

"Fine," he breathed out. "I guess my temperament got the better of me for a moment. A month. Whichever. I'll follow your command then, or at least give you a reason if I gotta say no."

Dusk nodded. "Best I could ask for. Now, how many of the earth pony command here made it through the usurping?"

"Me," the stallion said grimly. "I was one of two, and they piled on the lieutenant early on when they saw he wasn't gonna take this laying down. Only reason I didn't join him was 'cause he gave me some final orders; take care of the rest of the corps."

Dusk nodded solemnly. "I'll get his name later once we can put it in proper stone." He blinked a couple of times. "Uh, speaking of names..."

"Oh, Steel Stance. Sergeant Steel Stance, or Steel."

Dusk dipped his head. "Sergeant Steel. That leaves it between us two. Before we go out, I'm going to have to hide my true form."

"Why," the sergeant clipped out, less of a question and more of a demand for knowledge.

"Because I'm not supposed to be here," he said, shaking his head. "I'm going to have to alter your memory anyways—" He used his magic to muffle the angry noise Steel tried to make. "So I might as well tell you the truth.

"This is going to sound like Thaumic-Fiction, but I was manipulating some material that distorted time, and during the experiment, it got out of my control. I tried to use a spell that allows me to rewind time extremely locally, and when the spell connected with the material, it created a, a..."

Dusk chewed his lip as he tried to think of a term.

"It was like a thaumic cascade. And since I put in all of my magical might, in a panic, it sent me back a thousand years into the past.

"That's why I wasn't going to get involved," he said, dropping the magical muzzle over the other pony. "I'm not supposed to be here, and the more I meddle, the more the future changes. I have—"

He blinked more tears away at the thought.

"I have some friends I really want to get back to," he murmured before shaking his head. "So I can't muck around too much, or I risk them."

"You're not taking my memory," Steel said.

"Then I'm going to have to create a geas and swear you to secrecy," Dusk said evenly. "I don't honestly care which, as long as I know for a fact you'll never tell another pony about me or my real identity."

Steel's eyes narrowed. "What's a geas?"

"Oh, uh, it's like a magically sealed promise," Dusk said, slipping a bit into mentor mode as he continued, "A geas is a spell that is speculated to have originated in the unknown lands, to the west of Pon— err, Canterlot. It places a magical seal over a pony with certain triggers, and won't allow those triggers to take place."

He looked at Steel's uncomprehending eyes, getting harder and flintier by the word.

"Uh, you promise not to talk about me, and I cast a spell that makes sure you won't."

"Nothing bad happens if I try?" he asked carefully.

"You might drool a bit, but basically. It just won't actually come out as anything recognizable."

Steel stared at Dusk for a while before snorting and giving a quick nod. "If it keeps you out of my brain, then fine. I'll swear."

There was a bit of a ceremony to the geas. Still, Dusk kept it minimal and quick, only limiting the stallion from talking about alicorns other than Celestia and about the spell itself. After testing the geas and nodding when it successfully tied (not literally) Steel's tongue, Dusk continued laying out the plan.

"Alright, now I'm going to have to do something pretty risky," he sighed. "But I can't go out in my earth pony form and use my horn for long, or the extra magic will dissolve the illusion. Instead, I'm going to have to cast a memory filter around myself." Seeing Steel's head tilt, he sighed. "Anything that sees me will forget having seen me as soon as it looks away."

"You can just reach into pony's heads like that?" Steel asked, frowning.

"Just is a bit of an understatement," Dusk said with a frown. "It takes a lot of energy to upkeep, more if there’s more than one pony actively looking. And it's just a really light touch, on the surface level of thoughts. Just enough to make me extremely forgettable."

The sergeant snorted. "Good thing you're alicorn, then."

"Oh, that's the only reason I could even think of keeping the spell up for any length of time," Dusk snorted. "Okay, so I'll get you out of here and back into the barracks, where you'll gather up any of your crew you can before sorting out all of the new ponies being flooded in here. While you're doing that, I'll be grabbing everything I can carry out of the armory, but you shouldn't need it once I start stifling the unicorn's magic."

"You can do that?" Steel asked, narrowing his eyes.

"One at a time, but if I make a couple of alterations, I think I can make it jump from horn to horn," Dusk said with a nod. "It'll be an untried enchantment, but at worst, the spell just fizzles, and I'll have to recast the original spell."

"You can't just make the spell bigger?"

Dusk let a breath out before shaking his head and reminding himself he was talking to an earth pony a thousand years in the past.

"I could pour some more power into it, but that would just make the spell last longer, which would be useless because it uses the unicorn's own magic to upkeep the spell. And casting in an area would require time since I'd have to lock it onto each unicorn's specific aura individually.

"The way I'm planning on altering the spell already basically just widens the window in which it recognizes magic from ponies. It may catch some earth ponies with deeper ties to magic, but a couple of slightly weaker earth ponies should be worth a fort-full of unicorns that can't cast."

"Earth ponies don't—" Steel started to say before breaking the sentence off and looking at Dusk.

He slowly nodded, and Steel looked down at his hoof. "I have magic?" he whispered.

Dusk looked sadly at the officer for a moment before he pawed at the hard-packed dirt floor. "Here, let me see your hoof for a moment."

The sergeant slowly offered out the limb, and Dusk gently placed his own against it and untangled the dense field lurking just under the pony's frog, almost exactly like he had for Lilly.

"You can feel the field now?" Dusk asked, watching the stallion nod slowly. "Alright, keep your attention on it."

Dusk slowly lowered both of their hooves to the soil and reached out with the overlapping nets of his and Steel's magics. Finding that little spark, he wrapped the fields around it and gently poured the energy in before pulling their hooves away from the ground.

Steel stared at the four leaves of the clover for a silent minute before he glanced up at Dusk's muzzle.

"We could all...?"

Dusk nodded.

Steel gazed between his hooves and the plant for a long time before he physically shook himself, as a dog would after finding shelter from heavy rain.

"We can get into that later," he said, looking into Dusk's eyes. "How are we getting me to the barracks without alerting the unicorns?"

Dusk's lips quirked before returning to his poker face.

***** ***** ***** ***** *****

"Yeah, AJ never liked it much either," whispered Dusk as he gently patted the sergeant on the back, the pony trying to keep his retching dry-heaves as quiet as possible. "But it was either teleport or having to recast invisibility on us, and—"

Steel shook his head, pushing his hoof against Dusk's muzzle as he took a few more heavy breaths.

"You're just lucky I didn't get to eat anything before they threw us in solitary," he muttered, spitting into the trench that led out from the bathrooms to the cliffs. "Now, you go on to the armory, and I'll get to talkin'."

"Make sure the guards don't see you," Dusk whispered before he was alone with the toilets.

Peeking out of the door, he watched Steel duck past the limp, bored gazes of the pair of guards keeping 'watch' over the barracks before he sighed and teleported into the hidden area in his chosen closet.

Phasing through the wall, he restored the invisibility spell before unlatching and gently pushing the door open.

Slipping out, he just barely made it past a unicorn in armor, who glanced into the room and shrugged before shoving it closed again. He started to walk away but paused and looked over his shoulder.

Dusk held his breath and stood there, sweating and hoping that this guard wasn't sensitive enough to feel the magic field around the alicorn in the hallway.

"Hello?" they asked before moving in a straight line down to the other end of the hall.

Dusk watched him walk past before slowly sneaking the other way on the tips of his hooves, back towards the officer's quarters where he'd grabbed the spell components.

His ears perked up as he heard muted conversation, and his heart sank when he rounded the corner to see a trio of unicorn officers talking with the two guards he'd made his way past earlier.

"I'm tellin' you, sir, we heard a noise like something heavy rattling down the hall, but I couldn't find anything down that way," one of them was stressing, waving the hoof not holding a spear at the other T intersection. "He was the one at the door, but he was keepin' his eye on me in case somethin' grabbed me!"

"So what you're saying," started one of the officers, somepony who looked like a drill sergeant and spoke like one about to insert some knowledge into a trainee, "is that you, a private in his Majesty's—"

Dusk's ears strained hard when he heard that.

"—Royal Army, decided that your ass," the officer hissed, poking the guard in his peytral, "was worth more than everypony and everything you two were supposed to be guarding?"

The guard flapped his gums for a moment, no noise reaching Dusk's ears.

After a moment, the officer sighed before levitating something round out of his bag.

"No, wai—"

The unicorn went silent when the officer slammed the device over his horn, the spear in the guard's field dropping to the floor with a clatter. The officer's field then washed over the guard, stripping him of the light armor and leaving a pale blue pony shivering in the middle of a flower of metal.

"Two days," the officer said, whipping his hoof out and pointing down the hall towards the barracks that had been taken over for the earth ponies. "If you're still alive after that, then you can start on your month of latrine duty."

The guard tried to talk for another moment before shuddering as he was picked up and tossed down the hallway, skidding towards the invisible Dusk. Scrabbling, he got his hooves beneath him and looked over his shoulder before slinking the rest of the way down the hall, where Dusk had made sure to cross the entry so he wouldn't be in the way of the chastised pony.

The officer sniffed before looking back at the other guard.

"You can spend the rest of your shift here before you go right to the shit-can duty as well," he said dismissively. "Since you stayed where you were supposed to, at least, I'll even let you keep your horn for the scrubber."

The guard gulped and squeaked out a "Thank-you-sir" before returning to attention beside the door.

"Now," the officer said, looking to the other two, who'd been snickering through the latter half of the dressing-down, "we need to go over the records and figure out what and how much went missing. Besides the bucking lock," he sighed, gesturing for the guard to open the door.

Ducking his head behind a wall, Dusk quickly padded his hooves with magic before bolting silently down the hall, praying that the officers would be too involved with the conversation to notice him getting so close.

Holding his breath and standing on his back hooves, Dusk just barely managed to squeeze through the door before the last officer kicked it shut.

There were two changes to the room from last time he'd been here; there was nopony sleeping in the cots, and the door to the materials room was wide open.

The only ponies (visible) in the room were the three officers.

They walked into the room, and the main commander snagged a large, worn book and flipped it open. Leafing back, he nodded to the other two. Nodding back, they started to call out materials and their amounts, one at a time. The commander started taking notes on the clean page as they worked.

Dusk promptly began ignoring them, looking through the room for any armor or weapons he might have missed on the first pass through the room. Frowning when he didn't even see another door, he walked back out and swore silently at himself.

He'd assumed the weapons and the magic would've been in the same armory, but apparently, they were different store-rooms. Chewing on his bottom lip for a moment, he glanced back at the officers.

Making sure they were deeply engrossed in their work, Dusk waited for one to call out his canister of powdered dragon's teeth, then quickly cast a very simple misdirection spell with a thought attached to the end.

"I wonder," the almost chubby officer said slowly, "if we shouldn't look into the armory as well. It's close enough, right?"

The commander snorted.

"We'll check that one after, I told you," he said, not even looking up from his book. "It's not like a unicorn has any use for the spears, and it's got the metal plates in the walls so they can't be dug into." He then blinked before looking up at the other officer. "Did you seriously just ask if the armory is close? Did talking with the idiot from before get to you, or did you finally eat enough for your brain to get fat too?"

The unicorn drew himself up a little straighter but bit back the reply and just picked up the next container.

Dusk sighed quietly before walking away from the door and casting a spell on himself.

Blinking for a few moments, he squinted as the walls slowly became translucent. Staring at a texture that was suddenly papery-thin, he looked over the moving silhouettes of moving ponies until he found a place that wasn't see-through, a large box blocking the light he could see.

Noting its approximate location, he let the vision spell fade before glancing over his shoulder to ensure the officers hadn't stopped their inventory.

They hadn't, so he once again pulled some magic up into his horn and phased through one of the walls he hadn't seen anypony passing before throwing up the invisibility again. Panting a bit from the quick spell-use, he looked around the empty hallway he found himself in before starting to walk towards where he'd seen the box that blocked his magic.

Turning a few corners, he frowned at what he saw, whispering a quiet, "Buck," under his breath.

There was little doubt about what waited behind the double doors, thick beasts of dark stained red oak slabs and heavy iron hinges. There was a standard iron latch handle, but the lock had been plated with enchanted gold, and Dusk could see the slippery gleam of the spellwork from here.

Also, the earlier intrusion had definitely been noted, and instead of a duo of guards, there were five fully outfitted unicorns; two with their back to the door, one across the way, and the last two a few feet away and keeping watch towards each other, so that the other three ponies and the door were all in their eye-line.

Backing a little down the hallway, Dusk bit his bottom lip as he ran over his options in his head.

He could stun all of them, probably. But there was a question of the fortitude of the unicorns then, and he couldn't afford to rouse any sort of suspicion or let them raise the alarm. He could cast silence over the hall and then deal with them, but it'd be a struggle to keep concentration over the field and cast other spells as well.

Taking a moment to consider some other options, his lips curled slightly when he thought of how AJ and Steel had taken his teleportation.

Marking the cobblestone he was standing on, he teleported out of the fort again and looked around at the surrounding areas. Turning away from the forest that led up to the cliff, he smirked when he saw a small island, barely more than a sandbank, about half a mile into the sea.

He reappeared a couple of minutes later in the hallway, water dripping from his invisible form onto the stones in the hallway.

Running a basic levitation spell over his fur, he pulled all of the water off and teleported it back before walking back into the hall with the guards. Scraping the walls a little as he skirted the two look-outs, he got in between the two on the door and the pony opposite them before lighting up his horn.

The guards had enough time to perk up at the light gathering, and one had a silver whistle nearly at his lips before they all disappeared into space. Dusk waited a moment before nodding to himself and taking a closer look at the lock.

Sighing, he surrounded the mechanism with his field. He teleported the whole thing away, as the enchantments had only been focused on not letting lock-picks or magic into the internal mechanisms and didn't actually affect what was essentially the magical equivalent of a sledgehammer.

Pulling one of the doors open, he nodded to himself.

"This should do just fine," he muttered, walking in and closing the doors. Grabbing a nearby cloth sack, he scattered the caltrops on the inside entry before giving it a high-capacity but short-term storage field that extended beyond its material constraints.

Using his new tiny-and-relative-dimensions-in-space bag, he began scooping up piles of armor and bundles of spears, grabbing almost everything that wasn't literally nailed down.

The only things he hesitated with were the unicorn-based weaponry, several sharp chakrams, and some specialized four-bladed daggers that could only really be wielded with magic. With a shrug, he dumped them in anyways. If nothing else, it was taking their weapons away.

Taking a moment, he looked around the nearly emptied room and nodded to himself before flicking his horn at the doors and casting a shielding field on the inside that only he could walk through.

Going back out into the hall, he reinforced his shield so that the doors couldn't be opened again.

Sighing, he decided to take the straight route and cast the phasing spell before concentrating and layering in the heavy bands of illusion and enchantment magic that made up the field of Forgetfulness, the spell that made him unmemorable. Shaking his head to release some of the tension from his neck, he pressed a hoof into the wall to make sure everything was working before striding carefully through several walls towards the prisoner barracks.

He arrived through the west wall, to a scene of Steel Stance speaking to a room full of earth ponies. A glance showed the two unicorns on the floor beneath his hooves, unconscious but thankfully still breathing.

"And here he is," Steel said, gesturing to Dusk Shine. "Our savior."

The entire room turned to Dusk, who sagged slightly underneath the sudden drain on his magic. "They can't remember me right now," he called, tossing the sack to Steel. "Get outfitted.

"We have a civil war to stop."

Execution

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"So, why can I remember you when they can't?"

"You've already seen me, so there's no reason to waste my magic on you," Dusk said wearily, looking around the room as the ponies getting outfitted continually saw and forgot about him in rounds. "A simple filter on your magical signature lets me save a little bit of power."

Steel Stance looked over the stallion in front of him, frowning. "Anything I can do?"

"Sure," Dusk nodded before flicking his head towards the front of the room. "Brief your colts, get their attention off of me. I'll start casting that magic-nullification spell, get the unicorns that are closest to us. Being out of sight will help."

Steel nodded and started to stride towards the front of the barracks.

"Hey," Dusk called out, most of the room ignoring him as Steel looked over his shoulder. "No lethal measures. There shouldn't be any more death than there already has been."

Steel kept the gaze for a moment, long enough for Dusk to narrow his eyes, before nodding sharply.

Dusk watched him walk the rest of the way to the wall and whistle for the room's attention. Turning, he sighed as most of the spell's expenditure eased to a trickle as he stepped out of the room.

"Alright, so," he muttered to himself, calling forth magic into his horn and letting it pool loosely in the keratin, "I want something that will stick to aura but also spread..."

Glancing back through the open door, he spotted the two unicorn guards on the ground, still breathing but battered and bruised.

Working the energy into a net, he cast it on one of them and nodded when his horn lit up with a gentle yellow glow. Reaching out, he picked carefully on the bands of magic making up the net until they started giving off a trickle of their power. Observing the strands, he smirked when he saw the filaments begin floating over to the other unicorn and begin coating his horn as well.

It took about five seconds of magical cross-contamination for the other horn to begin to glow, and Dusk watched to make sure that the new filaments picked up and drained off of the new magical pool before he nodded.

Lifting the two in his telekinesis and making sure to keep a negative field around his own horn, he started trotting towards the grounds in the middle of the fort.

Opening up the double doors that led outside, he tossed the unconscious duo out and closed the doors.

"Patients Zero, welcome to the area," he muttered before walking towards the officer's barracks where he'd left the three uniformed ponies to their inventory of the magical supplies.

He only paused twice, both times to cast his new spell directly at a very surprised unicorn. The first tried turning to run but caught himself in a loop of turning away to forget Dusk, turning back and remembering he was there, before turning to run again. Dusk passed him, looking over his shoulder to see him pawing at a glowing horn with a hoof.

The second one nearly fainted before leveling his spear at Dusk. Dusk simply gestured over the pony's shoulder and flew over him when he looked behind himself.

Rounding the corner to the inventory room, he glanced at the single guard on the door and cast the new spell before magically jamming the lock on the barracks. The guard jumped and looked at him, starting a double-take that was abandoned halfway through as he raised his hoof to pull at the net covering his horn.

"Captain!?" he called out, turning around and spotting Dusk again. "Captain, unidentified hostile un—"

The guard's lips kept moving, but Dusk's new silence spell clung to them and swallowed all noise before it could get any further. The unicorn turned to the door and paused for a moment, touching his lips and trying to speak before trying the door again, rattling it in its frame before he began pounding on the planks.

Taking a moment to close his eyes, Dusk pieced both spells together before casting the amalgamation over the unicorn again.

Starswirl would kill me if he saw that sloppy mess, he thought before moving over beside the guard and watching the magic on his horn. Tartarus, so would Rarity.

He twitched when the door rattled again, but this time the other way.

"What is the meaning of this?" he heard the stallion from earlier call out before the door rattled again. "First, you startle us in the middle of our survey and make us drop hundreds of bits' worth of components, then you rattle the door half-off its frame, and now you lock us in here!? Poorly planned revenge, idiot!"

There was another moment of the door rattling in the frame before Dusk heard the scraping of hooves on the other side, and a monstrous blow cracked the planks that made up the middle of the door.

Dusk watched the guard back up and followed him to the other side of the hall, taking a moment to push the guard's head back towards the door and away from him.

Another two blows shook the door, the last one sundering the middle plank and displaying the gray rear hoof of the commander Dusk had left in the magical armory. The hoof was quickly withdrawn, and with a last kick, the door was reduced to splinters being held in place by Dusk's magical lock.

Battering them aside, the three officers entered the hall and paused at the sight of Dusk.

"Hello," he said lightly before blasting all three of them with his improvised silence-and-nullification spell before teleporting back to the double doors that led to the central yard again.

Looking around, he made sure there wasn't anypony looking at him before he cracked the doors and checked on the duo he'd tossed out earlier.

They were almost exactly where he'd left them, just laying in a different configuration. On the other side of the yard where a quartet of unicorn guards in the process of trying to break down the other set of doors. Dusk watched them for a bit before he began cantering through the halls towards the other set of doors.

Zapping every unicorn he came across, he reached the other side of the fort and nearly laughed aloud at the sight of six more unicorns barricading their fellows in the courtyard out. Casting his spell on a single one of them, he paused long enough to watch them notice and begin to panic before he teleported back to the earth pony barracks.

Sagging under the sudden weight of a room's worth of looks, Dusk nodded at Stance.

"They're panicking. I got three officers, one of them a captain, as well as approximately twenty regular unicorn guardsponies. The spell is holding firm and is infectious with a transfer period of roughly ten seconds, depending on spacing." He paused and watched Steel blink slowly before breathing out. "Spell takes about ten seconds to spread; I used it on twenty hostiles," he said with a choppy salute.

"Excellent," Steel said with a grim smile. "Previous to the whole uprising, we had ten unicorn officers, five pegasi, and two earth ponies, with roughly fifty unicorn guard, twenty-five pegasi, and a hundred earth pony units. After the capitol turned upside down, all the pegasi flew it, and the unicorns sent an additional five officers and seventy-five soldiers. Most of my earth pony soldiers either fought back or ran when it was clear the horns would win, so before your delivery, we had about..."

He chewed on his bottom lip for a moment as he thought.

"Including me, we had fifty-three earth stallions still at the fort. Over the next week, those numbers were trimmed further, and we got down to forty-four. So with your wagon-load of untrained stallions, we're sitting at seventy-two stallions versus the hundred and twenty-eight horn-heads that're left."

"And at least twenty-five of those don't have magic anymore," Dusk said, nodding slowly. "As long as we're careful, and I lead the 'charge' as it were, we should get out of this without any more casualties."

Steel nodded, waving Dusk over to a spot on the floor that had been cleared of beds and dust. As he neared, Dusk saw a piece of sharp wood and some scratching on the floor. Looking it over from above, he realized what Steel had done and used a pulse of magic to deepen the map's lines on the floor.

"Thank you. Now, you said you were able to lock a captain's magic? Where is he now?"

"I," Dusk started before gently smacking his forehead with a hoof. "I don't know; I nullified him then teleported to the yard."

Steel sighed. "Then he's probably in the command offices right now, with the other captain. Hopefully, spreading that spell of yours around, at least. Do you know which one you got?"

"Uh, the one who's a jerk to everypony around him, including the other officers?"

"Oh, probably Gilded Spoon then. He's a royal with a couple of accolades, so he's definitely got a superiority complex, even over the other unicorns around him. He also has a decent head on him, unfortunately. He's probably smart enough to figure out that your spell's contagious, even if he can't dispel it."

"It'll take longer to figure out since I added that silencing element to it and compounded the complexity. That said, it'll wear off by itself in time; it's too unstable."

Steel's ears perked. "How long do we have?" he asked, a little bit of nervous adrenaline creeping into his tone.

"Oh, two weeks or so?" Dusk said, scratching his head. "It's not that unstable."

Steel let a long breath whisper between his lips as he closed his eyes and his shoulders slumped. "Okay, I can work with two weeks."

Steel reopened his eyes, looking around at the confused mass of ponies that were constantly looking at them, turning away, and looking back. "That's not going to hurt them, is it?" he asked.

"Maybe their necks," Dusk sighed, looking at the group and feeling his mana pool rippling as ponies looked at him before looking away and being forced to forget him. "A little bit of whiplash, you know. Mostly it's just a giant drain on my energy resources."

Steel looked at him, then back at his group of soldiers. After staring at them for a long while, he nodded slowly.

"Hey, alicorn," he said softly. "You've already helped us immensely. You've outfitted us, and you've started a complete nullification of the enemy's greatest weapon. I can see those wings on you." He took another breath in before looking at Dusk with a firm gaze.

"I think you can leave us be, here. The capital needs you more than this little fort on the edge of the map does."

Dusk frowned and immediately opened his muzzle to reply but stilled himself at Steel's raised hoof.

"Don't get me wrong, alicorn," the officer said, looking around the mulling room of ponies. "I could use you here, and it would certainly keep things cleaner and quicker. But," he said, shaking his head before looking back into Dusk's eyes, "Celestia wouldn't do this to us. She wouldn't allow something like this to happen. Something happened to her, and I think you know that as well as I do."

Steel smiled gently.

"I think she could probably use another alicorn right now."

Dusk opened his mouth again, pausing for a second before biting his bottom lip and looking around the room.

"How sure are you that you can take the other hundred unicorns if they still have magic?" he asked. "I saw them already starting to quarantine the affected ponies. They might have cut off the spell's transmission completely."

Steel shrugged. "They're still caught on their back legs. I figure we can hold them off long enough," he chuckled before nodding at Dusk, "long enough for an alicorn to free Canterlot."

Dusk chewed his lip for another moment, thinking of all the things that could go wrong and how terribly these earth ponies were outnumbered.

Eventually, he nodded. "Alright. Here," he said, ripping a pair of smaller stones from the floor with his field and enchanting them with a two-way vocal resonance. "Keep a hold of this, and say my name if you need to talk with me. It'll last long enough for me to get to Canterlot, so if you can't reach me, then you'll be on your own."

Steel nodded, taking the frog-sized rock in a hoof before saluting. "May the wind guide your wings, alicorn." His gaze softened. "Thank you for the chance to fight back."

Dusk saluted him back before casting a simple sticky spell and temporarily gluing the stone to the hollow of his throat. "And I'll thank you for your temperance," he said with a tiny smirk. "Remember that most of these soldiers are just following orders and most probably just swept up in this horse-apple hurricane."

Steel bit back a reply and just nodded.

Dusk sighed, dropping the salute before nodding back and turning to trot towards the door. He lifted a hoof and paused, feeling the wood under his frog before looking over his shoulder.

"Live through this Steel. All of you."

And with that, he was out the door, galloping through mostly empty hallways and throwing spells at the few unicorns he ran past. He saw the doors that led into the yard ahead of him once again and lowered his head as he kept building speed through the halls. Reaching the double doors, he leaped through the air with his shoulder leading the way.

Thanking his earth pony stoutness as he passed through the wood with barely a shudder, he let his legs bend beneath him as he landed before keeping the momentum as he threw himself into the air, his wings snapping out and pulling him higher into the air.

Flapping twice, he took a deep breath of the cold, salty atmosphere before looking back down, taking in the state of the fort from three hundred yards in the air.

He smirked at the sight of unicorns trying to pass through the open door of the fort, throwing themselves bodily at the layer of magic Dusk had built to keep both them and their magic in. He noted with a snort that none of them were using magic, a good sign for his spell's transmission. He watched a unit of soldiers on the walls scramble from point to point on the tops of the fortifications, and he saw the rippling of magic as the spells they were trying to send against the barrier be absorbed.

Then he looked up, at the horizon, and pointed himself at the range of mountains in between him and the tallest peak in Equestria before lifting his hooves in front of his muzzle like Dash had taught him. Then, like a diver through water, he flexed his wings and pushed himself through the air, feeling the air push over the keratin of his hooves.

In moments, the fort was out of sight, and he was flying through the air like an arrow, pushing himself harder and harder towards the city of his mentor.

***** ***** ***** ***** *****

General Stone Blood sighed as he sat back in his canvas and wood stool, staring up the mountain he'd forced a march towards.

"General Pearmain?" he said casually, barely inclining his head to the right. "What in Her blazing, blue, gloriously sagging teats is that bucking thing?"

"Damned if I know General," Pearmain Platinum said, his gaze recovering from the open mouth and wide eyes as he scanned the city before them carefully. "Nothing I've ever seen coz do, definitely, and not something I think any old unicorns could do. I'd say they mayhaps pulled together the best shield casters in the land and put their heads together, but..."

He trailed off and chuckled as he waved a hoof up the mountain.

"The color of the aura makes it quite clear who's casting. Or who's magic is being used to cast, as it were."

Stonehoof grunted, nodding slowly.

"Yeah, that's definitely Auntie's," he said, tracing slowly over the brilliant, glimmering dome with his eyes. He started at the base, where his ponies were busy digging to see if the magnificent dome completely surrounded the mountain or if it just reached the ground. They had made sure to keep at least ten meters between themselves and the glowing barrier after the first fool to touch it was incinerated by what seemed to be some sort of solar flare.

"It looks like a goose egg," the pegasi Lieutenant Steel Gaze grumped, scowling darkly up at the stretched orb.

"Big damned goose," Stonehoof muttered before smirking. "About the right size for a certain swan I've met before, I suppose."

Steel Gaze blew briefly through his lips, but Pearmain smirked.

"So, they're definitely using Princess Celestia's power somehow. The question is, then, what the buck do we do about something like that?" He glanced at Stonehoof. "Unless your Gran passed some wisdom down that nopony else knows about?"

He shook his head. "Not to me, at least," he muttered before standing and whirling his chair back into the tent where the set-up crew had just exited.

He walked in and planted his chair at the head of a long, fragmented table that now had its legs attached. Planting his hooves on the wood slat, he lit his horn and activated the enchantment to lift the blocks of the tabletop, recreating an aerial view of the mountain and the city on it. Glancing at the empty field, he rose up a square to represent the walls of the temporary fort he'd assembled on the grass at the foot of the mountain before sighing.

"Sergeant Adler!" he called out as the other two commanders joined him. A third pony quickly followed them, the gray and tan pegasi saluting as they set up their chairs. "Any reports of the surrounding area?"

"I'm afraid they've seemingly just done the obvious, General," he replied, his words slightly slurred from a deep scar that gave him a cleft lip. "Err'y pony has just been gathered up beneath the ball. So far, the orb goes all the way into the ground, and ah've been told there's evidence of it arcing already, so it likely meets up beneath the mountain some 'ere."

He scowled and spat before muttering, "An' we've already got a couple of fliers back from the other forces. Righ' now, the north an' the east aren' acting either way."

Steel swore, but Stonehoof sighed before nodding. "Unfortunate, but it's better than moving against us. What about the scouts we sent out to the populace? Did they find anypony that wasn't in an internment camp?"

Adler actually smirked a bit. "Yes an' no, General. We found ponies aye, and a magnificent flock storming forts and camps to release them. Free'om fighters that moved in cells to free anypony they coul' get hooves on. Nearly three hun'red pegasi and another five hun'red earth ponies. Most'a those are the elderly though, and the chil'ren, but a good hun'red strong of stock that di'nt get sent away yet."

"Good," Stonehoof said with a grin. "Offer them all enlisted pay, and get them ready for a siege. We may be here for another few years before we burn those idiots through their storerooms, but with the back-up of the freed earth ponies, we can feed and outfit this unit for the next—"

He paused, and his eyes widened as he was staring out of the tent flap, watching the golden orb suddenly ripple and almost jiggle in place.

"What the bu—"

There was a flash of brilliant violet light before the air itself shuddered under the force of the loudest sound General Stone Blood had ever heard; the clouds themselves blasted to particulate as a streak of light remained in the sky, tracing from the northeast and directly colliding with the dome.

***** ***** ***** ***** *****

The two royal guards tasked with guarding the second most important room in the castle (currently) nearly ripped the double doors off of the hinges as they rushed into the room just over the crystal harvest room.

Their ears clamped to their helmets as the mare took in another ragged breath before once again releasing a blood-filled scream, her throat coating the white curtains all around her with a fine mist of red that soaked into the cotton instantly.

"Ma'am, what—" one of the guards started before falling silent as he ripped the cloth aside.

The pony sat on what amounted to a small throne made of the finest, most delicately filigree silver, shining brightly in the white illumination of the room.

But the silver that had so recently been filigreed with fine runes and enchanted scroll-work was starting to drip onto the floor as it melted, and the pure white unicorn's fur was turning black as she sprayed another mist of blood into the air with her banshee wail.

Still, that wasn't the sight that had the guards shivering in their own skin, yellow flowing freely down one of their legs.

It was the sight of her horn, melted onto her face, as she screeched again from lips that were starting to drip onto her chest and the boiling gelatin that had been her eyes popping and sizzling on her cheeks.

When she paused once again to take another breath, both guards turned and ran; not stopping at the door, or the end of the hall, or at the rushing back-up that tried to stop them with questions and hooves and magic.

They ran while her screams flooded through the halls behind them.

***** ***** ***** ***** *****

The large doors to the room crashed open, and the pudgy unicorn beside the throne squeaked as he threw one of his gilded daggers with his field.

The guard barely glanced as the piece of silver flew into the door several hooves to the right of his head. "Your Majesty, status report from the mages!"

The tall white stallion nodded, reaching out with a hoof and patting his counselor on the shoulder as the guard approached the throne. "Good job, Soft Shoe. Next time, more to the center, I think."

He then made a show of straightening his back and tilting the new crown he'd commissioned back on his ears. "Report," he commanded as the guard dropped to his knees before him.

"Sire, I hesitate to report this, but the conduit to the dome has been compromised. The dome will likely only last another hour, and that is at optimal conditions. We have no way of knowing what would happen if General Stonehoof attacked again."

Spoiled Platinum scoffed out loud, waving a hoof at the guard.

"Then tell that wench of a sister of mine to get back on the conduit throne. I don't care how much it hurts her bony flank; she will sit there and channel—"

The guard slowly raised his head and a hoof, interrupting the prince through sheer gall. "My apologies Majesty, but it's not that simple. She was channeling when the impact struck, and I'm afraid that the conduit—" He paused long enough to gulp before meeting Platinum's eyes.

"I'm afraid the entire conduit array has melted, Majesty. All of it."

Platinum was silent for a long time, simply staring into the guard's eyes. He then rose from the throne and walked past the guard through the doors. His gait sped up once he'd turned past them, and by the time he'd reached the conduit room, he was in a full gallop.

"Your highness," one of the two guards at the doors said as he tried to stop the prince, but the rest of the sentence was cut off as Platinum grasped him in his magic and threw him to the side. The mage beside the other guard tried to speak as well, but Platinum ignored him for the doors.

He coughed lightly as he opened them, frowning at the acrid air. Waving away the stench of burnt hair and bone, he walked slowly up to the chair on the dais in the middle of the room. Mounting it, he slowly placed his hoof on the cheek of the mare sitting there, breathing shallowly and moaning as blood trickled from between her lips.

"Brother?" she whispered. "Brother, it hurts so much—"

She whimpered as he pressed a hoof to her lips, gently shushing her. "It's okay, sister; I am here. What happened?"

She groaned before breathing out, "Somep-p-pony hit the sh-shield. Her magic flared t-to cover the new b-burden. Please, brother, it burns so m-much, heal me—"

He gently shushed her again, looking over her body and the chair she was sitting in.

After a moment, he nodded and slowly leaned forward, pressing his lips to hers for a long moment before whispering, "They will pay for what they've done to the line of Platinum this day."

Then, leaning away, he grasped the mare by her throat and pulled her away from the chair, ignoring the ripping noise of her hide as the melted silver claimed much of her back and tail. Ignoring her refreshed wails, he threw the mare's body away from him into a corner before turning to the guards and the mage gazing in through the door.

"Get another conduit in here," he snapped at the mage, gesturing at the melted throne.

"Yo-your Majesty, with the way the current array is placed, it will burn through a unicorn in less than two hours—"

"Then you had better have a replacement before then," Platinum growled, trotting over to shove his muzzle into the mage's. "And if you don't want to be the one nailed to that damn chair, then I suggest you do it quick."

He then whirled away, walking back towards the throne room, his lips still soaked in his sister's blood.

Reclamation and Loss

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Dusk shook his head roughly, his head still ringing from the impact he'd made against the dome. It was nothing compared to the one his brother could cast, but it was still powered by the sun itself, apparently, so he'd have to take a different route.

Feeling his magic pool surge and empty, he sagged in the air before forcing his wings to push himself up and over the dome.

Drawing deep into his pool, he held his breath as he made himself invisible. The blood pounded through his ears, twice, thrice, and then he dropped the spell with a massive inhale. He was starting to get a thaumic headache, and it was throbbing a heavy flamenco between his ears. Taking in a deep breath of the cold air so high above the mountain, he let the first lapping waves recede as he was given a small break from the spell that made creatures forget him.

He carefully let one of his hooves touch the very summit of the orb, smiling gently as the familiar warm surge of the sun washed over him. He let it soak into his muscles and bones, pulling it in a familiar dance that he hadn't been able to practice in too long.

Gently, he bent the surging power back into the orb, and used it for dowsing back into the source of the spell.

Closing his eyes, he frowned as the smell of burnt hair and bone reached him, along with the biting scent of blood. Ignoring those for the moment, he pressed the magic against several layers of runes, reading them aloud as he ran over their defenses.

"Nothing to stop feedback," he murmured. "They just depend on the shield to act as its own sink."

He pressed further on, further down, and found a rough orb of crystal relays surrounding a miniature sun, a star flickering in its mortal guise.

"They're using the caverns to store her magic," he said, shaking his head. "At least they aren't dumb enough to pull from her directly..." He inspected the circles around her, and the runed staves of crystals that were transferring the power into several crystals large enough to be called boulders.

He then felt as one was moved away from the thaumic ducts and rolled into a slot in the wall. His scruff stood a little when he felt the power trickle back up into whatever medium they were channeling through, and the smell of burning hair and muscle reached him again.

*****

"We're burning straight through them at this point!" the Third Magus yelled. Had to yell, to be heard over the screaming coming from the chair they'd rapidly nicknamed the Nightmare's Throne. "We'll be switching over to mudders at this rate!"

The Second Magus stood silently for a long moment. "Combine them!" he yelled back. "Single ponies are not working! Bundle two mudders with a mage, use them as a thaum sink!"

"We only have two more mages available!"

The Second looked pointedly at the Third. "You'll find we actually have four! Pray that the first two last long enough for another solution!"

*****

Dusk's head reeled back; the words barely present as the screams rang through his mind. "Oh no," he whispered, his mind scrambling to find a solution that wouldn't hurt the pony currently sitting in that heinous monstrosity of a chair. But even as he extended his field down into that room once again, he felt another trio of heartbeats approaching the room.

"Forgive me," he whispered, before flapping his wings twice.

Looking down onto the shimmering field that was the current bane of peace and unity in his country. He'd never been able to outmaneuver Celestia, not truly, but this was a brute force projection and nothing as elegant as her usual casting.

Looking up into the sky, he reached out with his magic. Not towards the sun, that celestial body blazing through the sky with an aberrant trail of magic pushing it with Celestia's weight, but through the planet and out to the moon.

He winced slightly as he barely touched it, and icy tendrils of fear and howling rage tried to claw their way back to him.

YOU ARE NOT MY SISTER
WHAT ARE YOU

"Shhh, shhh," Dusk murmured, gently moving aside the howling hurricane of all emotions terrible that was Nightmare Moon. "I'm here to help her, Luna; I'm here to help."

The tendrils retreated, hissing away from her true name just long enough for Dusk to pull out a sliver of the moon's power and pull away himself.

Shivering through the cold vacuum of the moon, Dusk gently shaped a chisel out of the cold, dark magic that was trying to grip him. Pushing it away gently, he focused the cutting wedge down and gently pulled it against the magic of the dome.

He shuddered as a fresh wave of screams and panic reached up to him from out of the castle, but he continued pressing in the chisel, and he watched as a thick swath of the orb started to pull away from itself and start pushing magic out into the air. Gently pulling down, Dusk watched as he continued to rend the sphere apart, until the cut reached from the sky all the way into the ground.

He let a breath out then, and released the moon's power back into the world.

Dusk looked down at the ground, noting for the first time the camps and tents of ponies that traced around the orb and the gathered spots that were ponies. To his slight amazement, he felt unicorns in those camps, and he watched as either side of the sphere was seized in hundreds of thaumic fields and pushed apart. They widened the break as a stream of soldiers began rushing up the mountain path, led by a large indigo unicorn wielding a long but thin blade in his magic.

He was torn for a moment, wanting to go down and plead with them for mercy for their fellow ponies. But he shook his head sadly, turning away with the thoughts of what might happen should he interfere any more than he had. Instead, he flew down towards the half-built castle.

At the last moment, he cast the wall-walking spell, dipping through walls and floors as he soared down through marble and carpet, and twice a very surprised pony. Flaring his wings, he stopped directly outside of Her doors.

Dropping the wall spell, he looked at the two guards shaking beside the door. Raising a hoof, he grabbed one in his field and bodily threw him down the hall before looking at the other.

He let a breath out as the spear hit the floor, and the pony started running down the opposite hall.

Walking up to the large door, he frowned as he ran a hoof over the marbled surface of heavy oak and crystal. While the fort had been a bit lacking in magical security, this door at least was resistant to all forms of magic, and he didn't have a key.

So instead, he knocked.

"The castle is fallen!" he cried out. "Release the door and walk away, or face Celestia as we release her!"

He waited for a long minute, counting down from sixty and sighing. He started to walk away, intending on finding something nice and heavy to throw at the door for a while, but he stopped and whipped around at the sound of a key turning in a latch.

As soon as the door started to open, Dusk shoved his hoof through and yanked the door all the way open, magically backhanding the pony starting to cast across the room. He simply ducked a wildly thrown spear, before picking up one of the other guards and bowling him into the artillerist. Glancing around the room, he snorted before trotting up to his mentor, the Sun itself in mortal form, kneeling on the ground with a familiar series of metal and straps leading back from her jaws.

Reaching around the back of her head, he fumbled for a moment with the metal buckle with his hooves, cursing the slippery magic coating the item until he managed to free the belt. Tugging gently, he pulled the bit from between her jaws and let it fall to the floor before her. Looking around the room and finding it had emptied itself of ponies, he watched her stir for a moment before leaning forward and giving her a gentle kiss on her forehead.

"See you in a thousand years," he whispered, before gathering up his power for a chain teleport.

The last thing he heard from the chamber was a quiet, "Luna?" before he was gone.

***** ***** ***** ***** *****

She rose shakily, her legs trembling as though they hadn't born her weight in weeks, months, and looked around the room as she sought the warm touch once again of the only other creature who she loved and knew loved her.

But she wasn't there, and the last fifty years crashed around her ears, the slow descent playing piece by piece once again, and she wept as she looked around the room.

She had the presence of mind to teleport the unconscious ponies around her away, though no thought was wasted as to how or why they were there at all. Instead, she banished them to the dungeons she had prayed never to need, prayed less than two decades ago never to need, as the pink and teal wisps of her mane began to flicker deeply within themselves.

She tried to take a couple of deep breaths, counting backward from ten more than twenty times, but each time the flickering face of her sister's fear came to her near the end, and she couldn't stop the rising tide of anger and betrayal as the stone under her hooves began to soften.

"Stay back," she whispered, more to herself than to any extant creature. "You can not have me."

then let me have them

She shivered, her mane rising from her shoulders as the room's heat shot well into the several hundreds. Distantly she heard the pops of several stones as they cracked under the heat as she ever so briefly considered the voice.

"You cannot," she whispered again.

They Must Be Punished

Her hide shivered, her coat glistening not with sweat but with heat.

"Please—"

Punish Them

She bit her lip, the blood pooling between her teeth sizzling and popping like fat in a fire.

After a full minute of struggle, her mane finally caught fully alight as her thoughts came to a head.

"Only one," she whispered. "Only the lead in this act."

She shivered once again as the voice purred within her head.

Very Good

She sighed then, as she finally gave herself over to the flame.

*****

We must pull back here. Not because of the fire and white-blue flames that lick at the very edges of sight, but because we lose any shoulder to sit on. We must pull back here to see the tale unfold.

The doors we stare at are largely resistant to heat, thanks to their largely crystalline structure. This does not keep them from cracking, then splintering, then falling to the warping and cracked ground as we watch the creature emerge from behind them.

What we see step through the melting flames is not altogether truly a pony, not anymore. Though its shape is similar, and it does still step on four feet, its body is no longer the flesh that makes up a pony.

Instead, we can see that its body is made up of what seems to be fluid energy, flowing up from its forehooves into its barrel before being discharged into the air by its fluttering mane, the heavy smell of air after a lightning strike coming off of it in sickening waves. Its back legs fuel into its tail, a graceful arc that flares and darkens much as the orb it commands.

Commanded.

We watch as it opens its eyes, dark sclera pulsing with the same darkness that passes over its coat in spots violently. The iris is golden, and the pupil long and thin as a snake's.

As her sister's.

Its head moves to look down the hall, then up the other way. With another creature's memory, it begins moving through the halls, leaving behind black and warped hoofprints and scorched walls.

It barely glances at the first guard who is unfortunate enough to cross its path, barely grins as the pony's armor melts in an instant, and the corpse isn't even allowed to fall to the ground as it is vaporized almost instantly.

I said one! One only, the leader!

"Indeed you did," purrs the voice, barely needing to open its crackling lips to bare the long-fanged maw. "And only one shall I keep, as I agreed. The rest will stay here, in your domain, as you wish."

We can almost hear the pained howls of the true embodiment of the alicorn, the horrible screams of treachery and grief and hate, but the thing only continues down the halls.

She counts the eighteen individual souls it finds in the hallways, and she weeps for the platoons sent against her, and she screams as it pauses in its slow walk to the main hall to allow for one last offensive against the creature.

The doors to the courtroom combust as it turns the corner, and she sees nopony more against it as it moves down that corridor.

It pauses as it reaches the doorway and a magical weapon flies through the air, piercing its shoulder and being consumed by the boiling blood that oozes slowly over the hilt.

"Bang-on, Soft Shoe! I'll see you raised to a Prince for that shot, marvelous—"

It glances at the small, trembling thing beside the throne, and watches carefully as it lets off just enough heat to begin the pony's boiling. It steps slowly into the room, keeping its furious touch from the thing on the throne as it watches the screaming, wavering shape as it becomes a black, tarry puddle on the stone. It smirks then, before switching its gaze to the trembling creature on the throne.

To his amazement, it bows low before him, its knees gently resting on the ground before it straightens and smiles benevolently up from below the dais.

"My liege," it says. "I come to bestow upon you gifts, in exchange for freeing me, even if only for a moment."

"O-o-oh?" he says, straightening as he refuses to look at the stinking smear on the floor beside the throne. "Truly? You want to give me something?"

"Truly!" it crows, beaming widely. "Several enchantments, to assure your safety in the coming years!"

He slowly nods, a smile daring to slip onto his face.

"First, of course, is resistance to fire! You will be imbued with some of the power of the sun, allowing you to weather nearly any fire with no damage at all."

His smile widens, and he shivers as several white runes appear on his flesh with a flash.

"And along with this, I bestow upon you a portion of the life force of the star itself, so that you will live for no shorter than the eternity of the Sun's life."

He giggles as another series of runes tattoos themselves over his barrel.

"And now, I can give you your last gift," it says, grinning up at the King on the throne.

"Yes, yes, please!" he calls, his blood pumping and his eyes wide with the smile plastered on his muzzle.

"Myself, as your companion," it says, dipping its head and fluttering its eyelashes up at the king. "Only, my liege, you will have to swear your life to me, to be with me forever, no further from my side than any true lover would wish."

He glances over her quickly, and his visible greed sharpens, and his teeth glint as he matches her grin. "I will," he said, lust flowing through his enamel and over his tongue.

It lifts its muzzle and gives him the prettiest grin he's ever seen.

"So is it done," it murmurs, a series of chaining runes flowing over his legs unnoticed. "Then my business here is done, I'm afraid. I'm to be off, as soon as we're done speaking."

"I'll pack now!" he cries, leaping from the throne and glancing around himself. "As soon as I can find one of the servants, we'll be off on a grand tour of our new country! We'll travel and slap down those fools who would fight us, and soon we'll both be fat off the offerings of every pony in the land! And—"

"Oh, poor thing," it simpers, raising its head and looking down at the King with a softness placed in its gaze. "Why settle for a mere country?"

He gasps and prances in place, grinning widely. "Truly! Why settle for some little plot of the earth when we could rule over the whole thing!? We'll raze the griffons to ash, and even the dragons will tremble before me!" He glances at it and gulps. "Uhm, us."

"Still settling," it coos, tutting and smiling softly. "Why gaze longingly at something so small as this blot of dirt, when the sun itself calls?"

His eyes, clouded over with glee, twinkles as he laughs out loud. "Indeed! We'll take over the sun itself, and all—"

He stops, his eyes clearing with a few blinks.

"Indeed, precious, we will bask in the flames of the sun," it says, lowering its head to brush under the King's jaw with the tip of its nose. "And we'll barely even be able to see this poor, pitiful ball of water and dirt. Just me," it pauses to playfully reach out and place a smoldering hoof on his chest, "and you."

"Th-th-the sun, huh?" he says, trying to give a winning smile and failing miserably as his heart sinks under her grinning gaze. "I, uh, doubt there will be many servants up there. Maybe we could—"

Daybreaker tilts its head back and laughs, loud and hot and full of glee.

"Why, whatever servants could you want, my dear?" she asks, nuzzling him. "You have me!"

Blinking, he starts to inch away from her. "Uhm, dear, that heat enchantment of yours seems to be failing," he says, raising a hoof to his hot muzzle, nearly sizzling.

"Oh, no dear, it is exactly as strong as I made it," it says, reaching a hoof out through the air and pulling, the stallion being dragged to her by the runes on his legs. "After all, I can only make the enchantment so strong, or you wouldn't be able to feel anything, could you?"

Its voice is hissing now, and heat leaks from its every pore as the King begins to yelp, pushing vainly at its hide as it draws him closer.

"Come now, dear," it giggles, the laugh looser and less melodic now, "we need to be off! I only have so long, and we need you to get installed into the core of the sun! Then we can stay there, together, for as long as you live!"

The King screams as he begins to smolder, its control waning as she struggles from where it pushed her. His flesh stays, however, sparkling as the power of the stars heals him even as he turns into a screaming effigy of himself, his form soft but ever healing as he continues to be burned alive.

"Come dear, we're to be off now," it says, before grinning widely. "I'll see you soon, Celestia," it calls to the courtroom, before a massive flash cuts off all sight and we find ourselves elsewhere.

***** ***** ***** ***** *****

General Stone Blood shivered as he watched the corona of light flicker around the castle, having watched as the occupants fled from the castle screaming about another Nightmare Moon. The few soldiers that had actually put up a fight had been pulled into it by a series of orders and officers, but all of the chained earth ponies they'd tried to throw out had immediately surrendered, and joined under his army in most cases. The fighting had stopped long ago, and now an unnatural quiet fell over the mountain.

"Steel Gaze!" he barked out after watching the glow fade completely. When he saw a salute out of the corner of his eye, he said, "Stay here. You're in complete command until I come back out of there."

He saw his second in command tense, readied himself for an argument, before letting a breath sigh out as Steel just murmurs, "Be safe, Stonehoof."

"I don't think I can," he said, turning his head and smiling at his Lieutenant. They shared a nod before Stonehoof takes off at a canter, between the ajar castle doors and up the flight of stairs inside.

He was forced to slow down when he came across the first line of warped and cracked marble flooring; the walls scorched black. His heart sinking, he followed the trail and slowly, wincing at the heat on his hooves, walked between the piles of ash that used to be the doors of the courts.

Inside he saw a small mare, in the middle of a ripple of stone forever warped by heat and polished to a fine mirror. Slowly approaching, he flinched as he began to hear the sobbing that wracked the mare's coat.

"Aunty?" he said aloud, as much a question as an announcement of his presence.

She shivered, hard, and as he moved closer, he heard her whispering something just under her breath, over and over again. When he got closer, he began to make out her chant.

"One-hundred and seventeen," she whispered. "One-hundred and seventeen burnt, one-hundred and seventeen souls sacrificed, one-hundred and seventeen—"

His heart sank, and as he reached her, he gently wrapped his legs around her, and rocked her comfortingly as she sobbed the number, over and over again.

One hundred and seventeen.

Realizations, a Return, and a Farewell

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Dusk kept his eyes closed as he used his magic to displace himself, an activity he was well used to, but as close to the edge of utter exhaustion as he was, he feared what terrors he might see in that place he traveled through.

He slammed back into existence after half a minute of flashing teleports. Sagging, he leaned on the rough wooden pole and opened his eyes.

There, in front of him, was the now-familiar castle. Not the marble and gold arches and purple roofs of Canterlot; that was miles away now, and he was thankful for it.

These were his gray bricks, the dark towers, the moss of what he now thought of as his castle, his home for the next nine-hundred and fifty-odd years.

He tried to smile at the scene, the sun now dipping towards the horizon. But he had no one else to lie to, and he knew in his heart that was exactly what the smile was supposed to be. It was him telling himself that he was happy to be back.

But he wasn't.

He sat and stared up at the broken arch, the stones that used to hover over the door in the large dome of the courtroom until the Nightmare blasted it apart.

He shivered as a loose fog began to rise from the grass and bushes growing wildly around the front, the moisture barely stirring as a breeze meandered in from the forest behind him. Still, he remained between those wooden poles that held up this side of the bridge. Then, with a heavier shiver still, he turned away and walked over the side of the cliff.

His wings opened stiffly, and he soared over the small river that had worn this massive crevice into the world until he landed heavily in front of the cave that hid the Tree of Harmony.

Crawling inside, he tucked into a corner near the entrance and laid in the dirt. Sighing, he wriggled to attempt to get comfortable.

After a long few minutes, the tears began as the sinking weight of loneliness reappeared, accompanied by the horrific thoughts of what he may have caused to happen inside the castle. Inside the fort. Across the country.

They didn't stop that night.

He woke early in the morning, still surrounded by chilling fog. Sitting up, he scraped the twin trails of mud off his cheeks and walked out of the cave, his wings trailing through the dust as he made his way to the stream.

He felt a little better after dunking his head, and he shook to get the water out of his ears at least before turning around and flapping his wings to get back on top of the canyon.

Frowning, he widened his stance and flapped harder before throwing himself into the air.

His legs buckled as he hit the ground beneath him, and he slid through the dirt for a moment before coming to a stop.

Blinking, he took a moment before hot tears of shame and loathing began slipping over his cheeks, and he buried his snout as mud once again coated his face.

Slowly standing, he limped through the stream and over to the stone stairs that lead up and to the wrong side of the canyon. As he reached the top, he looked down at the hard stone ground around the stream for a long minute, looking straight down at the gray rock and shivering slightly.

After another moment, he shook himself and started walking around to the bridge.

He made his way through the castle and into the small room he'd cleaned out for himself. Closing the door with a kick, he made his way over to his pallet of blankets before sitting on top of them and beginning the diagnosing spell on his wings.

As he flexed them, testing the full range of motion as part of the spell, he found that his magic pool was refilling particularly sluggishly. Extending the range of the spell, he wondered idly if he was so lucky at this particular moment to have picked up any of the various illnesses that existed only to feed off of magic.

His ears perked as the spell fizzled completely. Shaking his head, he tried to restart it, but his horn gave him a pang as he tried to cast, and he flinched instead.

Breathing slowly for a moment, he closed his eyes and started the most basic meditation that he knew, the one taught to little unicorns across Equestria to measure their magic pool.

He was quiet for a long few minutes before he began chuckling.

"Of course," he rasped out loud. Looking around, he found his canteen and grabbed it before taking a mechanical swig of the stale water. Corking it, he closed his eyes again and once again began the slow stretching of his magic.

His pool was a little smaller than it had been last time he cast this diagnostic before he'd been flung into this time period.

It was shrinking slowly, usually something that could be remedied by resting and allowing his magic to refill completely. The last time this had happened was when he was a young colt and had been casting so many spells to figure out his limits that he'd almost sent himself into medical-grade bed rest.

The other issue was that his magic just wasn't recouping.

Flipping mentally through an old textbook, he went over how a pony normally regathers their magic; usually, they gathered it from their surroundings, like filter feeders in water ecosystems.

But in some specific cases (four that he could think of), the pony's thaumic pools had been converted to take heavily from other sources.

Celestia, of course, took much of her magic from the sun itself. Luna, from the moon. Cadance had absorbed her magic from being around ponies deeply in love with each other before becoming tied to the crystal heart and absorbing the love freely given by her entire city-state. Flurry Heart had still been coming into her own powers when the incident had happened, so he wasn't sure where exactly she gathered her strength from, besides her parents themselves.

And then there was Dusk himself, newly minted alicorn of magic and friendship.

The purple alicorn who took his strength from the magic of his friends and their love and support.

Now here, without them around.

Alone.

***** ***** ****** ***** *****

Dusk blinked the crust from his eyes, shuddering as last night's thoughts hit him all over again in the slow, trickling way that thought worked in the morning. Reaching up, he scratched at the salty tracks that traced over his cheeks as he raised himself from his musty bed.

Reaching over with his hoof instead of his magic, he grabbed his canteen and a scrap piece of cloth. Dampening the cloth, he scrubbed at his face and took a drink of the water as he faced the window. Setting the drink aside, he stood up and braced himself against the wall as he carefully pulled the shutters open and took in the early morning sun.

After watching the forest light up for a long moment of contemplation, Dusk sighed and walked back over to his pallet and sat on it.

Crossing his legs, he braced himself on his forelegs before slowly straightening his spine, his legs going out to his sides for balance before he slowly pressed them together in front of his chest.

Closing his eyes, he cleared his mind before slowly letting some thaumic energy into his horn. Tracing it back, he tested his reservoir and sighed gently.

It was refilling, naturally, just like any other pony would. A bit quicker, honestly, he'd always been more open to the natural fields and thaums that crisscrossed the globe and fed into every creature of the world.

But he'd been opened to the magics that every creature themselves emanated when he had ascended, and compared to when he could refill (harmlessly) from his friends, his natural collection of thaums was woefully inadequate. Usable, of course, just not at his usual alicorn pace.

Testing his, well, absorption for lack of a better term, he sighed when he found it equal to his old rates ten years ago.

Before he met his friends, and began experiencing the first of his growth through the magics brought around by friendship. Before he'd even considered Celestia as more than a teacher, a confidant, a Princess, an idol to be looked up to and exalted; but not a friend, not yet.

Shuddering, he cut off that line of thought and returned his mind to his thaumic pool. Pushing in a couple of places, he found that while there had been some shrinkage, it was slowing, and he was likely to be left with enough power to rival Luna. When she'd returned from the moon, anyway. And that was if he made sure to not use any magic, for...

Doing some geometric maths, he sighed before chuckling.

He'd have to not use any power whatsoever for four months to completely fill his current capacity.

Relaxing, he let himself fall back onto the bed as he opened his eyes and stared up at the ceiling. Letting his mind wander blankly, he rested for a while before rolling off of the cushion and walking out of the room.

When he walked out of the door into the gardens, he paused and looked at the overgrown fields he'd left only a week or so ago. Moving through the alleys between them, he checked that everything was growing alright and pulled a couple of thorny weeds before reaching his shed in the back.

Opening the doors to check on his stocks, he found that most of them had been chewed on and a nest of wood mice gathered in a now empty bag of grains.

Sighing, he turned to leave and was walking to the door when something white caught his eye.

Looking up, he used a leg to brace himself against a closed door and used the other to grab the scroll that had been tacked above the frame.

Looking over it, he found a sheen of enchantment lingering on the page. He used a tiny trickle of his lingering magic to discern that it had been both hidden magically and protected from the elements.

Unrolling it, he shivered a bit as he recognized the writing on the page.

Dear Stallion,

Hello. I hope you can read this, as we know that there are those that have not been taught their letters. We hope to fix that soon.

If you can read this, then know that I am one of the Princess Celestia's closest friends and that we stopped by her room sealed here to pick up a few items on the way to her return to Canterlot. Imagine our surprise then, to find these wonderful fields and buildings in her old gardens. With a scrying spell, we were able to find you in nearby Haysdale and smiled upon the actions you took there with the selling caravan.

Please believe us when we say it delights us to no end to see something we considered lost to her, being put to good use by one of her subjects. We were also overjoyed to find the magics on her rooms untouched; this was a very polarizing action, and we likely would have had you arrested instead had you attempted to breach her security.

As it stands, however, know that you have the Princess's blessings to continue living here. We wish you happiness and health and continuing discretion with her Highness Luna's room.

Signed,

Raven Inkwell

Dusk sighed as he reread the letter, glad that he'd made sure to keep his disguise running the entire time he'd been out of the castle. Looking up at the shallow hole left by a borrowed nail above his shed doors, he wondered how long the scroll had been visible as he tucked it behind his ear.

He left the shed and was in the process of closing it up when he heard the sound of heavy wings beating the air.

Freezing, he panicked for a moment before casting an invisibility spell over himself, flinching as he felt his reservoir deplete rapidly. He pressed his back against the doors of the shed and watched as Lily rose over the wall and fell heavily onto the earth with all four hooves.

"Onyx!" she practically screamed into the air, whipping her head around and looking for any movement in the area. "Onyx, they tried to trap her, but she broke free! Onyx! The princess is finally back and on her throne!"

He watched her, heart pounding, as her eyes hesitated on his hiding spot before she turned and galloped into the castle, still calling his name.

You can tell her you're back, Dusk.

"No," he whispered, shivering as the tears started to fill his eyes. "It's too dangerous..."

You've already altered the timeline, Dusk. You've already meddled.

"I can take it back," he whimpered, pressing his hooves against his eyes. "If I stop now, it'll be okay—"

No, Dusk, it won't. You've changed everything, and now your future is dust. Embrace it! Go to Celestia, make yourself known, rule with her—

"No. Unacceptable." Dusk shivered, feeling his skin crawl under his fur. "I have to endure, have to hold out hope that I can see them again. If I just wait—"

If you just wait, then they'll still be gone. Start over, make new friends! Become stronger, and maybe you can forget them—

"Never," he snarled, his hooves pressing in on his temples as he started shaking in earnest.

They're gone, Dusk.

"They'll never be gone," he bit back.

How long will you suffer, then? How long until you break and decide to do something foolish again? Will you wait until you're full power and then freeze yourself, damn the suffering? Or will you just decide to kill—

"No," he pleaded, his body folding as his torso hit the ground. "No, no, no, if I do that, then I don't see them either if I do that—"

You'll be free.

He couldn't find the energy to keep replying to himself. He barely found the energy to drag himself beside the shed so that Lily wouldn't accidentally trip over him if she came back. He was so tired, so completely drained of any type of energy, and so he buried his face into the crease between the shed and the dirt it was on to muffle the sobs that worked through his body.

Half an hour later, he got himself under control, and he lifted his canteen from his hip to drain most of it.

Sitting up and listening, he sighed when he didn't hear Lily calling for him anymore. Walking over to his water pump, he pulled at the handle until there was a rush of clean water, and he refilled the wood and cloth canteen before slowly moving into the castle, still invisible.

He found Lily in his chamber, sitting on his mattress and fidgeting. He watched her for a while from the open door before moving on to another room.

He'd cautiously started it as a guest room for Lily and Clover, so it was furnished with a reclaimed wardrobe and two pallets in the same vein as his. It was a decent space away, so he didn't feel like it was too likely for her to stumble onto him. Still, he kept the invisibility up as he settled onto one of the mattresses to wait her out.

She didn't leave that night. He checked on her in the morning and found her in almost the exact same spot as last night, though she'd tossed some in her sleep and was on her back now.

He went out to his farm and used the facilities available to refill his water and food. He evacuated himself before returning to the side room.

It took two days for Clover to also pop in, and Dusk got himself close enough to overhear the conversation between the siblings.

"Lily, look, I know where you're coming from, but just waiting here isn't gonna make him show up."

"I know, I know. But what if he comes back while we're out?"

"We'll leave him something then, so he knows we came by and looked for him. He's got some paper over there; we'll leave him a note and let him know we missed him."

"Can you write all of a sudden, 'cause I still can't."

"Actually, the captain Steel Gaze assigned me to has been teaching me letters, yes. I think I've got most of them, and we can fake the rest. C'mon now, what should we write him?"

Their voices dipped below Dusk's hearing range, and he heard some rustlings from the pad of loose sheets of papyrus he kept in his room. He listened to them bicker a bit, under their breaths, before they both left. Following them, he watched them fly away before returning to his room to look over the scroll they'd left on his bed.

He couldn't help but smile at the large letters that covered the page left on his bed. Clover may be learning his letters, but spelling was an entirely different beast, and Dusk had to say them out loud to figure out what was trying to be said.

His heart sank as he tied together the words and their meaning.

"Onyx, we looked for you. We'll be back in... two, two days. Hope to see you, Clover and Lily," he read out loud once he'd pieced the parts together.

He read over the page again, something that was hardly necessary with the length of the note, before setting it gently back on the bed where it had been. He looked at it and nudged it before nodding.

Sighing, he lit his horn before a flurry of motion began swirling around the room, a storm of items filling the air in a scene he hadn't been a part of since the last time he'd visited Rarity.

The first and foremost item was the journal he kept behind a stone in the wall, quickly followed by one of the quilts he'd bought from the caravan. A bit of spare cloth and his impromptu sewing kit followed after, along with the couple of gadgets he'd bought at the same time as the quilt. Walking from the room, he started sewing a rough sack as he walked out onto the fields he'd been intending to tend to two days ago and began pulling the most grown foodstuffs and placing them into the bag.

Opening his shed, Dusk sighed when he remembered that the unicorns had taken his wagon weeks ago. Grabbing the flat stone blade he'd made and used to harvest grains, he made it a simple cloth sheath before tying it onto his barrel.

Rubbing a horn that was starting to ache with the amount of dexterous but minute channeling, Dusk let all of his stuff rest on his back while giving his magic a break.

Looking around the shed, he shook his head at the rest of the stuff in there and closed the door.

Walking back to his room, he looked over the rest of his personal items there before leaving the space behind him and walking through the castle. Pausing in the old courtroom, he let a hoof rest on Celestia's old throne before mimicking the action with Luna's.

He shivered as a gentle coldness worked up his spine, and he pulled his hoof away quickly.

The shadows have a hoofhold in you now, Dusk. You let them touch you when you borrowed the moon's power, and now they have stained you.

"I knew the possibilities when I reached out to her," he whispered before continuing to walk.

He paused for the last time at the edge of the cliff, two hooves on the wood and rope bridge, his head turned to look back over his shoulder at the castle.

After a long moment, his horn lit, and a magic field covered his entire body once again. His colors shifted from lavender and violet to a dusty pink and dark brown. Flapping his wings, he let the colors settle over the feathers in a gradient so that they ended in a faint brown covering. His horn faded into nothingness, and he was left as a large (for his time) male pegasus.

Fluffing his wings to adjust the load on his back, Dusk closed his eyes as his vision swam at the expenditure of magic. When the swirling in his head stopped, he opened his eyes and started walking across the bridge.

He stopped halfway across, a thin smile crossing his lips when he saw what was waiting in the shadows of the trees. Ramping up to a trot, he quickly crossed the planks and ran up to his wagon.

Slowing as he came up to the twin pole hitches, he looked over it to see that it had seen some action since it'd parted from him and was a bit more battered than he remembered. Standing to look into the bed of the wagon, he saw it empty except for a rock that was holding down a piece of quality paper.

Reaching in and grabbing the page, he pulled it from under the rock and read over the carefully structured letters.

Dear Onyx,

Hello. After learning of you from your two pegasus friends, and what you did for the earth pony village of Haysdale, I have decided to forgive your trespasses upon my auntie's property, especially when I saw for myself what had been done with the gardens. I have also endeavored to return your property to you, though I am sorry to say that this strangely engineered wagon was the only thing I could find worth returning.

Continue making this country one worth living in, Onyx, and come seek me out if you ever wish to serve your country more directly. I could use more hearts like yours around me.

Sincerely,

Lord General Stone Blood, Scion of Her Majesty Luna Noctis, et al.

Dusk smiled a bit and folded the page before slipping it into his journal to keep safe. Placing his gear into the bed of the wagon, he shook his head before starting to channel magic through his invisible horn.

Walking around the wagon, he grabbed a couple of saplings and used their material to extend and reshape the wheels into something that resembled the current wheel style. He used some of the leftovers to fill out the worst of the bumps and scratches before shaking the black spots from his vision. Taking a break, he looked over the wagon again and carefully shrunk the cover and the ribs to make it smaller and more modest.

Floating over his canteen, he took a drink from it and swished the water around his dry mouth, sticky from panting and over-using his shallow magic pool.

After recovering enough that he could stand up without getting light-headed, he used a tiny bit of magic to add large scrolling on both sides of the wagon before looking it over again and deciding that was enough to keep it from being recognized by anypony.

Backing between the hitching poles, he carefully tied himself in around his wings before pulling it back towards the old road that ran through the forest from the castle.

He stopped, looking towards the castle and thinking about going back now that he knew he had his wagon and grabbing some more food from the fields. But he felt his heart wavering and flickering and turned away and started walking down the road.

He tried to keep his heart from sinking as he walked away from the home he'd made for himself over the past month, trying to sing a traveling song that Pinkie Pie and Applejack had taught him, but he abandoned that when his voice lost its steadiness, and he was more warbling than singing.

And as the sun started its descent, Dusk started his journey away from the only restful place and the only friends he'd had in this time.

Finding a Place

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Dusk caught up with his quarry two days later, around noon. He looked down at the group of ponies currently gathered around a bend in the river that ran south from the Neighagra Falls. Settling his story in his head, he began pulling the wagon down towards the group slowly.

There were a couple of close calls when he was sighted, not at him but further into the camp, but he made sure to keep his approach steady and waved at the group of stallions gathering between him and the group.

As soon as he was close enough to speak with them, he detached himself from his wagon and blocked off the wheels before coming close enough to be heard without shouting.

"Hello," he said to the four stallions looking him over with steel, his voice naturally nervous and breaking. "My name's Pastel Night. I'm looking for someplace to rest for a moment, refill my water and rest the legs."

The group looked at each other before nodding at one of them, who took off into camp while another stepped forward.

"Hail, Pastel Night," the gray-blue pegasus said roughly, his tone unpracticedly accent-less. "You'll need our leader's permission to rest with us. Otherwise, there's plenty of water downstream."

Dusk chuckled, shaking his head. "I've traveled like you do before, and I know what happens upstream when there's a gathering."

The other two stallions chuckled, and the one in front of him cracked a grin as he said, "Gotta wash the dust off, right?"

"And empty the bladder if the foals are swimming," Dusk replied, and all four of them shared a laugh.

"Fair 'nuff, fair 'nuff," the pony in front of him said, dropping his formality as he said, "Tha's a lovely wagon there, looks nice and taken care of, even if it’s a bit small."

Dusk let his gaze drop and his eyes water, the smile wavering as he said, "Yeah, uh, my dam and sire took good care of it. I was lucky to have it givin' back after the, uh, unicorn thing."

There was a moment of silence before the stallion nearest him surprised Dusk by looping a foreleg over his shoulder and pulling him into his chest. Wavering on the edge of real tears just from the touch of another, friendly pony, Dusk couldn't stop his legs from wrapping around the other stallion's neck as he pressed his face against the other pony's neck.

After a moment, he pulled away and sniffed heavily, blinking as he wiped the almost unshed tears from his eye sockets. "Wow, sorry about that," he started before the stallion patted his shoulder.

"Colt, there's nothing to be sorry about," he said, rubbing Dusk's shoulder gently before taking a step back. "Tartarus, we all lost ponies to the blasted uprising. I lost a brother, and the entire caravan lost our leader near the beginning. We follow his sister now." He chewed on his cheek for a second before asking, "Who all'd you lose, colt?"

Dusk felt the events of the last month roll across his eyes, even as he shut them tight.

"I've lost everypony," he murmured, sniffling.

"Well, that's reason enough for me," came a soft feminine voice, solid and sure, making Dusk blink open his eyes slowly.

Looking up, he saw a wisp of thin, dirty white hair floating across a pair of pale green eyes and a smiling, sunny yellow muzzle. She was shorter than the stony blue stallion but taller than Dusk was at the moment.

"'Lo there colt," she said, giving him a gentle smile. "My name's Drifting Hollow. I understand you want to share some space with the caravan?"

Dusk sniffed and nodded. "Yes, ma'am. Mine's Pastel Night," he said, offering out his hoof.

Reaching out, Drifting tapped hers against the offered hoof before nodding at the ponies around her. "You've met Shale already, and this one's Comet Strikes, and this is Dark Charge," she said, pointing a hoof first at the light blue pegasus, then the dark gray unicorn. "The other colt's called Lightning Hoof, but he's busy trying to find a space for you by the stream."

Switching his name mentally, Pastel chuckled and nodded gratefully. "I appreciate it, ma'am. I don't need much. I was just going to refill my little water cask and maybe wash some dust off the hooves."

Drifting Hollow chuckled and shook her head. "Nah, nah, no need to be shy. We don't see many singular travelers, and stories are our currency. You stay around for dinner at least, and I'd hear your tale before seeing you go off."

Pastel let himself swallow and gave Drifting a shaky smile. "Uh, I'm not sure I'm ready to go telling my past right now..."

She nodded slowly. "I think I can guess most of it, honey," she said gently. "Can you tell me the numbers, at least?"

"Uhm, mom, dad, little sis, and we were traveling with three other families, eighteen more ponies," he said softly, blinking rapidly and looking down at the grass between them.

He heard her walk up to him before she wrapped a hoof around his withers and pulling him into a short hug. "It's alright, honey," she whispered before gently pulling him towards the camp. "How many made it?"

He shook his head and forced a hiccup before saying, "I think one group made it into the forest when they attacked us, but I haven't heard from them. I haven't heard from anypony, and I'm afraid—"

He cut himself off with a sniff before saying, "I mean, I know that dad fought back pretty hard, but I got knocked out by a spell before I could help anyone. Then I was in this pen, with my wings tied down, for what felt like a week before Celestia came back—"

He stopped talking, shaking his head as Drifting led him deeper into the camp.

"They gave me dad's wagon a couple of days later, but they couldn't find any information about the other families. I guess the unicorns didn't pay attention when they split us, and there wasn't anything left over about where they picked us up or what they did to us." He sniffed and finished by quietly saying, "They wouldn't tell me what happened to my sister."

He felt Drifting shiver against him, and his heart twitched in his chest at the deceit.

"I'm so sorry, hon," she whispered, pulling him against her as she walked him through the camp. "If you wanna give us their names, we can send out fliers? The pegasi flocks have been keeping up with our people over the last two weeks, and they send out missing ponies lists that we can add some names onto."

He sniffed and chuckled dryly. "Thank you, ma'am, but I know where my family is, and I'd like to move on with my—" He forced a choking sob before saying, "I'd like to move on."

She murmured and gave him another firm squeeze, and he nearly rolled his eyes at how over-the-top he was acting.

Still, he was being taken in, just as he'd hoped, and maybe in a day or two, he'd receive his invitation to travel with the caravan.

It wouldn't be home, but it'd be something, and he wouldn't have to be alone anymore.

***** ***** ***** ***** *****

Pastel Night woke up groggily, looking around the bed of the wagon before yawning and rubbing his eyes with the frogs of his hooves. Shifting under his blankets, he poked his head out of the cloth flaps that kept the rain out and peered around the predawn campsite.

He was surprised to see only a few ponies, mostly mares, moving around outside the wagons and preparing morning fires for morning meals.

Drawing his blanket around his shoulders, Pastel tumbled out of his wagon and started preparing his own campfire and cookery. Out of the corners of his eyes, he saw ponies watching him in their free time between preparations. Pulling out his kindling he'd cut from the Everfree, he used his wings to stack some firewood and strike the flint and steel together before settling back under his blanket to let the fire come to life.

"That's a cute pot you got there, Sweetie!" one of the nearby mares called out, waving at him as she flicked the streak of white in her mane behind her ear. He nodded and waved back before looking over the copper cauldron he'd made.

I guess you could call the scroll-work cute, he thought as he rolled it over in his hooves and looked over the simple design. Peeking over at a nearby campfire, he saw the pot was blackened near the bottom, and the soot was creeping up the side. Looking at the black iron stand he used to keep it out of the direct fire, Pastel realized that he'd accidentally had something a snooty Unicorn would've had.

"Thanks," he called back. "They gave me it back clean and threw in the stand as well."

The brown pegasus mare winced a bit, nodding before she picked up a wooden spoon and stirred the pot on her fire. She muttered something under her breath that Pastel couldn't hear before looking over at his kit. "What's for breakfast, sweetie?"

"Oh, I've got some leftover bread and plenty of water now; I was thinking of making a soup out of the stuff I was able to forage," he said, standing and pushing the top of his body through the tent flaps. "I've got some wild mushrooms and some fiddleheads. Throw in some daylily roots, some dandelion, and it'll stretch all day."

He pulled out the mentioned foraging and looked into the mare's sorrowful eyes with some surprise.

"...I also have some wild blackberries?"

After a moment, she said, "Honey, c'mere and share some grass with us. You don't have to eat that emergency stuff; we have oats for meal and some gathered berries."

He felt his ears flick back, and he looked down and away for a moment before looking back at the mare. "I'm okay," he said softly.

Her eyes narrowed, but her voice was still soft as she said, "Honey, sorry if this is pushy, but I wasn't really asking. I'm not gonna let a colt go hungry when I've got plenty for my two and then some. Now, put your kit away and come grab some grass."

Pastel started to argue, but when he looked into her eyes, he saw nothing but the kindness and generosity he recognized from two of his best friends.

Biting his bottom lip, he took a couple of breaths before nodding and starting to put away his food, letting the embers in the fire pit he'd dug die a bit before using a hoof to finish them off.

Walking over with his blanket still over his shoulders, he nodded to the mare before sitting where she pointed.

"Thank you," he said softly.

"Don't worry too much about it, honey," she said lightly, stirring the food he could now see to be porridge. "We take care of our own, and if Hollow let you sleep here, then you're our own."

Pastel felt some warmth stirring in his chest and pressed his hooves against his eyes for a moment to keep it inside before shaking his head.

"That means a lot to me," he said with a watery chuckle, sniffing before he got up and returned to his cart.

Shifting through his stuff, he found the small basket he'd woven and filled with berries before ultimately leaving the forest. Walking over, he pushed it towards the mare and said, "Here, I can at least contribute a little."

Her mouth firmed into a line, but Pastel opened the top and showed her the fresh food that nearly reached the top, and her gaze shifted down in intensity.

"Alright," she said with a small smile. "I'll take some. My name's Cherry Charm, by the way, and I'm sure you'll be meeting Shale Clip whenever he gets his flank outta bed," she said, raising her voice for the last sentence and lightly kicking the wheel nearest her.

He chuckled and offered out his hoof. "I'm Pastel Night. If he's the blue stallion, then I met him last night before Drifting Hollow had her talk with me."

She dipped her head, looking over the food before using a nearby ladle to fill three bowls. "Shale! Shale, get your lazy hide up and bring me another bowl!"

Grumbling, Shale poked his shaggy head of the back of the wagon next to Pastel. After blinking, he returned Pastel's small wave with a massive grin before nodding to Cherry. "A'ight, a'ight, 'm up," he grumbled softly before retracting his head and poking out a wing a moment later, offering out another clay bowl and an iron kettle. "I'll brin' out the tea," he muttered from inside.

"Make sure Rock Sugar's awake too," she called back, offering out a bowl of the gruel out to Pastel, topped with some blackberries from his basket. "You'll love Sugar. She's maybe your age," Cherry said as she tipped the blushing stallion a wink.

"I'm small for my age," Pastel told her with a smile as he took the bowl. "I'm already twenty-four."

"Hmmm," Cherry hummed, making a face. "Sugar just turned nineteen this summer," she said, frowning at him. "Five years ain't all that much, in the face of all things."

Pastel felt his face heating further, and Cherry laughed aloud and said, "Alright colt, you make up your own mind about it." She winked before leaning in to whisper, "She likes when colts compliment her mane. She's been growing it out for years."

Pastel didn't reply, just making himself busy with drinking the food from the bowl.

Shale tumbled from the wagon a bit later, more literally than when Pastel had exited his own, and Cherry fussed over him as he sat upright in front of the fire. Taking the bowl offered to him, he slurped at it for a few moments before looking over at Pastel.

"How'd the talk with Hollow go?"

Pastel sighed and finished off the food in his bowl before holding it in front of his chest. "Well, she said I'd be welcome with you while you were camped here, and she'd be talking with me throughout the time of the camp. We talked some about my family last night, and about the wagon they gave me, and what I was good at."

Shale took a moment to move closer and put his hoof on Pastel's shoulder.

Smiling at him for an instant, Pastel went on, "I'm a bit of a tinkerer. I like making little things like fire strikers and other tools. Dad specialized in fine detail, and he made everything from cross-staves to sundials. I was working on a water clock that measured minutes accurately until the unicorns took everything. I'm kind of reset now. Guess I'll try and start making stuff like dad's," he said, trailing off purposefully.

"Sounds like a lot of smarts work," Shale said with a chuckle. "Has Cherry told you about our daughter? She's about your age..."

Pastel chuckled and nodded. "Yeah, actually. She said that if I was interested, then I should say something like—"

At that moment, a mare poked her head out of the back of the wagon. Her fur was the same warm brown as her mother's, and her feathers were trimmed with the same cream color as the streak in Cherry's hair. Instead of the burgundy red, her long braid was a lighter shade, with a streak of her father's mane color running through from her ears to the tip of her ponytail. Her eyes were the same warm, loving brown, and as she gave Pastel a glance and a small smile, he couldn't help but speak out loud.

"I-I-I really like your mane?" he managed to squeak out.

Rock Sugar blushed and gave him a firmer look while her parents both snickered at him from behind hooves.

"And who in the hay are you?" she asked, and the quiet laughter turned into outright belly laughs.

***** ***** ***** ***** *****

It took a little while for Dusk— No, for Pastel to integrate into the caravan. The ponies mostly welcomed him quickly enough, for sure, with even the most standoffish of ponies merely ignoring his presence instead of interacting with him.

After breakfast, he'd been placed into the middle of the traveling order, among the families and elders, with the stronger backs roving ahead, behind, and beside the caravan.

As he pulled his wagon along that first day, he found himself unable to do anything but smile at the groups of little colts and fillies running around wagons and underhoof. Though they were notably careful with both the wagon wheels and the grown-up hooves on the road, a lesson likely given early and often.

While his place in the traveling was easy and quick to be found, his place in the caravan itself wasn't either. While he had some little knowledge of how the little gadgets popular at the time worked, he didn't have any tools or real first-hoof experience with them.

He'd at least been able to repair a lighter used by a pegasus family. Or at least replace the flint used to spark the initial flame. He'd been finding that, along with their unfamiliarity with working with clouds and other air currents, pegasi just weren't used to moving their wings the same way. He was by far the most dexterous pony with his wings that many of the caravanners had seen.

He'd even managed to only drop one of three apples with his attempt at juggling, much less than his usual sum of 'all'.

"How you holdin' up, Pastel?"

He missed a hoofstep as he jumped into the air until the hitching that held the wagon to his sides pulled him back to the earth.

Ignoring the nearby snickering, he took a breath before glancing over at Rock Sugar.

"You nearly scared the skin off'a me, Roxie," he said, taking a deep breath. "I'm doing alright, although I guess I'm not as used to the walking as I used to be. My left front hoof is aching a bit."

"Not hard to scare a pony that's out in the fields like you were," she teased with a smile before nudging the fork of the wagon next to his side. "This isn't digging into your hide? I know you said that Canterlot tried to fix your wagon before giving it back, but this cloth looks like it'll rub you raw, or at least hairless."

"Oh no," he chuckled, looking back at the strap. "I didn't know that wagon-coat was a real thing. It should be fine; I sewed some padding into it."

"Still, you should be wearing something under all those straps," Roxie said, tugging on one of the pieces of cloth. "Then the straps will rub on that, instead of your coat. You should pick up a vest maybe, or just use a thin blanket."

"Won't that make me sweat?"

Roxie snorted, smirking at him. "You afraid of a lil' sweat, stallion?"

"I'm afraid of how I'll smell every night," he chuckled before shaking his head. "A vest, huh? What color do you think it should be?"

She looked him over and snorted. "I mean, brown will match the mane, and pink matches the coat. Maybe a dark blue? I'm not really the mare to ask about clothing."

"Just mane styling then?" he asked lightly, smirking at her.

She gave him a flat look that was ruined by the tinge of color in her cheeks, and she nudged him. "Hey now, just because I know how to take care of mine doesn't mean I'm here for all of your questions." They walked for a couple of moments before she looked away. "Besides, I like the rough cut anyway."

Pastel felt himself blush as he chuckled weakly and ran a hoof through his mane.

Then both of them flinched as somepony on the sidelines let out a wolf-whistle, and the rest of the surrounding ponies chuckled.

"Anyway!" Roxie said loudly, looking around before settling her gaze on the sky. "Mom wanted me to come over to invite you over to lunch. Guess I'll head back now!"

"I'll be there," he chuckled, nodding and watching her fall back towards Cherry in her own harness.

The rest of the morning's walk was uneventful, and Pastel sighed happily when the call was made to break formation. He parked his wagon in the grass field they'd stopped by, making sure to keep near Cherry's cart. Waving at Roxie, he moved over and asked, "Anything I can do to help set up?"

"Sure, honey, go with Sugar here and refill our water," she said, opening the wooden door to the back of her wagon and moving the cloth inside out of the way. "You can push a fifty-gallon barrel, yeah?"

"Ma, that's dad's job," Roxie said, frowning.

"It's a strong pony's, definitely," she said with a nod, smiling at Pastel. "Think you can handle it?"

He swallowed and looked at Rock Sugar. "I've got a little cask, can you...?"

"Easily," she smirked. "Don't hurt yourself."

Pastel nodded back, and while she walked over to his wagon, he stood on his back hooves and looked into Cherry's wagon for the first time.

He whistled lowly as he looked over the four panels with a narrow channel built between them as a walkway. Three held bedclothes and pillows, while the fourth was filled with cooking gear and bric-a-brac, with a rope curtain securing more items to the front of the wagon. Cherry was untying a large barrel from the wall and gently tipped it before rolling it back towards Pastel.

"It's still got a little water in it, but some fresh stuff will taste better," she said as he caught the rolling wood. It sloshed against his hoof, and he guessed it was maybe a fifth full.

"Uh, sorry, but how do I fill it?" he asked, looking at the corked top.

"There should be a unicorn around," Cherry chuckled. "You let them know it's for Shale Chip; it'll get filled." Her smile dipped. "If it's too heavy, you let me know, right? Don't hurt yourself on my behalf."

Picking up the barrel carefully, Pastel took a couple of tottering steps back on two hooves before placing the barrel on the grass.

"I should be okay," he said, returning her admiring gaze with a soft smile. "Besides, Rocks should keep me from doing anything too dumb."

"And then I know you'll get hurt," she chuckled before nodding over his shoulder. "Go on then, follow the line into the woods over there, and you'll find the stream that Lance spotted for us."

"Should I just... roll it?" he asked, and Cherry laughed before nudging him with a shoulder.

"You get it there and back however you like. Just watch out for rocks. These're hard to make and expensive to buy."

Nodding, he weighted the barrel again and lifted it onto his back, spreading his wings to keep it on top of his back. "It's not so bad right now," he murmured, wriggling his hips to get it to rest better. "Be right back then."

"Thank you!" Cherry called out as he began to move away. "And be careful!"

Pastel chuckled under his breath as he paused to wave a hoof back at her. Walking carefully to keep the barrel balanced, he started to make his way towards the trail he'd seen most of the caravan heading down.

"Wow, who're you showing off for?"

Snorting, Pastel glanced over his shoulder as Roxie trotted up beside him. "Your mom," he said before sticking his tongue out.

He snickered at her face as he turned back to the trail, his ears already picking up the trickle of water over stone. "I'm not showing off for anyone," he said, inching to the left to dodge a branch low enough to touch the barrel, "just proving that I can be useful."

"Just don't prove that you can break your own back," she murmured before shaking his little water cask. "Where'd you get this anyway? I don't think I've seen one this small that's this well put together."

"Used to be my grandfather's canteen," Pastel made up on the spot. "Big old stallion, he carried it around his neck with a rope sling. Emptied it with half a swallow every time he drank."

He glanced over at her and returned her look with a small smile. "It's just an old family pass-down," he chuckled.

"Mhm. You always sass mares?" Roxie asked, moving in to nudge him but backing off with a glance at the barrel on his back.

"Only the ones asking for it," he replied, pausing as they rounded a bend in the trail and seeing the small creek. "Hmm, let's go upstream a bit, the colts are already splashing, and I see some laundry drying."

She followed along and pointed him to a specific unicorn that was happy to fill their water containers.

"Alright, I didn't see any rocks in the path, so we should be able to roll the water just... fine..."

Roxie trailed off as she watched Pastel gently tested the weight of the filled barrel before lifting it back onto his back with a slight grunt. He let out a steadying breath before looking over at her. "By the way, ol' grandad was an earth pony." He turned away and started walking, mostly to hide the grin he couldn't wipe off his face.

After five steps, he heard her run up and past him, turning and stopping in the path back through the trees.

"Whoa, Pastel, are you sure you're okay?" she asked, reaching out and gently touching his front legs and shoulders. "I mean, even dad only carries this thing in emergencies. It's stupid heavy..."

"I'm good, Roxie, really," he said, throwing in a shrug. "I meant it about my grandad being an earth pony, and he was built. This is heavy, but if it were going to hurt me, it would've been when I picked it up."

She muttered under her breath for a moment before he started to walk forward. She let him pass by her and quickly kept his pace beside him.

"You drop that thing if something changes," she told him, still looking at his side and legs worriedly.

The rest of the walk back was silent, but for a small grunt from Pastel as he ducked under the same branch from before. He noted a few whistles as he passed, which he returned with nods, and few more appraising looks at him, which he ignored with a faint blush.

Cherry spotted him from yards away and stopped moving around the firepit to watch him slowly walk up to her.

"Put it down," she quietly said.

"Sure," he said, nodding to the closed door of her wagon. "If you'd open that, I'll have it back in place—"

"Put it down now," she said, a look in her eyes that Pastel recognized from his own mother.

Quickly bending his knees, he tucked in a wing and let the barrel roll off his back before straightening his legs and putting a hoof on the barrel. "Okay, down, now—"

She marched over to him and pressed a hoof down between his shoulders, raising herself to look over his back and running a hoof over the muscles that ran over his shoulder and down his right leg. Giving him a couple of nudges, she took a few steps back and looked at him carefully.

"That barrel should weigh over thirty stone right now if you filled it," she said, "and I can hear the water moving in there."

"My grandad was an earth pony," he said, shrugging.

Her eyes narrowed, looking him over and snorting. "Horseapples," she said, gesturing to his wings. "I've seen what happens when we interbreed. Your frame isn't big enough, and your wings are too big. I don't give a damn what stock you're from, but you aren't shaped right for that to be true."

Pastel breathed out through his nose slowly, his mind whirling and lashing out against itself.

Good job, Dusk old boy, you've shown off, and now you reap the benefits. Was it worth it? Saving, what, two minutes to not have to roll the damn thing? You idiot.

Letting another slow breath out through his nose, he deliberately shrugged. "I don't know what to tell you, Cherry," he said slowly. "I can pick up the barrel and carry it, and my wings are the size that they are. I can't ask the ponies who would know for sure."

Her eyes narrowed, but Pastel sighed and held up a hoof. "Sorry, sorry," he murmured, shaking his head. "That wasn't fair—"

"No, Pastel, it wasn't," Cherry cut out, frowning at him. "Are you really okay with bringing out your dead parents to make me stop asking you questions?"

He flinched and then hoped it looked like it was more about the parents and less about him being called on that.

"No," he whispered. "I'm not okay."

And with that, he turned around, pausing only to collect his cask from Rock Sugar, taking it and himself into his wagon and letting the cloth door fall behind him.

***** ***** ***** ***** *****

Later that same day, Roxie gently knocked on the bed of his wagon and pushed her head through the cloth doors.

"Hey," she said softly to the bundle of sheets, blankets, and pony that she found.

"Hey," it said back.

She watched the bundle for a bit before clearing her throat. "Want to talk about it?"

The bundle moaned before Pastel poked his head out. "No, I don't," he sighed. "I just want to apologize and move on from it. I didn't mean to make Cherry worry like that, and I shouldn't have been showing off in the first place."

"While that's true," she said, hauling herself into the bed of the wagon, "that's not what I'm here to talk about, and not what I think you need to talk about."

Pastel sat up and moved over to give her space to sit beside him.

"I don't know what else there is to talk about," he said, leaning back against the side of the wagon. "My parents, my friends, everypony I ever knew, is gone."

He had to stop himself from telling her that it was all his fault.

She was quiet for a while before gently slinging her leg around his shoulder and giving him an awkward squeeze.

"But you're here," she said quietly. "And while I know nopony will ever replace your parents, you can always make more friends, right?"

Pastel chuckled dryly before reaching over and pulling his canteen over. Taking a long swing, he twisted the stopper back in before he leaned into her shoulder.

"My first friend, my longest one too, was named Spike. He was a little brother to me, adopted after his parents left him behind. I was there when he was born, and we spent all of his life together," he started.

Taking only short pauses to drink and refill his canteen, Pastel told Roxie all about his first five new friends and some of the hi-jinks they'd gone through that made sense for the current time. Everything from AJ's stubborn pride eventually leading to food poisoning for everypony around her to Glimmer's accidental ensorcelling of the ladies when she was trying to make friends. The only thing he left out of every story was the names, only telling her Spike's.

After he'd been quiet for a long while, Roxie gently asked, "What happened to them?"

Pastel shivered. "The same thing, all of them. It doesn't matter what it is, what it was. They're all far, far beyond my hooves."

Roxie squeezed him gently. "Do you want to join them?" she quietly asked.

He snorted. "More than anything, but I'm not trying to send myself on to the next life," he said, shaking his head. "I can't imagine what they'd say or what they could do. So, yes, but I'm not killing myself to get to them."

He felt her nod, the bottom of her chin brushing one of his ears.

"You know," she said after a moment, "I might not be able to sew like your unicorn friend, but I do know a thing or two about taking care of my coat and mane. And, I don't know if you've met him, but there's a stallion named Zucchini Bread who likes making new pastries. We wouldn't be replacements, but... Well, we'd be friends," she finished, a bit awkwardly.

Pastel tried to think about that, about anything, but he was tired again, and he found himself merely nodding.

"I think..." He sighed, pulling away and giving her shoulder a friendly nuzzle. "I think I'd like that. I'd like to try, at least."

She smiled, returning the nuzzle before jerking her head to the door.

"The caravan awaits, then," she said, smiling gently.

Pastel took a deep breath, stood and let the blankets and sheets fall from his back, and nodded.

Finding a Rhythm

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"Wait, hold on a second," Pastel said, holding a hoof out. "Where do you get the cheese?"

"Ah, a scholar!" the stallion, one Zucchini Bread, said with a hearty wink. "Well, see, first you get some milk, and then you take some liquid thistle, they call it rennet, and then—"

"Right, right," Pastel said, nodding, "I've talked with some farmers who make their own cheese, but that's not what I meant. I meant, where do you get the ingredients for it?"

"Oh, well, I make my own rennet," Zucchini said with a grin. "You just have to find thistle and steep it, like tea."

"And the milk?" Pastel asked, leaning in.

"Oh, that comes from River Lily," he said, waving a hoof back at the rest of the camp. "She just had her foal, lovely little earth filly, and she—"

Pastel zoned out of the rest of the sentence, looking down at the block of soft, pure white cheese in the stallion's hoof. Zucchini shifted, and Pastel watched the soft block jiggle slightly from the movement.

"So what you're telling me," Pastel said, nodding to the cheese, "is that you make a savory baklava out of spinach and mare's milk cheese?"

"It's called byrek!" he said with a smile. "I also use paprika!"

"Ah," Pastel said with a nod, as though this made complete sense. "I see." Blinking, he shook his head and sighed before smiling up at Zucchini. "Alright then, let's make this thing."

Zucchini tilted his head back and laughed, his guffaws echoing around the small wagon as his short-cropped brown mane waved between his ears. Using a deep caramel-colored hoof to wipe away a streaking tear, he grinned at Pastel.

"I knew I'd like you," he chuckled before jerking his head to the door. "The oven's out there already; let's go make some food."

Zucchini grabbed their triangle of dough with his magical field, wrapping it in fine cloth before jumping out of the back of the wagon. "Alright, so, you remember all those layers I had you roll in?"

"My legs do," Pastel replied with a smile.

Zucchini let out a snort and chuckled as he walked over to the pit with a large cast-iron pot sitting at the edge of a bed of ashy gray coals. "Now, have you ever baked something in an oven like this?"

"No," Pastel said. "I've seen some ponies use tripods for cooking a stew over a fire, but I've never baked in one."

"No worries there," Zucchini said, grabbing a nearby set of tongs. "Just gotta be careful of where you put the heat. You make a small ring out of the coals, 'cause the heat spreads through the bottom really well," he said, doing as he said with the fire as he spoke. "You'll go ahead and put the pastry in, making sure not to crowd it, and then..."

Placing the triangles into the oven, he plonked the lid down and said, "Pile some coal on top!" Carefully grabbing several chunks of embers, he placed them around the top of the oven.

"That's more than the bottom," Pastel noted.

"Yup! The heat rises, right, so you gotta put more on top to get even heating." Zucchini carefully looked over the coals before placing the tongs to the side. "And now we wait. About half an hour until they get nice and golden!"

"Oh, do you have something to measure time with then?" Pastel asked, perking up.

"Sure do," Zucchini said, winking and pressing a hoof to his nose. "Between this and the sun, there's no more accurate way of telling time!"

Pastel laughed along with the baker before mentioning, "You know, I was actually working on stuff like time-keepers not too long ago. Water clocks and hourglasses, stuff like that. Would you be interested in one when I can make something?"

Zucchini hummed. "Well, you know, there are some times when I have a cold when I can't smell them perfectly, and then there's foods that just don't have a strong scent. What's a water clock?"

"Well, you take two containers, bowls or casks or whatever you can see into, and then you put a hole in the bottom of one that lets water out at a constant rate," Pastel said, straightening his back and gesturing with a hoof. "You measure how fast the water drips; then you add enough water to measure how long you want it to time. I could paint a line at every five minutes, and you could watch to see when the water hits the lines."

Zucchini let out a low whistle. "All that with just water, huh?"

"And two barrels," Pastel replied with a nod. "I've seen one where the receiving container was made of glass and stripes so that you could read it at just a glance, but I don't know how to shape glass like that," he admitted with a small smile.

"Ough," Zucchini winced with a small laugh, "custom glass-work? Don't think I could afford that. I wouldn't mind commissioning a barrel from you, though."

"Oh, I appreciate it, but I don't really have any tools or anything right now," Pastel said, scratching the back of his neck.

"Oh, that's not a big issue," Zucchini said, looking around the camp. "If it's a small task and you prove to be careful with his tools, Shadow Steel will lend you his. He's our farrier, but he also works anything we need for the wagons and tools and such." He then waved a hoof towards a specific wagon.

"Oh," Pastel said, perking up. "Then all I need are two barrels. I can make a red paint using some beeswax and some berries or roots." Pastel glanced at Zucchini. "I don't suppose you have some beetroot laying around?"

"I could maybe dig one up," he said with a wink. "And while we don't have our own cooper, I do have a couple of extra barrels I'm not using right now..."

"Well, the barrels will still be usable," Pastel said. "You just won't be able to put liquids in the one with a hole in it."

"Good point," Zucchini said with a nod, rubbing his chin with a hoof. "Alright, why don't you go find Shadow and borrow what you need, and I'll get the barrels and beeswax ready."

"Alright, I'll be right back!" Pastel said with a bounce, walking towards where Zucchini had waved him earlier.

***** ***** ***** ***** *****

Rock Sugar hummed as she took another bite from the byrek that Zucchini had coached Pastel through. "This is good," she said, waving her piece at him. "Zucch usually uses more paprika, but it's still tasty."

"Glad to hear it," Pastel sighed out, smiling faintly. "It's the first thing I've baked in..."

He stopped, taking a sip of his canteen to give him time to come out of the recollections he found himself diving into. Pinkie's exuberance far outshone any other pony's he had ever met, and that still held. Thinking of her had him lowering the canteen, staring into the swirling water as he lowered his head in thought.

"That long, huh?"

He blinked, looking up and blushing. "Sorry, sorry. It feels like, like yesterday, but..."

He sighed, lifting a hoof and tapping in the cork stopper of his drink. "I guess it's been months now. Maybe over a year."

"The unicorns hadn't had their uprising that long ago..."

Pastel chuckled weakly. "No," he agreed. "No, they didn't. I guess I..." Pastel thought, letting the words pour out as they came.

"I guess towards the end there, I wasn't being the best friend. We still talked, of course, but it had been a while since we'd seen each other for any length of time. We had this tradition, for a little bit, where we got together every weekend and talked and baked together. But...

"But it got hard, seeing her, and..."

"Did you love her?" Roxie asked gently.

Chuckling, Pastel nodded. "Yeah, but not like that. She was one of my oldest friends, besides Spike. One of those five mares I told you about, actually. But I knew her for so long..."

Roxie looked over him before gently saying, "You're twenty-four Pastel, or so you told us. Was that true?"

He chuckled, shaking his head. "I guess I just feel much, much older than I look," he mumbled. "And I knew her for so much of my life, that when I lost her..." He shook his head. "It's like I lost a sister, I guess." He snorted. "Older sister, even."

Roxie stared at him for a while before sighing and shaking her head.

"You're not that good at keepin' secrets, huh?"

He laughed there, loud and upfront. "No, no, never was," he said, wiping away a tear that had been building for longer than the laugh that had released it. "I don't like keeping them; honestly, it feels like I'm lying.

"But it's nothing important," he promised, marking an 'x' over his heart. "Nothing that could hurt anypony."

Her ears twitched, then relaxed. "You're either terrible at keeping secrets, or you're a master of giving enough to relax others, and I'm not sure I like that chance." She sighed before laying on her barrel with her legs tucked beneath her. "But I think you're alright, Pastel. Don't let it come back to bite me," she said, flicking her eyebrows up.

Pastel gave her a salute before raising his hoof and peeking out of his wagon. "So I've met Zucchini and Shadow, and your lot, of course," he chuckled, "but is there anypony else? Today?"

"Hmm," Roxie hummed, taking another hoof-full of byrek and taking a bite of it. "Nah, you're done for the day. What about tomorrow? You wanna meet with Drifting Hollow again, see if she has anything new she wants from you?"

"Sure," he said with a nod, reaching forward for the pastry before his hoof met with the burlap he'd borrowed to stow it in. Opening the bag and making sure it was empty, he glanced up at Roxie's raised eyebrows.

"Oh wow, looks like you're out," she mumbled before tossing the last of the food into her muzzle. "Maybe you should make some more," she said around the food and gave him a wink.

He rolled his eyes and snorted before they both broke down into snickering and gentle hooves into ribs.

***** ***** ***** ***** *****

Drifting Hollow did indeed have some things to ask of Pastel. Namely, a list of the equipment he was used to working with when he made things. With some assistance from Shadow Steel with names, he had a list of tools and toolsmiths who could supply him with his own equipment.

"That, of course, brings up the question of costs," Drifting said. "Cost of materials if you want Shadow to make the tools, cost of labor if you want a better tool from a specialist maker."

"Right," Pastel sighed. "I'm gonna need to earn some coin. I don't suppose that you have anything in mind?"

"As a matter of fact," Drifting said with a small grin, "I was hoping we could do a little trade. See, there were a few reports the other day of some specific new colt lifting more than should be possible for a Pegasus," she said slyly.

"Yeah?" Pastel asked, looking at her warily.

"So," she said with a glance over at Shadow's wagon, "Shadow usually pulls the small cart that we use to port around any new materials we may need for the road. Stuff like raw iron and copper and such.

"My idea is," Drifting said, motioning to Pastel's cart, "since you're wanting to load the cart up more than usual, we'll pay for the raw materials as long as you haul the cart. Shadow's getting older with every passing moment, and while he hasn't said anything, the old mule's starting to slow the caravan down."

Pastel stayed leaning forward, waiting for Drifting to continue.

She looked at him for a moment before clearing her throat." That's it. You carry your weight and a little of ours, and you can have the raw goods. You'll have to deal with Shadow for the working of it, though."

"Oh!" Pastel said, nodding. "Oh, yeah, I can do that then. I'll have to borrow some tools to modify my cart to connect them, probably, but yeah. I'll pull it."

Drifting nodded, clapping her front hooves together in front of her chest. "Excellent," she added on after, seeming to look for words before just saying, "Excellent. Well, sooner you look after it the sooner it'll be done."

Pastel nodded and was away once more, trotting again towards the cart of the blacksmith.

***** ***** ***** ***** *****

Pastel… No, he could think of himself by his true name right now. Dusk, the disguised prince of Future Equestrian, was currently balanced on his back with his head out the back of his wagon, the bed of it laid flat and balanced on its ropes. He was gazing up at the stars, taking in the sparkling wonder of the Night sky under Celestia.

He could see what she'd been going for, but she desperately needed the practice she'd be getting over the next seven-hundred-odd years. She still hadn't quite gotten Luna's constellations down, and to Dusk, it almost looked like Ursa was attempting mortal combat with Capricorn and losing badly.

Still, she'd at least gotten the sparkling of the light close, and the moon was as beautiful as it had ever been while it was marred with the Mare on the Moon.

"We're both so far away from home, Luna," Dusk whispered, wondering if he could talk with her again without her remembering him when she awoke again in that shattered castle. "Looks like it's the long waiting game for both of us, huh?"

To his relief, there was no answer back. Or he was pretty sure he was relieved, to be honest with himself. At the moment, he wasn't exactly sure how he'd feel about having the Nightmare talk back. A bit afraid, of course, but she'd be eradicated once he freed Luna-

He paused, the thought sticking in his head. Not the thought about talking to the Nightmare; that was foolishness incarnate. No, the thought of who would be the one to eradicate her. Surely it would be another him? The same him? Surely this would end up just becoming a stable loop, with his personal history just happening to include a thousand-year, one-way trip to the past?

The thought wasn't a warm one.

He sighed, looking once more up at the face of the Nightmare upon Luna's moon before he pulled his head in the slit in his canvas and rolled onto his thin pillow. With a last, faltering thought over the last few days, Dusk was soon within a dreamless slumber.

Finding Some Sense

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Pastel let out a low whistle, his eyes dancing over the glinting metal arrayed on the temporary workspace that was his tailgate.

"How'd you make the anvil?" he asked Shadow, poking the heavy hunk of metal with his hoof.

"With my hammer," he chuckled, shaking his head. "How d'ya think such a working would be done, colt," he half asked, the tenor of his voice still tempting Pastel to double-take.

"Well, I don't know, casting maybe?" he replied, picking up the long-handled tongs in one hoof and the needle-nosed pliers in the other. "These are so delicate Shadow, are you sure that a muscle-bound lump of meat like you made them?"

"Well, it was either me or you, and, well…"

He purposefully trailed off, smirking at Pastel and gesturing at his forelegs.

"Har Har Shadow," Pastel grinned back, gently poking one of the burly stallion's rippling biceps with the tongs. "Just 'cause you're built like a tank doesn't mean every metalworker needs to be."

Pastel was distracted looking over his new toolset, but he still noted the long silence. Looking over at Shadow, he saw the stallion looking at him with pity.

"How do you know what a tank is, colt," he gently asked.

Pastel had to almost physically restrain himself from a facehoof. He'd forgotten that most ponies nowadays wouldn't know about Griffon char d’assaut, unless they were frontline fighters. Luckily he hadn't really gone into what all the unicorns had 'done' to him, so this would be an easy cover-up.

"I was, uhm, sent North before the princess returned," he said, letting the smithing pony draw his own conclusions from the statement.

They stood in awkward silence for a little before Shadow suddenly grabbed him around the barrel and gave him a gentle squeeze. Before Pastel could say anything, Shadow let go and cleared his throat.

"So, about payment," he said roughly, nodding at the spread canvas holding just about any starting pony would need to get started working with metal on a small scale. "I’ll keep it simple; you'll apprentice with me for twenty hours and give me a discount on any work I need ya doing for me. Within reason."

"That, uh, sounds more than reasonable," Pastel said, giving a small sniff before offering his hoof out to shake. “What sort of things would you want, though? So I can know what kinds of things to practice.”

They spoke for a while longer, settling out what items and simple machines Shadow could want before going on to figuring out a schedule for his apprenticeship.

A few minutes after the smith left, Pastel felt a body settle beside him out of the air. “Wow, those’re tiny.”

“I’m probably going to have to make my own screws and stuff,” he said to Roxie, replacing the tools he’d been getting used to holding in the canvas. “I wonder if Shadow has a lathe hidden away somewhere…”

“Lathe?”

“Yeah,” Pastel said lightly, twisting a couple of the tools so that they sat perfectly in their pockets. “It’s like… Have you ever seen a potter’s wheel?”

“I’ve seen one being used,” she said with a nod.

“Well, it’s kind of the same thought, but you put it upright instead of the wheel being flat. Then you pin some material between it and another piece that holds it as it spins. While it’s spinning, you use some carving or sanding tools to take away some of the material, and that shapes what you’re carving. I’d probably start with a file or something.”

“Why not just use nails?” she deadpanned.

“They don’t hold as well,” he shrugged. “I know it sounds like a lot, but I can probably make one every five seconds or so when I get some practice in. More, I guess, I would have to get them on and off of the lathe.”

“What are you even going to make with them?” she laughed, shaking her head lightly.

“Everything!” Pastel proclaimed with a wide grin.

***** ***** ***** ***** *****

He started small, of course, and mostly practiced with wood until he figured out what tools were necessary for what actions. Most of his apprenticeship with Shadow was actually him figuring out how to build his own tools. At the end of his twenty hours, he’d made himself a drill, a tap and die set for threading screws, and a simple lathe of his own.

Getting used to keeping the machine spinning consistently was a chore, but soon enough, he built up the muscle memory to keep it moving smoothly.

The first thing he built, the true first item made entirely by his hooves, was a small chest. It was just wide enough to hold four rolls of scrolls and just long enough to keep the standardized pieces of paper. It was thick enough to also hold his journal, after a slight resizing.

Using some of his carving tools, he made a hollow in the bottom of his wagon bed before setting the box into the space with some glue. He sighed at the bottom ledge of the box poking out, but he couldn't place it flush without making the box impossible to open.

Frowning in thought, he eventually smacked his face before altering the box's lid to open like a trapdoor. With another addition, he had a tiny padlock that latched up into the cover so that it wasn't hanging beneath the wagon. He greased the hinges so there was no chance of them glinting any light, and he had a secret place to keep his journals.

His second item was the promised timer, the work freely gifted to Zucchini and installed in his wagon. After showing the baker how to stopper the drain and giving him differently drilled stoppers to alter the time kept, he painted in the different time measurements and even added a place for a candle to better see inside the bottom barrel.

Snacking on the cookies he'd been given as a tip, he then started on his third project, a set of carefully carved and decorated plates treated with beeswax. He'd gifted the four pieces to Cherry Charm, who'd sworn never to use them and had them carefully placed within the decorations inside her wagon.

He stopped making note after the fourth item turned out to be wagon parts, then the fifth, and the sixth, and...

Well, a few of the following pieces were less about keepsakes and more about having backups of necessary parts and, in one case, replacing a broken piece entirely.

He quickly found himself bogged down with orders for items and soon found his wagon lacking for carrying his payments. Food was a popular one, as were blankets and quilts, but most of what he collected were debts, usually without a monetary value. Things like promises of raw materials, herbs once they were properly dried, even a custom order from Shadow after quickly carving a series of spokes for his wheels.

With the flurry of activity and just working and walking, Pastel found himself quickly surrounded by falling leaves and frosty mornings. The caravan stopped by a couple of villages to trade and stock up on items, and Pastel found himself desperately wishing for a pot of nice, hot, sweet Griffonstonion coffee.

He wasn't even able to get his hooves on any of the teas he was used to finding in any of the markets of his own time. What he was able to find was restricted to the simple blends from Shire Lanka, and even those were out of reach for him, not physically but monetarily.

Instead, he was limited to either boiling water for tisane or weak beers local to each torn they stopped by. He even found himself roasting and using dandelion roots as a coffee substitute, one, unfortunately, lacking in caffeine.

"I don't see how you can stomach drinking that stuff," Roxie had told him after she'd finished gargling water and chewing on some blanched dandelion greens Pastel had been making for dinner.

"It's nostalgic," he said with a smirk, taking another sip before pushing over a candyleaf tisane he'd already prepared for her. "Staying over for supper again?"

She took the wooden cup by its large handle, her cheeks darkening slightly as she nodded.

"I'm glad I gathered enough," Pastel joked, setting his own mug down and continuing to chop the roots he was preparing to fry for dinner. "Surely my cooking isn't that much better than your mom's is, though? She's been doing it for a lot longer than I have."

"Not better," she smirked, "but different. Nopony around here uses herbs and plants the way you do." She glanced down at her tea before looking back at him. "Almost like the deer."

Pastel glanced at her, his time back at Haydale flashing through his head.

After a moment, he nodded. "The old ways always have something to teach, even if it's just how not to do things."

"Like how not to poison yourself with weird mushrooms," she said with a chuckle.

Pastel nodded slowly, smiling for a moment before it slipped from his lips. "But also culture," he murmured, his knife coming to a stop as he said, "things like certain magics being less than others. Certain knowledge being forbidden, merely because ponies don't understand it."

After a few moments of silence, he continued chopping the veggies.

Later, after the leftover food had been given away and the dishes scoured, Pastel sat on the gate of his wagon, watching the sunlight scatter over the tops of the blazing leaves of the forest.

Beside him, Roxie was sipping a bit of after-dinner brandy Pastel had been able to convince an alchemist to make him. His small glass, the second and last one he owned, was already polished off and sitting inside the wagon behind him.

She let out a quiet sigh and gently leaned against him, an action that he was getting used to slowly. Fluttershy had often copied the actions, after all. Surely this was just one of those pegasus friendship things.

With another small sigh, she gently rubbed her snout into his shoulder, nuzzling just beneath his neck, spreading warmth and the sweet scent of the alcohol.

"I hope this never ends," she whispered before leaning more fully against Pastel.

Horse-apples, he thought.

***** ***** ***** ***** *****

Dusk paused in his pacing (circling more like) inside of his wagon as a hoof gently tapped on the wood of the bed.

"Honey?"

Mentally groaning, as well as a few other actions he didn't want Cherry to hear, he pushed his head out between the flaps of canvas and smiled at her. "Yes, Cherry?" he asked, as lightly as his tensed neck would let him.

She looked up at him for a moment, and he felt the sweat start to form and drip.

"Honey," she said reproachfully.

He let out a harsh breath and dropped the rictus grin, along with his head. "Hi Cherry," he murmured, stepping back and holding the flap open for her.

She stepped up into his wagon and took a seat near the door. Pastel maneuvered himself to the other side of the bed, looking at the floor between them. "Brandy?" he asked, pulling out the same two glasses used earlier that night.

She opened her mouth, sniffed a bit, then nodded. "Just a little, please."

He poured the lightly golden fluid into the glasses, giving them both a jigger of the drink before stashing the bottle away again. Keeping in mind he'd already had a drink, he took a small sip before nodding at Cherry.

"Sugar noticed," he guessed.

Cherry nodded, taking a mouthful of the drink and shivering. "She sure did," she said. "What happened? You two have been happy as can be the last month and a half, once she got to know you."

Dusk sighed and tossed back the rest of his drink. "I realized she liked me as more than a friend," he murmured, rolling the empty glass between his hooves.

"She sure does," Cherry murmured back, taking another sip before breathing in. "Why's that a problem, colt?"

Dusk chuckled, shaking his head. "It's one of those things I won't talk about," he admitted, looking up into her gaze. "Let's just say that, even if I were looking for another pony, it wouldn't work out for me. Or them."

Cherry glanced up at him, rolling her half swallow around the glass before setting it aside.

"That means you're into, what, deer? Griffins?"

Pastel couldn't help the clear laugh that was pulled from him. "I mean, I'm not unattracted to any of those, or ponies," he said, wiping at his right eye to get the tear away from fur before the salt could crystallize. "That's not the barrier."

"Then what is, Pastel?" asked the mare, sighing and tapping the bed of wood between them. "You know my Roxie's a good mare, and we both know you like her. What could possibly be stopping you?"

"Time," he said before flinching.

"What time?" she asked, gesturing to him with a hoof. "Are you saying a couple of months isn't long enough? I'm not asking you to marry her for Celestia's sake, just—"

"Not," Pastel said, setting a hoof down beside hers with a heavy thump. "Not the time we've shared. Cherry, Roxie is my best friend in camp, over everypony else. It's nothing to do with her, just..."

He sighed, using his hooves to rub his temples.

"Look, you know I have some earth pony blood, right?" When she nodded, he continued, "What happens when I outlive her? Everypony knows earth ponies live longer; they're just plain hardier," he argued, gesturing at his stocky barrel. "What happens when she dies years, cent—, decades before I do?"

Cherry watched him carefully as he panted, his short rant taking more air than he felt possible.

"Then you keep loving her, colt," she said with a tilt of her head. "You think that death stops things like love? You think Shadow loves you any less for his dead son?

"Yes, Pastel," she said when his head whipped up, and she leaned forward to place a hoof on his chest, "others have lost. To the unicorns, to monsters, to time. Do you think we love those who are lost any less than we love those right across from us still?"

His chest felt hollow, sucking, and he placed his hooves on her shoulders as he felt his balance, his eyesight shifting.

"But it hurts," he whispered, dipping his head as thoughts of his lost friends danced through his head. The main five, Spike, Celestia and Luna, Cadance and Shining Armor, Starlight and Trixie and Sunburst, all of his students and teachers and every being he had ever known and called friend and brother and sister.

"Does that make the love any less worth it?" Cherry asked softly, and Pastel couldn't help but break then, tears streaming down his face as he gently grabbed the mare, pulled her into his chest, and squeezed her close as her legs wrapped around him.

***** ***** ***** ***** *****

Rock Sugar sniffed, staring at herself in the tiny steel mirror her mother had gifted her for a birthday after she'd complained how hard it was to braid her hair, not only with hooves but blindly as well.

She played with the braid, tugging her hair this way and that as she tried to find something more alluring than the simple pattern she kept it in most days.

She picked up a hair clip with some dyed wood stylized as a flower, testing it before putting it back down. A silver one was tried before she grabbed one of her mom's ribbons and pulled her hair into a bun behind her ears.

With a mild curse, she threw the material at the reflection and buried her muzzle into her forelegs on the table, trying her best to keep tears from flowing.

She felt a large hoof gently smooth over her back. She smirked a bit, turning into the leg and hugging her dad's barrel as he pulled her deeper into an embrace.

They were there for a minute before there was a familiar knocking on the wagon. "Hey Roxie, come on out now," her mom called.

Her dad gave her a last squeeze before pulling away. Roxie glanced at the vanity before just walking towards the door, her hair falling in a loose curtain of curls as she opened the door.

"Wow," whispered a voice, making her freeze. Raising her eyes from the step leading out of the wagon, she looked down at Pastel.

He was gazing up at her with widened eyes that shined in the faint light of the almost full moon. There had been some attempt to flatten his unruly mane, and he was holding one of his hooves behind his back.

Her mom was beside him, and after a moment of staring between them, she nudged Pastel with an elbow.

"Ow. Uh, I mean," he said with a shake of his head, more of his cowlicks popping up from the water-logged hair. "I uh, uhm, uhhhhhh—"

Cherry sighed before elbowing him again.

That jump-started some spark behind his eyes, and he pulled the hoof out from behind his back.

Offering out a small bouquet of three calla lily, Pastel tried a cocky smirk that became a watery grin.

"I, uh, really like your mane," he said, looking up at her and saying, "really like, Roxie."

She flew down over the step and into his chest, barreling him over with a happy cry.

Finding Some Middle Ground

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After a prolonged snuggling in the dirt, Pastel awkwardly holding Roxie while she and her family bubbled around them, he finally convinced her to let him sit up.

“So, uhm,” he started, scratching his chin awkwardly and setting a mental reminder to shear some of his fur for his new marefriend, “I’ve never had a special somepony before, so I’ll probably be awkward or mess some things up. Just let me know, and I’ll fix it, right?”

Roxie snorted, as did Shale Clip.

“Special somepony, colt?” he snickered, nudging his wife’s shoulder and nearly knocking her over. “Ain’t that sweet. I ain’t heard those words since I was, well,” he snickered again, “your size, so years and years ago.”

“I’m not that small,” Pastel replied without thought, then asked, “Uh, marefirend then?”

“I like it your way better, sugar,” Cherry giggled before elbowing her husband. “And you hush. Don’t shame the colt. He just said this is his first time courting.”

“Not that surprising,” Roxie chuckled, sitting firmly beside him and leaning into his shoulder.

“Thanks,” he muttered, blushing and leaning back slightly.

“Not like that, thick-skull,” she replied, jabbing him lightly in the ribs. “I meant, if you’d courted before me, you’d probably still be with the mare.”

Pastel’s mouth twisted, but he kept most of the bitterness from his tone when he said, “You’d think that.”

Roxie gave him a questioning look, but he shook his head and said, “Anyway, what’s important is that I want to do everything right, or as close as I can get, so I’d like to expect all three of you to tell me if I screw something up.”

Shale chuckled. “Well, if Roxie keeps on bein’ like her momma the way she is, then we won’t have the chance to say nothing. Tartarus, I bet you won’t have a chance to wonder.”

Cherry gave Shale a look that Pastel recognized from nearly any couple that had been married for longer than five years (and didn’t that little reminder of his parents sting). Shale noticed it and quieted but kept the large grin. After a moment, Cherry’s look softened into a smile of her own.

“Big lug here has a point,” she admitted, nodding to her furiously blushing daughter. “She’ll let you know if you do something.”

Pastel glanced over, catching her eyes. “Please do,” he murmured.

He watched her face shift, blush, and eventually look away before she elbowed him. “How about you just don’t do anything bad in the first place,” she muttered, her ears twitching.

“Won’t plan on it,” he murmured, leaning over to place his head on her shoulder. “But I’ve been known to be inconsiderate in the past,” he chuckled, friend’s faces flashing past his eyes as memories played at super speed.

“There’s one,” Roxie said, shaking him out of his thoughts. “You gotta let me into whatever you’re thinking whenever you go absent like that.”

He winced, looking away and sighing. After a moment of silence, he murmured, “As soon as I figure out how.”

He heard Roxie sigh. Thankfully instead of pushing the matter, she gave him a gentle shove.

When he looked back, she was gazing into his eyes, and she nodded before turning to her parents.

“Think we’ll be holing up in his wagon tonight, talking about things. Is that okay?”

Cherry raised an eyebrow, and Shale snorted.

“I know, I know,” Roxie murmured, blushing, “I just wanted to ask this time, since, well….”

Pastel cleared his throat, and Roxie shook her head.

“You know nothing’s going to happen,” he murmured with a blush, and Shale broke into loud laughter as Cherry sighed.

“I know, but I’m growing older by the minute, damnit,” she sighed, causing both of the younger pony’s faces to blush hotly. “Honestly, with as much time as you spend together, I thought you two had already—”

“Nope!” Pastel interrupted before grabbing Roxie and pulling her away.

They’d gotten most of the way over to his wagon before there was a wolf-whistle, and somepony called out, “Gettin’ bolder colt! The mares like that, good on ya!”

Pastel stopped and nearly withdrew his wing from Roxie’s shoulders but sighed and just finished the trip with a much more controlled pace, keeping her under his wing regardless of how red they both were getting.

They got to his wagon shortly after the pause, and he lifted a wing to sweep open the canvas door. There was another wolf-whistle, and he couldn’t hold back the chuckle when a chunk of wood he hadn’t quite started on flew from his wagon and hit something out in the camp. Something that yelped in the same voice as before.

Jumping up, he tied the halves of the door together before sitting and facing a blushing Roxie. He watched as she glanced around the space, cluttered now by tools and half-finished projects and a single bedroll before he watched her try to surreptitiously puff out the fluff on her chest with a hoof and fluff her wings.

Blushing, he cleared his throat. “I, uh, meant it when I told your parents that nothing was going to happen tonight.”

“Oh,” she murmured, dropping the hoof running up her chest. “Then, are we finally gonna talk about what happened?”

Pastel flinched before sighing. “Sort of,” he said, glancing out of the back doors before looking back at her. “The thing is, some really, really bad things could happen if I tell you. But it’s also a really big secret, and I don’t want to wait until we’ve been together for a long time before telling you, right? It’s a huge secret, and it’ll change how you see me, think of me, and...”

He sighed, staring at the corner of his bedroll and nudging it with a hoof.

“It’s something I don’t want to keep from you, but it has to stay hidden. From everypony.”

He heard her scoot closer, not lifting herself from the floor but moving over it. He felt her place her hooves on his jaw, lifting his muzzle until he was staring into her soft gaze. He saw now just how related she was to her mother.

She was giving him the same fond look Cherry had given Shale.

“Pastel Nights,” she said softly, “did you kill somepony.”

The scenes of the previous months flew at Pastel, his freeing the fort and everything that happened after it. “Probably,” he whispered, wincing at her confused look. “I was a part of the freedom fighters when the unicorns took over. I released a bunch of ponies, ponies that had been crushed under magic for too long. Nothing directly, but yes. Probably.”

Rock Sugar hummed, still looking into his eyes with a faraway gaze. She seemed to be searching his very soul.

“But not yourself?”

He felt his gaze harden. “That doesn’t free me from responsibility,” he said quietly.

“Never said it did,” she murmured back. “But it does change things. It makes a difference.”

He bit back his reply, his eyes slamming down, his gaze to the floor.

They were silent for a long time. Her hooves started moving, gently massaging his jaw before slipping down to his neck. Slowly, firmly, she pulled him in to her barrel, pressing their chests together, their hearts beating at each other’s in disharmony.

He felt his slow. Felt himself melt into her.

Felt her there. Holding him up.

His hooves trailed up over her sides, pulling her closer as he began sniffling. Weeping into her mane.

She held him up through it all.

Later, once he’d had his bit of catharsis, they laid side by side on his little bedroll, legs wrapped around each other, belly to belly.

“So,” Roxie murmured, and he raised his head to look at her. “Are you gonna tell me the real secret? If you didn’t kill nopony or anything like that, I can’t imagine anything splitting me from you.”

He hummed. "Well, it’s not really bad, right? It’s just big.”

“Bigger than killing somepony?”

He didn’t answer, and she sat up and looked down at him hard.

“Are you married? Already have foals?”

He laughed, shaking his head. “No, no, no other mare or stallion in my life.” He sighed and said, “It’s bigger than that.”

“Bigger than having a foal?” she asked, eyes wide.

He nodded, and she laid back beside him, letting loose a whistle.

“But it’s not bad?”

Pastel shook his head.

She hummed before gently nuzzling into his chest.

“I guess it’ll wait, then,” she murmured, snorting as she flattened his chest fluff with her nose. “I’d love a little bit of it, though? If that’s okay?”

He hummed before chuckling to himself. “Sure. My name’s not Pastel Nights.”

She let out a sharp chuckle and nudged his ribs. “Everypony knows that.”

“Everypony!?” he yelped, shooting upright and looking at the door.

“Everypony,” she chuckled, leaning up and grabbing him around the shoulders before pulling him back down to the bedroll.

“Horse apples,” he deadpanned before lightly laughing. “I never was a good liar.”

“Never will be,” she chuckled, nuzzling his throat. “How about something more concrete? Like your actual name?”

“Uh,” he half chuckled, “not that one. Uh, my real age?”

She bolted upright, looking down into his eyes through her mane.

“Is that a yes?”

He yelped when she nudged his ribs again, harder. “Are you fifteen? Fourteen?” she barked, narrowing her eyes at him.

“What, no!” he barked out, “I’m older! Older than I said!”

“Oh,” she said, her shoulders unbunching. “Tartarus, I thought I was in trouble,” she muttered.

“No, I’m almost forty,” he said before blanching.

She looked down at him, confused. She started tilting her head, her gaze roving over his face before she looked around the wagon. “Do you have a lantern or anything?”

His eyebrows creasing, he turned over and pulled out a beeswax candle. Using a tinderbox he’d developed, he lit it and placed it near the middle of the wagon, away from the canvas.

As soon as he’d fixed it in place, she was on him, sitting on his barrel and rolling him over so that she was straddling his stomach. He started to protest, blushing as he glanced down at where they met, but he was silenced by a hoof to his muzzle that turned his head. He watched as she leaned close, brushing his coat with a hoof and examining him closely. She turned him the other way before she used a hoof to lift one of his lips to look at his gums.

“Hey!” he said, pulling and wiggling his head away, “enough! I’m not lying!”

She let him go, placing both of her hooves on his chest and looking suspiciously down at him.

“Pastel,” she started, “I don’t think I can believe you’re any older than twenty. Definitely not older than thirty.”

“Rock Sugar, I’m nearly forty,” he said bluntly, looking straight into her eyes.

They narrowed before widening.

“Yeah,” he murmured, reaching up and scratching his ear. “I didn’t get any better at lying than I was twenty minutes ago.”

They were silent for a bit. Pastel finally gathered the nerve to look up at Roxie.

She was looking down at him, eyes narrowed but not slanted in anger, just considering him.

“Well, buck, it’s not the largest age gap I’ve ever heard of,” she finally declared.

Pastel’s lips flapped as he let out a lungful of air, letting free a raspberry before loud laughter. Wiping at his eyes, still chuckling, he glanced up at her past a hoof.

“Still hard to believe you’re as old as Dad, though,” she said, sending him once more into breathless laughter.

“No way,” he sputtered out, remembering the chiseled appearance of Shale Clip before dissolving into giggles again. “He doesn’t look old, but the way he walks talks. It’s like one of the hills got up and started flying.”

Roxie laughed and nodded, scooting back off of him. “He probably got it from his gran-sire; his dad died early, so he was mostly raised by him. From what I heard, old Quartz Chip started late, so he was ancient already when dad was born.”

“Mmm,” Pastel murmured hesitantly before asking, “What happened? To your grandparents?”

“They’re all passed on. Mom’s side were taken by an illness just after I was born. They sent my parents away so they wouldn’t give it to me.

‘But I’ve been told that dad’s were taken by wild creatures near the woods.” She looked down at the floor, tracing the grain with the tip of a hoof. “I heard it from mom. He doesn’t like talking about it.”

“I won’t bring it up,” Pastel promised, flipping onto his barrel before slowly reaching out and taking her hoof.

She smiled at him and nodded.

After a moment, she cleared her throat and gave Pastel a steady look. “So, what about your family?”

He winced but let out a breath. “One thing, one event, took everything from me,” we said, wavering before shaking his head. “That’s the one thing I can’t tell you. Not yet,” he amended, not looking up. “I trust you already, Roxie, you know I do, but this one’s too big. I’ll need to figure out a way to tell you while knowing that nothing can make you tell anypony else.”

She slowly pulled her hoof away.

“You’d force me to not be able to talk to anypony else,” she said carefully.

He flinched, curling in on himself.

“Only about this one thing Roxie,” he whispered. “It’s the kind of thing that could change everything, forever, and I can’t have that.”

He heard her shift, then resettle. “What kind of change?”

“Any kind,” he said, looking up and meeting her gaze. “Anything could change, and that would change everything.”

“But you wouldn’t know that,” she argued, “because you’ve never seen every... thing...”

She trailed off, and Pastel knew she was seeing more in his eyes than he could ever hope to hide.

“You have, though,” she said, leaning forward and looking into him. “You’ve seen some future event somehow, and now if you tell anypony about it, it’ll change, is that right?”

Pastel frowned, chewing on his bottom lip for a moment before shrugging. “That’s honestly close enough that I’m not comfortable with talking about it any more.”

She gazed at him, shifting back and forth, before quietly swearing under her breath. “You’ve seen something that you can’t tell me about. Is it good or bad, at least?”

He laughed, shaking his head but not in affirmation or rejection. “So much of both that I couldn’t hope to narrow it down.”

Roxie chewed on her lip before gesturing at him, saying, “That still doesn’t explain how it separated you from your family and friends—”

She let him cut her off with a sigh and a hoof held up.

“Roxie, please, I really do need to keep this a secret, and I can’t do that if I tell you more,” he begged, putting his hooves together and giving her his best Sweetie Belle eyes.

She deadpanned at him before a snicker broke her glower, and she shook her head.

“I’m not going to be able to stop thinking about it, Pastel,” she said, settling back onto her legs and looking at him. “If you can figure out your way for me to keep your secret, then we can talk about it, but...” she trailed off before sighing.

“I guess I can stop for now.” She frowned and flicked a hoof through the air. “So, is your whole past off limits?”

“Oh, mare,” he murmured before shaking his head. “I want to tell you everything,” he said slowly, “so I’ll tell you as much as I think I can get away with.”

She sniffed, looking at him with a slight frown.

“Okay, so,” he started, his mind whirling through the encyclopedias in his mind that pertained to Pegasi in history. “Oh, my parents were lesser nobles in their flock. Not very high in status or standing, but of an older bloodline.”

“Pegasus nobles?” she asked, scrunching her nose.

“Some flocks still keep up with certain bloodlines,” he nodded, “not like the Unicorns, but maybe a little more than Earth ponies.”

“Okay, is this a bloodline I’ve heard of before?” she asked, eyes perked now.

“Maybe way, way back,” he murmured, mentally tracing his family tree until he remembered an interesting fork. Humming as he did some mental math, he decided that it was far enough back in even this past time that he could freely tell her.

“A long time ago, before the Two Sisters even, there was a certain tryst that begot a single filly.

“The daughter of Commander Hurricane and the grandson of Princess Platinum put her up for adoption, but they kept the filly close and made sure she was well taken care of.”

“Horseapples,” she immediately said before looking at Pastel’s raising eyebrow. “But there’s no way!”

He shrugged. “Enough of a way that the filly bore foals of both pegasi and unicorn blood, and both of them remained in some status in their respective tribes.”

She sat there in quiet contemplation for a moment before glancing at him. “How do you know all that?”

He shrugged. “The unicorns keep pretty good books on stuff like that, and with shared blood, there’s better lines of communication. The stories have only been told by muzzle for a couple of generations, not really long enough for the facts to get really mixed up.”

She hummed, nodding with slightly glazed eyes.

“Oh, and you said there was some earth pony in you?” she asked, still blinking rapidly at him.

“Well, that was more recent,” he said, scratching his chin with a hoof.

Smacking his tongue against the roof of his mouth, he reached out and grabbed one of his canteens. Taking a deep drink, he offered it to Roxie. She took a quick sip before stoppering it and hoofing it back.

“That particular bunch of earth ponies did my great-something grandparents a favor and became fast family friends. After a couple of generations, my great-great-great-great-great-Great grandmother fooled around with, and eventually married, one of the Apple Family. “

Roxie whistled. “Wow, that’s... well, not nearly as unheard of,” she chuckled. “With that lot, if you’re friends, you’re friends forever. Unless you do something real dirty, of course.

“So you’re telling me you’re a Hurricane, a Platinum, and an Apple?”

“Well, it’s all been diluted, and it was mostly a long time ago, but that’s what my parents and the books say,” Pastel said, nodding.

Roxie’s ears twitched, and she gave him an odd look. “Most ponies wouldn’t be so... well, so proud to have all three tribes mixing around in them.”

Pastel grimaced and let out a tch.

“I am the culmination of so many pony’s loves for each other,” he said, shrugging. “What’s there not to be proud of?”

She looked at him, her head cocked just slightly sideways before she smiled and moved close enough to wrap her forelegs around his neck, giving him a tight hug.

Surprised, he returned her hug, eventually pushing his snout into her shoulder as she squeezed.

Eventually, she pulled away gently. With a stern look, she reminded him, “I’m not giving up on learning more about your past. I won’t ask often, but when you’re ready, don’t wait for me to ask. Okay?”

Squirming slightly, he slowly nodded, saying, “I promise.”

She nodded and touched his chest gently before giving him a look. “Earth pony and Unicorn both, huh? No wonder you’re small and young-looking. I wonder if you’ll ever catch up to dad.”

Pastel groaned.

Finding Routine

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The next half month passed, not in a blur, but in the softest fuzz, like fresh peaches.

In the beginning, it was strange for Pastel to have somecreature so near to him all the time that wasn't Spike. He quickly acclimated to having a mare around himself at all times, though, likely from all the feminine presence in his life, and the change was an easy fit.

At first, he found himself unsure of how to treat Roxie. The first decade and some of his life, he'd been around ponies who spoiled their partners with gifts and expensive distractions, but he knew that would feel artificial and straining on the new relationship. And besides, he'd heard firsthoof just how shallow those relationships were from Rarity.

He felt like Roxie would appreciate a courting like AJ and RD's more, without perhaps the constant testing and competition, but Roxie didn't really have an orchard he could laze about all day, nor did she have the constant streak of showmareship of Dash. They already spent quiet time together daily, so he needed to look elsewhere for inspiration.

He dared not attempt to sum up or mimic Fluttershy and Discord's relationship.

None of his friend's relationships instilled any sort of wanting in Pastel, but that didn't really surprise him.

If each of his friendships were different, it would make sense that any other relationship would be similar after all.

Still, that left him wrong-hoofed and awkward, and it was obvious.

Luckily Roxie took it in stride, each day gently teasing and drawing Pastel out of the constructed shell quicker and quicker until he could shake off the need to put on a show for her at all.

And so, instead of trying to act for her, he dropped all pretenses.

Instead, he started asking his own little questions, learning more about her family and upbringing. Who her grand-sires and granddams had been, where they came from, how her family operated within the wagon on those long hauls, he'd barely even tasted.

"It can be hard keeping quiet when I'm not as asleep as they think I am," she said with a blush. "Might be sure to be camping with you as much as possible."

And then he was blushing.

In return, he fed her little details of his own family, leaving out names, of course, but giving her details on traits and mannerisms he could remember from his foalhood years.

"Like, apparently, I get my eyes from my grand-dam on my mother's side while my mane's streaks are in line with my father's great-great-grand-sire," he said, using his hooves to pull gently on the rosy strands in front of his eyes.

"M' still jealous of your feathers," she said, gently stroking along the gradient of his wing. "Mine just looks like I just got dipped in paint..."

"But the colors work really well; it's like chocolate and cream. Mine's just boring, pink into lighter..." he said, running a hoof along one of her pinions.

And then they were both touching each other's wings, and after an awkward realization on Pastel's part, they hemmed and hawed until Pastel continued with his abridged genealogy.

And during Pastel's jump-into-the-deep-end burgeoning relationship, they broke through the forest line, and he was surprised to find a lovely view of horizon-spanning water. A freezing wind blew into the caravan, ruffling his bangs playfully before washing over his back.

Dusk shivered at the onslaught, breathing into the cold reminder of the season. Grey fluffy clouds in the distance promised a long overdue snowfall on the thin streak of grassland between the mostly empty trees and the completely bare ocean. Glancing up and down the treeline, he saw wagons beginning to circle up just outside the trees and fluffed his wings for warmth as he started making camp in his usual spot.

Roxie showed up just as he was digging out his firepit, shivering under a blanket. They shared a quick nuzzle before she jumped into his wagon. He heard her rattling around with the dishes he'd been practicing with, and by the time he was finished digging and tamping down dirt, she'd pulled together the pewter kettle and mismatched mugs he'd tinkered out.

He chuckled when she produced the casks that held the dried leaves for his teas, as well as the sweetener leaves.

"If you keep going through those, I'll run out before they start growing again," he said, filling the kettle and placing it over the empty pit on his cooking stand. Rubbing up against her with his side, he stood on his rear legs to reach into his wagon and pulled out a cord of kindling and logs, getting them set up beneath the kettle.

"Maybe I can buy some at Baltióg," she muttered.

Pastel snorted, mouth opening to correct Baltimare before he remembered that this was nearly a thousand years in his past, and it was probably called something else.

"That our next destination?" he asked as he set up his tinder, a tight ball of dry, entwined hay strands with dried grass filling in the gaps. "Haven't been there before. Is it very big?"

"It's trying to make itself into a trade port, but right now, it's just a two-dock village on the bay," she said with a shrug. "Still big enough to have a warehouse and a general store, so I guess it's doing okay. Maybe a hundred ponies all told, mostly earth with a couple of families of the other two races from what I remember."

"Sounds like you've been," Pastel chuckled as he sparked his flint mechanism, using his body to block the wind steadily blowing the clouds in from the sea.

She watched him bring the fire into being, covering the logs from the wind until the flame wouldn't be put out by an errant gust.

"We nearly settled there," she said when Pastel sat by her, snuggling into the outside of her blanket. "Me and ma and dad. He nearly got a job on a boat that was passing through on its way from down south up to the settlement up north, the one full of pegasi that flew to that island."

Pastel tried to wait her out, but after a couple minutes, asked, "Something happen?"

She snorted. "Council was led by the nose by a unicorn. Decided he liked mom too much, dad socked him good, and he banished us from the village."

Pastel snorted. "Good on your dad. How long ago?"

Rock Sugar squinted into the fire, watching it crackle for a bit before saying, "Maybe two, three years?"

Pastel hummed, leaning into her. "So are we gonna stay outside while everypony else goes into town, or are we chancing him getting kicked out a couple months ago?"

"We nothing," she said, nudging him. "You've got fancies to sell and materials to buy. We can sit out on our own; we'll be—"

Pastel leaned over and kissed her cheek. Staring into the fire, he began, "I know you'll be okay. But I can have Shadow sell some junk for me, he knows what it's worth, and I'm sure he knows where to get metal. And then I get to spend more time around you three," he finished, glancing towards her.

She rolled her eyes but couldn't hold back the smile as she said, "Sappy colt."

In the end, it wasn't a problem. They came across the unicorn before they came to the city, though he was hard to identify after being in the pillory for so long.

After that, the caravan sent a small group ahead to ensure the caravan's unicorns would be safe. The trio of pegasi returned without issue, and the unicorns were permitted, albeit under constant watch by the entirety of the town. Several of them stayed with the wagons anyhow so that the foals could be kept safely away from anypony still itching for revenge against anypony with horns.

Roxie came along with Pastel, pointing out landmarks and waving at ponies she remembered.

The ponies of the caravan set up in a marketplace near the docks, around a pair of trees and a patch of very yellow and very dead grass.

They were allowed to rent a set of empty stalls run by the general store. Roxie described the vegetables and animal products that would fill the stalls in the summer, squinting at the pony still taking up a single stall.

"Oh, Celestia," she murmured, ducking behind Pastel as he filled up the shelves on one of the stalls. "That's Wool Prickle, son of the local shepherd. His dad must've started making him run the stall. I had the biggest crush on him when we lived here; I hope he doesn't remember how embarrassing I was..."

"Embarrassing? You, Roxie?" Pastel said with a grin, setting the last of his gadgets on the top shelf.

"Shut it," she grunted with a blush, elbowing him gently.

He snicked quietly before giving her a quick peck on her cheek. "Hey, would you mind helping me mind the stall? I don't know what prices should be, and I need to find a supplier for metal too."

She quickly pointed out a particular smokestack on the short skyline, where there was an established blacksmith, and told him to take twenty gold bits but only show twelve to the smith.

"She's got quality stuff, but she'll overcharge the second she thinks she can get away with it. But you might have to compete with Shadow for it. He's got you beat by five minutes already," she teased, waving him off with a hoof and a smirk.

Shadow was still there when he arrived and had indeed bought enough of the smith's extraneous iron and steel stock that she wasn't willing to sell much more. Luckily she had stored some bronze, brass, and pewter and was more than ready to get rid of most of that stock.

"Hate making spoons," she'd muttered, taking his gold and nodding to him.

Shadow traded him for use of his wagon in exchange for pulling it, which Pastel was more than happy to do.

Before leaving, he got permission and looked over the smithy's workshop, specifically the forge and a large tubular kiln she used to heat metals into alloying range.

Tickled at his questions and poking, she even sold him an old set of crucibles and their equipment, giving him pointers. She even told him about sand casting, warning him many times of the dangers that came with it.

Pulling the wagon back out to the caravan so Shadow could empty it, he pulled the old stallion into a conversation about casting and its uses that lasted the walk back to the marketplace.

He was surprised when he saw the stall he'd set up empty, with Roxie nowhere in sight. Taking a deep breath, he looked around and saw one of the weavers of the caravan, Reed Strands, waving a hoof at him. The old mare smiled when he trotted over.

"Yer mare sol' all those lil metal things ye make," she told him, "seems the general store wan'ed them. She shoul' still be in 'ere, haglin'."

"Thanks, grannam," he said with a smile before walking over to the large store and walking in.

"One second, sir," called over a voice from behind a large counter in the corner, from a thin stallion with a tight, thin voice, "be right with you."

Roxie glanced over her shoulder before turning further and smiling at him. The smile was tighter, tenser than he was used to. "Oh hey, Pastel! I'm glad you came by," she turned to look at the stallion behind the counter, "this is the creator; he's who I wanted you to talk to."

"Ah," he said flatly, his own smile becoming tenser and more forced, "I see."

"He wants to buy your entire stock," Roxie said, giving the merchant a side-eyed glance.

"Oh, wonderful!" Pastel replied, giving both of them a confused look.

"It's a little more, well, complicated than that," the stallion said with a stilted smirk. "What I wanted was to draw up a contract to continue buying you stock.

"All of it," he said, leaning forward over the counter. "I see quite the market for your inventions, you see, and—"

Pastel held up a hoof, frowning now. "What prices would you place on them?"

"Oh, they would sell for plenty," the stallion said, "and of course, y-you'd get a p-portion," he quickly added when Pastel raised an eyebrow.

"But what price would you sell them for?" Pastel asked again after a moment had passed.

"Oh, well, this one," he said, holding up a simple lighter that held a chunk of flint that, with a press of a hoof, a hunk of steel would drag across to make sparks, "it would sell for several gold per piece, and then—"

Pastel shook his head. "That's too much."

The stallion flinched slightly, fumbling with the lighter. "E-excuse me?"

"That's too much," Pastel said, taking the metal gently and placing it back on the counter. "I didn't make these things to get rich," he said, gently picking up the items he'd put the last weeks of his time into. "I made these so that anypony could use them to make their lives better or easier. If anypony couldn't afford them, I wouldn't feel right about it."

He looked back up at the baffled stallion.

"So, if you like, you could buy these items from me and turn around to try to sell them at a markup. But," he said, shaking his head and leaning forward, "if you tried that, I'm afraid I'd have to just stick around a while and make more to sell at my price.

"So, are you buying?" he asked, straightening his back and staring into the stallion's eyes.

He could only shake his head slightly; his muzzle dropped as he looked at Pastel like he was some sort of monster come walking out of the wilderness.

Pastel grabbed the things on the counter and walked back out to the stall, Roxie behind him. He hummed lightly as he carefully replaced the items on the plank, pausing to look at his marefriend when she cleared her throat.

"That's a pretty noble speech you gave back there," she said, carefully turning one of his creations on the shelf. "He offered quite a bit of gold before you had him promising you a cut."

After a bit, she said, "Enough to settle down, even."

Pastel looked over at her.

Her legs were slightly too close to each other, and her mane was falling across her muzzle, hiding her expression as she fidgeted with a primitive block and tackle he'd carved and riveted together. Her wings were loose and high, almost like she was ready to take off any moment.

Pastel cleared his throat, and she jumped a bit, the hair on her spine rising and relaxing.

"Do you want that?" he asked softly.

She dropped her hoof, looking down at the ground. "Don't you?"

Reaching over, he gently took her chin in a hoof and pulled her to look at him before he shrugged.

"Maybe eventually," he said, looking around the market at all the ponies from the caravan displaying everything from quilts to clay pottery to woven baskets. "But I don't think I'm ready to just drop all of the ponies who've been kind enough to take me in.

"And besides that, there's you," he said, turning back to her. "Even if I did settle down, there's you and your parents... I'm not going to ask you to make that decision. Not anytime soon."

She smiled at him before wrapping her forelegs around his neck and hugging him tightly.

At the end of the day, he'd sold not only all of the things he'd brought but also some of his time. Several ponies had run home and returned with their own items, broken or merely in need of a cleaning, and he'd also promised to do some home visits for larger items over the next days.

After finding Drifting Hollow and making sure the wagons wouldn't be leaving anytime soon, he found himself walking around town with his full wagon of goods, performing small services from sharpening old tools to making three custom stamps for a woodworker.

Luckily he'd been training himself with the files he had.

At the end of a week, he'd made a small name for his finer-scaled smithing and even gotten an apprenticeship offer from the smith he'd spoken with before (declined).

"Gonna buy anything fun?" Roxie asked, watching him hide away the second bag of coins in the floorboard of his wagon.

"Maybe," he said with a shrug. "I'm mostly saving, but I'm honestly not sure what for. Maybe I could have another little cart built so that I don't have to drag the entire wagon around these towns. Or some bricks for a kiln, that'd be useful for making my own alloys and for casting more intricate things like—"

He stopped when he heard Roxie gently laughing before she leaned on him.

"You," she accused, poking him in the chest, "need to relax some. You've got enough to eat off of for months now, a place over your head, and tools enough for plying a trade. You're living the life right now, Pastel. Buy something nice, maybe a bottle of cider or another brandy. I know you can read; maybe there's some books in the store?"

Pastel chewed gently on his bottom lip, looking at the store in the distance.

His ear twitched as an idea came to him, and he smiled at Roxie. "Hey, one of my friends used to make something from cider. Ever heard of applejack?"

With a bit of work, Pastel soon had a small barrel full of apple juice that he'd personally squeezed and boiled. Adding in some honey that had taken more of his coin than he liked, he also went out of his way to find a local brewer and bought a bit of their brewing 'cake', the yeast that actually made their drink ferment.

"So, it's not going to be ready for a bit," he said, glancing at Roxie when she groaned.

"Then you didn't buy something for yourself to enjoy! You just bought another chore!" she laughed, wacking Pastel's shoulder as she leaned on him.

"I bought something for me to enjoy later," he told her, laughing lightly as he pushed her back upright. "And you, unless you keep laughing at me. I know you'll like it; it's like cider but more alcoholic."

She hpmf'd at him but kept any other complaints quiet.

In addition to the cider supplies, Pastel bought himself a scarf and light jacket on the third day, when light snow began to fall and didn't stop. After that week, the caravan pulled up stakes and started heading southwest.

Finding Passion

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It turned out that the buffalo were friendly towards the nomadic caravans as long as they were respected and even welcomed trade. Pastel had been afraid that they’d be heading to the town beyond the cyclopean Arimaspi territories, but after stopping within bison lands, they’d be heading north.

Towards Haydale. Of course.

Not that he was worried about going back to the town, even with the memories there.

He was more worried about seeing Lilly Sights. Or Clover Sweeper.

Not that they would recognize him, of course, not through two disguises. But he’d recognize them. It’d been weeks, months since he saw the siblings, and he was honestly afraid of what might have happened to them over the past months.

His thoughts were lost when Roxie jostled him. He ran a hoof through his mane before he looked at her with a smile.

“Sorry,” he murmured, elbowing her gently back. “Just thinking about heading north.”

“Anything important?” she asked, leaning against him before the large fire the buffalo had created for themselves and the visiting caravan.

“Not particularly. Mostly thinking about what would be useful to a bunch of earth ponies. More magicless lighters, so I should get some flint here. Maybe they could use some cutlery, so I should see if the buffalo have scrap materials. Or I could get some patterned straps and sell them at markup for the novelty...”

He paused when Roxie snorted.

“All you think about is work,” she accused playfully. Not baselessly, he could easily admit. “You know there’s more to life than work, right? There’s food, and reading, and me!”

He chuckled, wrapping a leg around her. “And you, always and you,” he said, laughing again when she gave him an acidic look.

When she settled back against him with a hmpf, he asked, “What else would you have me be thinking of?”

She sighed, looking above the tents and wagons around them, the duo lost in the middle of twenty different conversations all around them. She passively watched two buffalo talking with her father, who said something they couldn’t hear that had one of his audience bursting with laughter while the other scowled and roughly shoved her compatriot.

“Where do you want to go?” she asked, glancing up at Pastel. “We’ve had families join and leave the caravan, nopony wants to just wander around all their life. Usually, they find some nice spot near some village and either settle there or just right into the town. But you...”

She chewed on her lip until he smiled at her. “You seem to be ready to just follow Drifting Hollow around until she keels over. What’s in your future, Pastel Nights?”

He hummed, pretending to think about the one thing he’d been avoiding for the past hundred and ten days.

“I haven’t thought about it,” he said, and wasn’t that an understatement. “I mean, I’m sure I’ll get tired of wandering around eventually, and I guess then I’ll start looking for a spot of my own.

“Unless your dad finds a spot first,” he said, looking over at Shale.

“Then I’ll probably find my own nearby,” he admitted with a blush, looking down into Roxie’s sparkling eyes.

She bit her lip before saying quickly, “You shouldn’t. Wait on my dad, that is. He’s happy wandering like you are, but... He’s also just muscle and kindness. You have so much potential, and you won’t be happy until you can work it to its fullest. And you can’t do that on the road.”

Pastel was quiet while his mind worked. He knew she was right. He also knew he couldn’t be the one to take her away from her family or, alternately, pin all of them down when Shale and Cherry wouldn’t want to leave their daughter. So now he had to worry about settling near someplace where he could get Shale some sort of job, probably security or sailing; he remembered that he almost signed onto a crew in Baltimare when—

“You’re thinkin’ too hard,” a soft voice said, down and to his right.

He sighed hard, blowing his lungful of breath straight into the frosty night’s air. “I don’t want to take you from your family, and I don’t want to leave you to settle either,” he said glumly. “So now I’m trying to figure—”

“And that’s the problem,” she interrupted softly. “You think too hard, Pastel Nights. You think so hard about the future of your work, and when I tell you to switch, you start thinking too hard about the future of your whole life. That’s not easier, Pas, that’s harder,” she giggled.

He groaned, laughing lightly as he leaned on her. “What’re you suggesting then, Rock Sugar?”

“Well, I don’t think you could ever turn that thing between your ears off,” she giggled, elbowing him again, “but maybe instead of working it so hard, just let it... wander. Try thinking soft, Pas.”

He frowned, trying to work out what she meant, but shook his head hard.

Think soft. Think soft. Think...

Clearing his head, he grabbed the first thought that floated towards him, one that came of its own volition.

And blushed.

His ears swiveled, and he counted the days quickly and chewed his bottom lip. Three weeks... That was enough, right? And it was Roxie; she’d let him know right away...

“Pas,” she said, exasperated but fond. She stilled when he raised his hoof.

“No, this one’s important,” he murmured, looking her over.

“More important than work?” she teased.

“Yes,” he replied instantly, without thought or inflection.

She hesitated, looking up at him, before starting to say, “More than—”

He leaned over and kissed her lightly, quickly rubbing their noses before pulling away and standing. He offered her his hoof, helping her up before glancing around the rest of the company before pulling her away towards his wagon.

She gave him a heavy look, soft and twinkling, when they reached his wagon. He leaned forward and kissed her hard before hopping over the stairs and into the canvas doors.

Roxie followed him, giggling as he gently nipped her neck and nosed her deeper into the wagon bed so that he could tie the cover together. Hesitating, he then also half-stood on his hind legs to let down the additional wool fabric that he used to keep the warmth in on the coldest nights.

“Pas,” Roxie murmured.

He turned and felt his face flush even more when he saw her reclined on his cushy bedroll; her forelegs stretched behind her while her barrel was twisted to leave her hind legs stacked between them, the lowest and most inviting of walls. Her tail was curled up and over her flank, covering her entirely while imparting a gentle teasing essence.

As he looked at her, the both of them almost as red as her mane, she flicked the dock of her tail, the luxurious hair that was unbraided for once threatening to trickle down her flank.

He had to physically restrain himself from darting forward, taking slow steps over to her while keeping eye contact. Kissing her, he leaned his body on her hips and gently ran a hoof over her chest before pushing her slowly onto her back, maintaining the kiss.

She looked confused when he pulled back. “Pas? How’re we...?”

Instead of answering, he quirked an eyebrow and began kissing and nipping her neck, trailing over her throat as she let out a quiet groan. Pausing, he grinned before trailing kisses down her chest and belly.

***** ***** ***** ***** *****

Roxie laid on his pillows, panting as she stared wide-eyed up at his heavy cover and the bows that held it up.

Settling beside her, Pastel gently kissed her neck again before chuckling quietly.

Licking her lips, she weakly asked, “Pastel? Is that, uhm, common? Where you’re from?”

Pastel chuckled again, nuzzling where he’d just kissed. “Some mares complained that their partners didn’t do enough of it, but it’s a more common version of something called ‘foreplay’,” he told her. “A lead-up to lovemaking, instead of, well, ‘wham-bam-bye’.”

“Oh,” she breathed out, licking her lips again. “I thought...”

Smiling, he leaned in to kiss her again. “I’m not quite ready yet, but I wanted to do something special.” He shifted, a little uneasy. “Was it... bad? I thought you sounded, well, like you were enjoying—”

She turned her head and locked her lips around his bottom one, wrestling her way on top of him as she pressed him into the pillow.

After a moment, they parted, panting, her eyes glinting over her massive grin.

“When can you do that again?”

“Well,” he said, panting a little. Taking a breath, he grabbed her flanks with his forehooves instead of answering, once again working his way down her chest with his lips as he pulled himself further down.

***** ***** ***** ***** *****

Dusk Shine woke up with a wide yawn, his jaw popping pleasantly as he stretched it to its fullest range. Scratching at the skin over the highest point of his mandible, he tried to stretch his other leg and found it pinned.

And then Pastel remembered where he was, who he was right now.

And what’d happened last night.

He expected to have to fight down… Well, anxiety? Fear? Anything, he expected some strong emotion to rock his head, his heart.

But he just found himself sleepy. A little thirsty, sure, and a bit crusty in the eyes. But for emotion?

He was a little amused at himself. Certainly, that warm feeling swirling around his chest was happiness. Satisfied? Yes, there was satisfaction, but that wasn’t quite it…

And then his bedmate stirred, and his attention pulled itself out of his mind to his side.

He watched Rock Sugar stir, blinking heavily, before yawning herself. He chuckled silently when a whiff of her morning breath reached him, glad it wasn’t just him. She reached up with a hoof to scratch at her eyes before she saw him gazing at her.

She smiled sleepily over to him, her long lashes fluttering as she blinked in the early morning light sneaking through the thin fabric around them.

His heart pulsed, and that swirling emotion lashed around like a tail wagging.

Oh, he thought, as his heart squeezed. There’s the strong emotion.

“Good morning, love,” he murmured, leaning in to kiss her gently.

She was still blinking as he pulled away, a little smile curling across her lips as she blushed.

“How long’ve you been staring?” she asked quietly.

“Not long enough,” he whispered, blushing at the thoughtless phrase.

She giggled and punched him lightly before rubbing her hoof across his chest. “We both need a bath before we talk to anypony else,” she murmured, kissing him back before pushing him away and rolling back into the covers with another giggle.

Chuckling lightly to himself, Pastel pushed his muzzle under the cover to lightly nip her neck before crawling over to the water cask. Filling a kettle, he placed it over a larger candle and pulled out his little wooden tub.

When the water had heated to a boil, he poured it into the tub before topping it off with cooler water, getting it to a pleasant temperature before gently kicking Roxie in a flank.

Laughing quietly and roughhousing a bit, the two of them had to refill the kettle once more before they deemed themselves clean.

Rolling up the cloth he’d lowered over the door last night, Pastel tied it back in place.

“Alright, you get breakfast ready while I dump the tub?”

“Sounds fair,” Roxie murmured, slipping him another kiss before they opened the door.

***** ***** ***** ***** *****

Pastel was consistently, almost constantly pink on the travel into Haydale.

Well, pink-er.

As it turned out, his cover wasn’t quite soundproof, even with the heavier wool blocking the entryway, and the morning after his first time romancing Roxie had him greeted by cheers from everypony who saw him exit his wagon.

Shale Chip had approached the mortified colt, and instead of clobbering him as he’d expected, he’d congratulated him on his ‘Heath’s Warming gift’ and mentioned that he should maybe wait for foals until they were clear of a winter birth.

He’d never wished for a good invisibility spell more in his entire life.

Not even when Celestia had caught him eating one of her ‘I’ve-had-a-really-long-and-stupid -day-at-court’ slices of cake that she requested every Monday.

It hadn’t helped that Roxie was being particularly shameless about the ordeal, nuzzling and nipping at his ears and neck whenever she could. And apparently gossiping, judging by the looks he got from certain mares in the caravan.

And then their stallions.

And then Shale showing up to make sure he knew that wasn’t how mares got foals and did he need to have it shown to him? Because Cherry could walk him through it if he needed, she’d said she’d be more than happy to.

Again, many wishes were made for the currently unattainable invisibility.

He used the excuse to withdraw into his wagon to work on some more delicate items whenever he could, although he’d found much of his free time being put to other uses by a particular warm brown filly.

No complaints there, though. He did make sure to keep a closer ear on, at first just her noises, and then eventually his own.

Stuck on purely indoor work, Pastel turned to practicing woodworking instead of any of his more intensive metal crafting. As it turned out, wood carving was just as intensive, and he lost himself in the making of simple toys before moving on to more artistic pieces.

He was proudest of a series of wooden chain links carved so that they were a large hoop of unbroken pieces. He’d stained them with a mash of tree bark and then worked beeswax over to keep the stain from getting on hooves and to keep them from fading for a bit. Unsatisfied with just having a loop of wooden chain, he’d made it into a frame for a large panel he was planning to make into a door for a more permanent wagon.

And that was another thing that took up his time! He had no plans to live in this wagon forever, even if he wasn’t ready to quit the road and settle more permanently. So he’d traded a carving of a griffon for a large pot of river clay, not really useful for building with because of the impurities, but perfect for scraping with a sharpened stick.

While he could easily do the math in his head, it helped to see the floor plan and architecture drawn out.

But his plans were quite a bit bigger than his purse at the moment, so he made sure to keep up a steady pace with the toys and daily necessities he could carve.

The walk north to Haydale, while chilly, wasn’t a hard one. The only thing notable about the trek, besides the tittering and twittering of gossip and teasing, was their stop at a specific clearing at the fork of the river that ran southwest of Canterlot.

Pastel’s heart pulsed when they’d cleared the treeline, and he couldn’t help but make sure to stop beside the tree that would become his library, still but a sapling.

He’d stopped himself when he realized that he was trying to come up with an excuse to stay in that snow-covered meadow.

The continued trip the next day was uneventful, even if he couldn’t get the first time he’d made this trip out of his mind, until they reached the true edge of the woods. He’d shaken his mood when he heard a hushed conversation wagons ahead of him, and he was able to angle himself to see two of the front-running pegasi talking with a frowning Drifting Hollow.

There was a low murmuring from the caravan, but Drifting didn’t call a stop, merely continued on. As they continued on, the conversations got louder as more ponies cleared the treeline with a few gasps.

Pastel soon found out what the commotion was about as he joined the rest of the caravan.

As a whole, the entire group stood on the slight hill, looking down into the hills the village was nestled in.

Most of the houses were destroyed. None of the fields bore any sign of care, and withered crops struck up in odd tangles in the snow. There was no movement in the ghost town below and barely any movement at all from the silent observers above.

Haydale was dead.

There is Nothing Harder than Just Going On

by SilverEyedWolf

Call of the Empty Courtroom

Homesteading, or Squatting?

First Contact

Beginning to Teach, Himself and Others

The Long Walk In

Going to Market

The New Normal

End of the Road

Interlude- State of the Country

Preparation

Execution

Reclamation and Loss

Realizations, a Return, and a Farewell

Finding a Place

Finding a Rhythm

Finding Some Sense

Finding Some Middle Ground

Finding Routine

Finding Passion