My Little Pony: LoveLight @mlplovelight - Tumblr Blog | Tumlook (2024)

LOVELIGHT CHAPTER ARCHIVE!From the beginning! Character tag Ch. 1 - Scrap Meet Ch. 2 - Ocarina Ch. 3 - Campfire Ch. 4 - Curiosity Ch. 5 - Anxious Ch. 6 - Ponyville Ch. 7 - Down Bad Ch. 8 - Friendship Bracelet Ch. 9 - Pushy and Overbearing Ch. 10 - Quite a Day Ch. 11 - Honest Business Ch. 12 - Wow! Library! Ch. 13 - Meat Prison Ch. 14 - Run Away With Me Ch. 15 - This is (not) a Drill Ch. 16 - BREAK Ch. 17 - Vivid Trail Ch. 18 - Getaway Car Ch. 19 - Vignette Ch. 20 - Watch Your Head Ch. 21 - Sparks and Firecrackers Ch. 22 - History Mystery

Ch. 22 - History Mystery

Give it up, APPLEJACK. No matter how hard you try to squeeze yourself through, there isn’t enough space in the holes of the rubble pile for you to get through it like this.

The irony doesn’t escape you either, that you were the one to say that y’all should split up and try to find a way around, but here you are tryin’ to squeeze yourself into a shortcut you don’t fit into.

It sucks. Despite your bluster earlier, you’re worried about the others. But you can’t just keep bangin’ your head against this literal wall of rubble and debris, so it’s time to give it up and try and find another exit.

Oh well. You take a look around and sure enough, there is a tunnel that leads away from this room that you can try to explore. Now you’re startin’ to feel guilty about how much time you spent just trying to squeeze through the rubble though. Hard to keep track of time underground, but you wonder if the others have all found each other by this point.

Doesn’t do to mope though, so hold your head high, Applejack. Even if there’s no one around to impress, you can still try to act tough for your own sake.

You follow the path into what looks like a wee library, with several small bookshelves just barely above your height. Outta curiosity, you take a book off the shelf and skim through it. You figure learning some of the history of this place and the pony who maintained it might help your nerves a little bit.

The book you picked up appears to be a journal of the pony’s daily activities, which REALLY piques your interest. Taking a quick look at the shelves, you realize that MOST of these books are journals! And that’s enough to make you start salivatin’ a little bit. Finding firsthoof records of Old Equestria is a rare occasion, and finding SO MANY is like the jackpot to end all jackpots.

Unfortunately, with Cherry Spices on the loose and yer friends heaven knows where, you don’t have time to thoroughly indulge in all of this historical exploration, but you decide to give yourself just enough time to at least read through ONE of these journals right now, as a little treat.

The shelves are immaculately organized, categorized into journals and research materials, then sorted by date, which quite frankly is its own archaeological find, considering that records of the calendar of Old Equestria are still incomplete.

You decide to read the journal with the latest date, curious how the tale ends. You note that the journal immediately previous is missing from the shelf, and while you’re disappointed by this, you can’t be too surprised. Finding complete collections of ANYTHING from Old Equestria is almost unheard of.

Flipping through the journal, you find it’s mostly blank pages; not a big surprise, you suppose. The writer must’ve just started on this one before whatever happened to ‘em. The contents, what little there are, refers to the pony’s struggles with their mentor, who is referred to only with respectful honorifics and not by name.

The writer explains how they’re becoming tired of their mentor’s ego, though they’re trying desperately to understand and excuse the mentor’s increasingly selfish decisions. Eventually, the writer reaches a breaking point, a realization that their mentor isn’t simply egotistical, but that their research is actively dangerous. The writer decides they need to confront their mentor, but that’s the last entry.

How ominous! You find yourself hoping everything went well for the writer during that confrontation, despite clear evidence to the contrary.

You put the journal back in its place and just take a moment to marvel how at how well-kept this cellar has been even all this time later. The person who lived here clearly cared so much about keeping their stuff orderly and nice, and that effort and care shows even after they’re gone.

There’s so much history in a place like this, and it depresses you to think about how eager Cherry Spices was to potentially destroy it just for greed.

And you feel like such an idiot too. On some level you’ve always known that Cherry Spices is a business pony who’s willing to put her own curiosity and profit over the safety of Old Equestria, or even the safety of other ponies.

But she’s always been nice to you, so you wanted to ignore the warning signs. And now that you’re forced to confront them, now that you are no longer ABLE to ignore those signs, you feel like such a fool for doing so for so long.

Whatever. You gotta get your head back together and look for the others, or for a way out. So you put the journals, and your thoughts of Cherry Spices, behind you and keep looking around.

As you peer into the next room, taking pains to remain hidden and look around as much as you can before moving forward out of an abundance of caution, you spy a very familiar pink pony. Pinkie Pie is searching around and looking no worse for wear, so you breathe a sigh of relief.

“Pinkie Pie!” you holler as you race into the room to meet her, stopping short as Pinkie Pie shrieks and jumps into the air, apparently startled by your sudden appearance. “Er, sorry! Didn’t mean to scare ya!”

“S-scared me? Pfff, you didn’t scare me!” Pinkie says unconvincingly, floating gently to the ground. “I thought you were pulling a funny prank and was just trying to play along, that’s all! Haha!”

“Ah, I see!” you say with a warm smile. You can tell Pinkie is full of it, but also you get the sense that you might’ve embarrassed her by sneaking up on her, so you decide to play along with Pinkie’s version of the story to spare her feelings. “Still, I shouldn’t’ve snuck up on ya! I just got too excited.”

“Hey, I’ve been there, no worries!” Pinkie laughs, but then her face becomes serious, or at least serious-adjacent, cuz she puffs up her cheeks and still looks kinda silly. “So hey can I ask ya somethin’?”

“What’s up?” you tilt your head, not sure if you should be eager or anxious about Pinkie’s question.

“What HAPPENED?” Pinkie asks, gesticulating wildly with her forelegs. “Like, with the ceiling coming crashing down and everything! What was that about? Should we be worried about it happening again or something?”

“Oh, old structures like this collapse all the time,” you shrug casually. “Scrappers ain’t supposed to go underground without a dedicated spelunkin’ team for that exact reason. I, uh…”

You sigh and hang your head, looking down at your hooves as the icy chill of guilt puts its frigid fingers around your heart.

“Truth be told, I shouldn’t’ve been so gung-ho about comin’ down here,” you admit. “I knew it was dangerous, but I got excited about the possibilities, and everypony else was excited too, and I just ignored the risks and put us all in danger.”

“Don’t sweat it, AJ,” Pinkie Pie giggles, and her cheerful laughter helps you to feel a little less ashamed of yourself. “None of us thought about the risks, and we all should’ve. Pegasi and caves have a long history of mutual antagonism, but I totally ignored that out of excitement, so I absolutely feel ya.

“Nopony got hurt, and that’s what matters!” Pinkie nods confidently, and you give her a relieved smile. “And hey, maybe Cherry Spices got crushed to death! That’d be funny!”

“I don’t want her to be crushed to death,” you sigh dismally, “I want her to be a good person.”

“I’m just joking, I’m sure she’s fiiiiine,” Pinkie says, grabbing your cheeks and lifting your head up. “She probably DID come down here with a dedicated spelunking team!”

“True,” you let out another frustrated sigh, before shaking your head and deciding to put all the thoughts of Cherry Spices behind you. “Whatever, let’s just focus on finding the others.”

“Right behind ya!” Pinkie beams.

Sure enough, she flaps her wings and floats behind you as the two of you continue to explore the underground complex, which you are quickly realizing is less of a ‘cellar’ and more of an entire dedicated living space with as many amenities as you could name, albeit one that was left unfinished and has since been ravaged by the winds of time.

It’s all very fascinating and interesting but unfortunately your brain is being real stupid right now.

Sometimes stuff just gets stuck in your brain, like a stick in a bicycle spoke or whatever, and today’s stupid stick is Pinkie joking about Cherry Spices being crushed to death. You know she was just making a joke, but should you be worried about her jumping so quickly to such a grim joke?

Rationally, you figure the answer is ‘no’. It’s absolutely absurd for you to worry yourself sick over somethin’ so totally innocuous. But again, your brain is very stupid, so it’s decided that actually Pinkie’s joke is a hidden red flag signal that she’s actually EVIL and secretly plotting your doom or something.

It’s stupid, it’s ridiculous, you feel like a total buffoon, but you can’t just let a thought GO once it enters your brain, and the more you think about how dumb and bad it is, the deeper it gets its hooks into you! There’s no winning with your brain, the worthless piece of sh–

“Hey Applejack!” Pinkie chirps, and you look over at her listlessly, only for her to squish her cheeks and stick out her tongue, making a ridiculous face that gets a cackle outta ya.

“What was that?” you ask, still chuckling.

“It looked like you were kinda stressed out,” Pinkie shrugs, “so I just wanted to make you smile for a sec.”

“I appreciate it,” you say with a nod, and Pinkie smiles brightly.

“Happy to help!” she says, and you breathe a sigh of relief. Maybe you are stupid for doing it, but you WANT to trust Pinkie Pie, so you decide that you will.

“I admit, I am stressed out,” you sigh, mostly talking to yourself, though Pinkie Pie appears to be eagerly listening. “I dunno what I’m supposed to do about Cherry Spices. I know she ain’t right to be doin’ what she’s doin’, but… eugh, I dunno. I ain’t equipped to deal with this kinda conflict.”

“Then let it be somepony else’s problem,” Pinkie shrugs. “We’re bouncing from this whole town, aren’t we? Once we get everypony together?”

“That’s the plan,” you grumble. “And I guess I SHOULD just let it go, but that doesn’t sit right with me either. Ugh.”

You decide to let it go for now and just focus on exploration, but your heart drops as you turn the corner into an unfinished room that disappears into a shadowy, rocky tunnel, and who should you see standing before the tunnel but Cherry Spices herself.

You’re not sure what to say or do, but Pinkie Pie immediately starts growling and this causes Cherry’s ears to perk up.

“Hm?” she looks behind her and her eyes widen for a moment, before narrowing as she dons a brazen smile and turns around to face you. “Applejack. Fancy seeing you down here.”

“Y-yeah,” you say awkwardly. “Where is everypony?”

“Well after that collapse, I couldn’t risk anypony else’s safety, right?” Cherry Spices says sweetly, and as much as you want to believe in her, somethin’ doesn’t sit right with you about what she’s sayin’. “So I sent them off, told them to get to safety so they wouldn’t get hurt.

“Yeah right!” Pinkie scoffs, sticking an accusatory hoof out at Cherry. “I bet you’re looking for some kinda treasure and you don’t want anypony else getting their hooves on it first!”

“An interesting theory,” Cherry Spices chuckles. “But unfortunately, I’ve heard enough from you. BOTH of you, if I’m being honest.”

Cherry Spices conjures two glass vials in her hoof that sparkle with red electricity. Before you or Pinkie are sure how to react, the vials explode, throwing out some kinda weird gel that snatches both you and Pinkie Pie, quickly restraining you two and dragging you down to the ground.

“Mmph! Rrngh!” you try to shout but the gel covers your mouth too, leaving you nothing to do but struggle fruitlessly.

“Hwh wnht gh hwh wh thh!” Pinkie grumbles, her mouth similarly covered by Cherry Spices’ magic restraints.

“Yes, that’s about what I thought you’d say,” Cherry chuckles. “I’m disappointed in you, Applejack. I would have thought you to have a better head on your shoulders. And I’m disappointed in you too, pegasus. I was hoping we could get along. I’ve always wanted to own a pegasus of my very own, after all. My first step toward becoming a brand new alicorn.”

“Hnh?” you mutter awkwardly, feelin’ real confused about how off the rails Cherry’s gotten.

“It’s not important, Applejack,” Cherry sighs with a self-amused smile on her face. “Don’t worry your pretty little head about it. In fact, don’t worry about anything.”

Cherry Spices uses her magic to conjure a small object; a dial with a shifting spiral pattern hanging from a short chain. The pattern immediately attracts your attention, because that’s what it’s magically designed to do. Your struggles become more frantic as you realize what kind of magic item Cherry’s working with, but you can’t look away from the pleasing, comforting spiral shape.

“Let ME do all the thinking from now on,” Cherry Spices whispers as you fall under her hypnosis.

Ch. 21 - Sparks and Firecrackers

You really talked a big game, didn’t you, TWILIGHT SPARKLE? But you do realize you’re completely doomed here, right?

Without Emerald Ray’s magic, you–

Ack, whatever. You’ve already committed to taking on Firecracker Burst in a fight in the middle of a dark, collapsing underground tunnel, you might as well just give it your all, however pathetic your all might be.

“You should have just let Cherry Spices tear this place open with the drill,” Firecracker chuckles. “Then maybe you wouldn’t have to fight me and you wouldn’t get hurt.”

“I wasn’t about to just let her wreak havoc on my home,” you growl.

“For all the good intervening did you,” Firecracker lets out a single irritating chuckle. “If not for that biker pony, you would have been a sitting duck. Embarrassing, quite frankly.”

“Tsk,” you consider saying something else, but you’re already getting irritated and you don’t want to waste more ti–

Firecracker throws a fireball at you, forcing you to jump back, but the sparks that explode off of it still hit your hoof and singe it, and you hiss through gritted teeth from the pain.

“What’s the matter?” Firecracker says, taking a few short steps forward. “I thought you were going to fight back?”

You growl irritably at Firecracker and try to think of a move, but you’re a soulkin pony; your magic relies on generating strength from others’ emotions, so in a one-on-one fight, you have to evoke emotions in your OPPONENT. The only emotion you know how to draw magic from is FEAR, and you’re not doing a very good job at making her be afraid of you.

Firecracker quickly closes the distance, generating a stream of flame from her hooves and casting it in a wide arc; it’s easy enough to back out of the way, but you back up right into a wall, and the sparks coming off the flames still burn you, but they’re more obnoxious and irritating than actually dangerous.

You can’t keep letting her put you on tilt though; if you lose your head, you’ll lose this fight. Just get your head in the game and find your opening.

Firecracker closes the distance, pinning you with your back against the wall and putting her hooves on either side of your head, her hooves sparking with flame and making you sweat.

“Just give up,” she says with a smug grin, “this fight was over before it started.”

Maybe she’s right. Maybe you should never have come here in the first place. But at the very least, you can’t just go down without a fight!

You try to punch Firecracker in the chest, but it doesn’t really do much, and Firecracker responds by hitting you in the head with her hoof and knocking you to the ground, stomping on you for good measure.

You wish Applejack were here. You wish she would come in and rescue you like in one of those steamy novels you like so much, but you know that’s not how real life works. And frankly, Applejack struggled to put up any resistance against Cherry Spices, so you doubt she’d be able to help you much anyway.

But still. You wish she were here. You wish you didn’t have to fight all by yourself.

Whatever. If Applejack can’t be the hero that you want, you’ll just have to be the hero yourself!

You jump up and headbutt Firecracker in the chest, making her flinch. You practically feel yourself burning with hatred for her, but maybe that’s just the burns on your forelegs from her attacks.

You hit her in the head to keep putting the pressure on, and as soon as you see the sparks start coming off her hooves from her magic…

YOU GET THE HECK OUTTA THERE!!!!!

You can’t beat her, are you CRAZY?! So you just bolt like mad down the dark tunnel, trying to put as much distance between you and Firecracker as you can so you can hide.

As much as you would love to be the big hero, you are just not that good. Maybe you can find Rainbow Dash or something and beg her for help. You don’t know, all you know is that you gotta hide and maybe that’ll give you enough time to come up with a new plan.

Between the darkness and the craggy terrain, you feel confident in your hiding spot as you slither into a little nook along the cavern wall. You can see the light from Firecracker’s flames as she approaches though, and your breath gets caught in your chest.

“Running scared?” Firecracker says, and boy she sure seems to love the sound of her own voice.

You have the read on her being a hearthkin pony, a pony whose magic is powered by her own emotions, and if that’s the case then her hyping herself up would have a tangible effect on her ability to perform, so you suppose it makes sense. Doesn’t make it any less obnoxious though.

“What happened to all that big talk earlier?” Firecracker asks, and it bothers you that you can see her peering into the cracks along the walls as she slowly closes in on you. She’s going to find you eventually.

What do you do? Your mind is racing at like a million miles per hour, but the only thing you can come up with is how you’re a complete failure and how you’re definitely not gonna impress Applejack like this.

A set of glowing yellow eyes peer directly into yours as Firecracker leans over to inspect your hiding spot; she grins as she sees you, and you are acutely aware that your time is up.

“There you are,” Firecracker whispers, and your whole body tenses up as she grabs you, but instead of dragging you from your nook as you expect, she hesitates and then pushes you back against the wall. “Actually, stay there. I deserve to flex over you a little bit.”

Firecracker’s eyes spark with flame, and yellow fire erupts from her hooves, conjuring a wall of flame that locks you into the tight crevice you were foolish enough to try and hide inside. The heat licks your body, making you sweat and writhe to try and put what little distance you can muster between you and the wall, but it inches ever closer and there’s nowhere for you to escape.

“Do you read a lot of stories, purple horse?” Firecracker asks, though you’re in no mood to humor her. “I do. When I’m not studying, I spend my idle time reading fiction. Do you know what my favorite type of tale is? The type of story I enjoy more than any other?

“Slow burn,” Firecracker says with a sad*stic grin on her lips, and you let out a groan. That pun was maybe more painful than the flames will be.

Though actually… something interesting occurs to you. There’s nothing you can do to escape from Firecracker’s magic, you are going to get burned no matter what you do, unless some kind of miracle descends from the heavens to rescue you right now.

Firecracker’s sad*stic overconfidence might actually give you a window back into this fight, if you’re brave enough to take it.

You’re scared, admittedly. Your heart is beating out of your chest and you don’t want to get hurt, but that ship has effectively sailed at this point so now there’s nothing to do but to do it.

Emerald Ray would do it. Emerald Ray wouldn’t let ANYTHING stand between her and a victory, and there’s nothing you want more than to be like Emerald Ray, so you brace yourself and plant your hooves firmly on the ground.

You propel yourself forward, jumping THROUGH Firecracker’s wall of flame, letting the fire wash over you and burn your whole body. You bite your lip to keep from screaming, but decide to let the scream out as a snarling roar anyway as you land behind Firecracker.

Firecracker Burst turns slowly, her eyes wide from shock as you stare her down, your body still glowing with flame and casting a pale yellow light on the shadowy cavern around you. Firecracker’s eyes widen ever so slightly more, and that’s when you see it.

The FEAR in her eyes. Now you can FIGHT BACK.

You feel Firecracker’s fear flow through your veins like electricity, and you channel it into your hooves, releasing it as bursts of concentrated starlight that explode outwards and hone in on Firecracker. She tries to avoid the attack, but your magic moves and shifts to match her movements, crushing her in between two bursts that explode on contact, sending her crashing to the ground.

She growls at you and sends a stream of flame toward you; it’s clumsy and you could dodge it easily, but you quickly gain a taste for the pain the flame provides and charge THROUGH her attack instead, the fire searing your meat prison and washing over you like rain in the desert.

A dozen lights shine on the ground around your hooves before erupting into a shower of light that crashes down on Firecracker like meteors, forcing her to collapse flat against the ground.

You grab Firecracker off the ground and shove her against the wall, little bits of crumbling stone chipping off the wall and tumbling down.

“What’s to stop me from bringing this wall down on top of you and burying you here?” you ask, staring deep into Firecracker’s eyes.

“Do it then,” she says with a chuckle, “but I don’t think you have it in you. After you made such a fuss about preserving Old Equestria? No way you turn to that kind of destruction now.”

You click your tongue irritably. She’s not wrong, obviously, but you still need to find some way to incapacitate–

“I, on the other hoof,” Firecracker grins ear to ear, her eyes glowing with yellow flame, “have no such issues.”

Firecracker EXPLODES with yellow flame, sending you flying back and cracking the fragile walls of the cavern. Her bright yellow flames line the walls like circuitry before she animates several chunks of stone with her magic, dislodging them from the wall and throwing them at you.

You shield yourself with your hooves as best you can from the colliding rocks, but they still scratch and bruise your legs and head, and as you’re trying to defend yourself you ironically leave yourself vulnerable, as you don’t see Firecracker closing the distance on you until it’s already too late.

She hoists you up off the ground and throws you against the crumbling wall, the shock to your spine forcing a pained groan to escape your lips and stunning you just long enough for the wall to collapse entirely, burying you under a heap of debris.

You try to lift your body, but the weight of the rubble, the pain from the collapse, and also the pain from the flames catching up to you all make it impossible for you to move even an inch. Firecracker looks like she’s on her last legs too, breathing heavily and growling furiously as she stares you down.

“I don’t have time for this,” she says, “I don’t have TIME for this! If Cherry Spices finds the journal before I do–”

Firecracker zips her lip and shakes her head. Too bad, you were curious what she was about to say. Is she competing with Cherry Spices? And what journal is she talking about? You suppose such questions only really matter to someone not currently buried under a cave-in.

“I could just leave you here,” Firecracker says, “you probably won’t be following me in that state you’re in. But I’d better make SURE you don’t follow me.”

Firecracker approaches you, every step she takes looking like it requires every bit of her inner strength to make her battered body move. You try to squirm out from underneath the rubble, becoming increasingly panicked as you start to lose feeling in parts of your body that are stuck.

“I won’t lose here!” you shout impotently to no one. “I won’t lose! I want to go on a date with Applejack! I can’t just be stuck down here!”

“Whatever,” Firecracker says, her eyes and hooves glowing dully with pale yellow flame. “Say your prayers, pony.”

“Well, well, well,” a majestic feminine voice that you don’t recognize rings in your ears, and Firecracker’s own ears perk up in response to it. “What a romantic dream. I can’t simply stand by after hearing such a desperate plea, now can I?”

“Huh?! Who’s th–” Firecracker shouts, but is cut off by… something.

You’re not entirely sure what happened; for a fraction of a second, you swore you could see the stars. Constellations and galaxies swirling around you like the universe itself had come down to meet you, but before you could even make sense of it, it was gone.

Firecracker’s eyes are wide; whatever she saw must have been much more dire. She stumbles back a step, before collapsing to the ground. No words, no fanfare, she just collapses and lies unconscious before you.

You hear hoofsteps approaching. Clack, clack, clack against the stone floor, before the sound disappears as the floor becomes dirt. You can see their silhouette, ever so vaguely through the darkness. A tall, thin pony approaches you; even in the darkness you can tell her coat is white as snow.

Pale blue magic animates the stones burying your body, as they’re lifted up and away, freeing you. But you still can’t move through the pain, though you try fruitlessly to stand up regardless.

“Are you still hurt?” the feminine voice asks, and you catch a glimpse of her as she’s illuminated by the light of her magic coming from the horn on her forehead.

“Uhhh,” you don’t know what else to say as a real live unicorn stands before you for the first time in your life.

“It’s okay, I’ll carry you,” the woman says, picking you up in her magic and placing you gently over her body. “I’m no healer, but I pride myself on staying in shape, so I should be able to get you to someone who can patch you up.”

“Why are you helping me?” you ask skeptically, this whole situation feeling a little too good to be believed.

“Didn’t you hear my dramatic entrance?” the woman scoffs. “I certainly hope so, I really threw myself into it there. Some fine work, if I do say so myself. Anyway, I’m a bit of a hopeless romantic, and I just couldn’t resist your plea for your friend Applejack. It moved my heart, so I stepped in. Simple as.”

“I see,” you say, breathing a tentative sigh of relief. “Who even are you, anyway?”

“If only you knew what a loaded question that is, my darling,” the woman chuckles. And despite her weird and suspicious behavior, you can’t deny that her charming affectation is kinda winning you over. “You can just call me Rarity.”

Ch. 20 - Watch Your Head

Life is full of weird and funny little disappointments, isn’t it, TWILIGHT SPARKLE?

You didn’t realize how much you’d gotten your hopes up, but after all the mystery and intrigue surrounding the Old Equestria ‘dungeon’, it’s a bit of a letdown to go inside of it and immediately realize it’s just some ancient pony’s decrepit wine cellar.

“Wait, this is it?” Rainbow Dash gripes. “After all that sass, she was just trying to get into some rando’s wine cellar?”

“I mean to be fair,” Pinkie Pie shrugs, “the vintages down here have gotta be CRAZY!”

“I guess I should’ve just taken Emerald Ray at her word,” you grumble, trying not to be embarrassed by how gung-ho you were to explore what turned out to just be a dingy old basem*nt.

“I dunno,” Applejack hums. “I kinda wanna look around still. Cherry Spices was makin’ a lot of big speeches about diggin’ up the knowledge of Old Equestria, y’know? Maybe she knows somethin’ we don’t.”

“Or maybe she’s outta her mind,” Rainbow Dash suggests, and you find yourself nodding in agreement. “Maybe she thought because it was locked, that she just needed to unlock it to stroke her own ego.”

“I won’t lie,” Applejack sighs, “that’s a real possibility. But still, I’d at least like to look around.”

“Same!” Pinkie Pie jumps into the air and flaps her wings. “I mean, we’re already here! We might as well make the most of it!”

The four of you take a look around, but there isn’t much to look at; the cellar is HUGE in terms of size, but age has really done a number on the place, with several former pathways being closed off by collapsing rubble and debris.

It kinda makes you nervous, to be honest. With this much indication of collapse, how safe is it to be wandering around down here?

Well, if anything happens then you can always rely on Emerald Ray to save you, so you try not to fret about it too much.

Your party moves into the next room, and Applejack walks over into the corner to inspect a couple of beds sitting around. Pinkie Pie joins her, and immediately starts jumping on one of the beds.

“Beds?” Rainbow Dash chuckles. “Did whoever owned this cellar back in the day just live down here?”

“Honestly, maybe so,” Applejack hums. “We know that near the end of Old Equestria’s recorded history, they were embroiled in war. It’s possible that ponies had underground homes like this to keep themselves safe.”

“Huh, I guess that’s a good point,” Rainbow Dash taps her chin.

“If they did live down here,” Pinkie says, her words spread out between jumps, “they should’ve put in some decorations!”

“What I’m most curious about,” Applejack says, taking a little stroll around the mostly featureless room and tapping some of the walls, “is like, if this pony did live down here, was that a normal thing? Or was this pony just built different?”

“Oh,” Rainbow Dash says, “like yer wondering if this pony was just like one of those weirdos who builds underground bunkers to prepare for the apocalypse or whatever?”

“Yep,” Applejack nods, and as she walks back toward the beds, she taps you on the shoulder. “Though I guess if we’re still hangin’ around by nightfall, you could just ask ‘em, right Twi?”

“I suppose I could,” you say matter-of-factly, “if you really want to know. I admit, I’m a little curious too.”

“I’d love to hear about Old Equestria straight from the horse’s mouth,” Applejack says with a bright smile. “You gotta introduce me to some of yer friends sometime!”

“I– I could do that,” you mutter awkwardly, your face turning all red and flushed and stuff. Most ponies think you’re a weirdo for spending so much time around the spirits, it’s kinda refreshing to hear someone be genuinely interested to speak with them.

“What friends?” Pinkie asks. “What are we talking about? I like friends!”

“Twilight’s a really accomplished necromancer,” Applejack says, and her praise makes you feel weird in your stomach. “She can talk to the ghosts of Old Equestria like it’s nothin’!”

“C’mon, I’m not that good,” you say bashfully.

“That sounds pretty cool!” Pinkie says, and she stops mid-bounce and floats in the air on her wings. “Oh, can you ask them if they mind me jumping on their beds? I’d hate to be rude!”

“The spirits sleep during the daytime,” you chuckle at Pinkie’s innocent request, “but I’m sure they don’t mind, so don’t worry.”

“Okay, cool!” Pinkie chirps, resuming her bounce. “Then I’m gonna keep doing it, cuz this is fun!”

“Could you wake the spirits if you wanted to?” Rainbow Dash asks, and you arch your eyebrow at that. It wasn’t a question you were expecting, since most ponies are happy to not be bothered by the spirits during the day.

“Uhhh, I could try,” you answer honestly. “It’s up to the spirit in question if they want to heed my call or not. But frankly, I’d rather not bother them if I can avoid it.”

“That makes sense,” Rainbow nods and doesn’t ask any further questions. You wonder what’s going through her head, but then shrug it off as none of your concern.

Suddenly you hear a loud CRACK, and before you can ask what the heck that was, a large chunk of debris falls from the ceiling, nearly crushing you if you hadn’t moved out of the way fast enough.

“Wh–” Applejack tries to say something, but a second CRACK heralds a TON of falling debris.

All you can do is try to get out of the way, but before you know it there’s a cloud of dust and a mountain of stone and plaster surrounding you, and your companions are nowhere to be seen.

“HEWWO???” Pinkie calls out from behind the debris. “Is everypony okay?!”

“I’m good,” Rainbow adds, her voice coming from another direction but still behind the debris. You look around, and sure enough you’ve been separated from everyone.

“I’m good too!” Applejack calls out, and a wave of relief washes over you. “Twilight! Can you hear us?!”

“Uh, y-yeah!” you choke out the words, straining to get your voice loud enough to carry past the debris.

“Okay, so is anypony hurt?” Applejack asks. You start pawing at the debris a little bit, to see if you can make a peeky hole to see Applejack through, but you quickly decide better of it since you don’t want to accidentally make things worse.

“Nah, I’m good,” Rainbow says.

“I’m okie-dokie-lokie, hehe!” Pinkie Pie chirps. “But I don’t see anypony else around, did we all get separated?”

“Looks like,” Applejack sighs.

“What even happened?” Pinkie asks. “Did I jump on the beds too hard?”

“Nah, this place is just super old,” Applejack explains. “It was bound to start crumblin’ eventually.”

“And if Cherry Spices brought any other industrial equipment down here…” you add with a grumble.

“Yeah,” Applejack sighs. “Whatever, we’ll just have to see if we can make our way around. If anypony can get outside, go ahead and do that, and the rest of us can catch up!”

“Sounds good,” Rainbow says. “Don’t get crushed!”

“You neither!” Applejack chuckles.

“I need a drink,” you groan.

“I’ll treat ya to one after we get outta here, Twi,” Applejack says, and your ears perk up. That’d be kinda nice, sharing drinks with Applejack? “So let’s do our best to get back together, okay?”

“Yeah, you got it,” you say casually, but your heart is beating like crazy.

“Race you girls to the exit!” Pinkie giggles, and you can hear her zooming off. You’re not exactly sure where she’s going, or if she’s still stuck in the corner with the beds or whatever, but you suppose you’d better just focus on your own exit strategy, and let the other girls take care of themselves.

You take off from the mountain of crumbled debris, and you’re fortunate enough to be on a side of the room that has a door that leads somewhere, into another big ol’ room with old musty yellow carpeting. Whoever this pony was, Pinkie was right about them needing better decor.

On the bright side, the wide open spaces and empty hallways give you ample time to be alone with your thoughts, which almost immediately turn to Applejack.

She’s cool. For a living pony, obviously. She’s been very sweet to you, and very supportive even despite your idiosyncrasies, and that’s really nice of her. You think… maybe you like her. A little bit.

Not like,, you don’t LIKE like her, y’know? It’s not like that. You just think she’s cool, and also very attractive, and you… hm, well, despite your better judgment, you would actually like to spend more time with her. You hope she actually does keep her word and takes you out for a drink, that’d be really sweet.

Dang, oof. That’s kinda– wait, are you getting hot and bothered, Twilight Sparkle? Does the thought of going out for drinks with Applejack make you feel–

Ah ah ah, let’s not go there. Let’s not spend too much time thinking about how you feel about things. Or any time, for that matter! You are a being of REASON! You are a student of magic, of one of the most powerful sorcerers in Equestria’s history! At least you assume she’s one of the most powerful.

What would she say if she knew you were getting all flustered about a girl?

She’d probably say ‘good for you, you should go for it’, knowing her. Dang, why does she have to be so supportive? She should be like ‘you need to focus on your studies and not on women’! That would be very convenient for you! You’d be able to put all these mushy feelings out of your head and be like ‘well there’s nothing I can do about that, Emerald Ray said so, oh well’.

Sigh.

You suppose you could ask Emerald Ray yourself, but if you woke her up just to ask her opinion on your feelings, you might literally die of embarrassment. And as much as you think being a ghost would be very cool, you could never live that down in this life or the next one.

You continue trotting along looking for an exit, when a sudden change of surroundings gives you pause. The constructed walls and floors of the cellar abruptly end, shifting into dirt floors and stone walls that you would find in any underground tunnel. You suppose you shouldn’t be surprised that the construction on this Old Equestrian building was left unfinished, but the change does feel a little ominous.

Oh well, you keep walking on regardless. Maybe there’ll be a light at the end of this tunnel that leads back to the surface! One can only hope.

As much as you would like to focus solely on finding the exit, your stupid brain is so distracted by thoughts of Applejack. It’s embarrassing to even think about, but there’s a part of your mind that’s like constructing the plot of one of those trashy romance books you read when nopony’s looking, with Applejack as the rough and tumble heroine, and you as the innocently seductive damsel who gets swept off her hooves.

GUHHHHH IT’S SO CHEESY!!!! STOP THINKING LIKE A WEIRD LITTLE BABY AND FOCUS ON THE TASK AT HOOF, SHEESH!

Lucky for you, something that you spy as you trek down the tunnel pries your focus away from your cringe thoughts. Or rather, somePONY. The tunnel is dark and the floor is windy, with several cracks in the floor that make you antsy to step on them, so you stop in your tracks and squint to see if you can make out what pony you’re seeing.

“You think I can’t see you?” the voice of Firecracker Burst calls to you as the pony turns to meet your gaze, her eyes glowing a bright yellow like an eerie flame.

“What are you doing here all alone?” you ask, keeping your voice measured and trying not to be thrown off your guard.

“Could ask you the same,” Firecracker says, “though I suspect we’d arrive at the same answer.”

Did she get separated from a cave-in? That would make sense, you feel, though you’d be a little surprised if Cherry Spices was so careless that she brought the tunnel down on top of herself. Well… maybe not THAT surprised.

“Anyway,” you sigh and take a tentative step forward, “I don’t want any trouble, so I’ll just–”

“You’ll stop right there,” Firecracker commands, and you oblige and give her a fierce glare. “There’s no one around to bail you out this time. I’m getting payback for the way you humiliated me in the library.”

“To what end?” you gripe. “What, you’re gonna pick a fight with me, and then… what? What good does ‘payback’ do for you, who cares?”

“Don’t you have any honor of your own?” Firecracker spits. “If someone thinks they can order me around, I need to show them who’s boss. Cherry Spices saved you last time, but–”

“So are you gonna get payback against Cherry Spices too?” you ask flatly.

“In due time,” Firecracker says, and your eyes widen. Oh, she’s really serious about this. You thought she was just throwing a tantrum, but no she has some real issues.

Interesting.

She isn’t the only one though. Firecracker was involved with Cherry Spices’ expedition that tried to destroy your home, and that betrayed Applejack’s trust. AND she was rude to the library staff!

And quite frankly, you just don’t like her. No one is around to stop you, to tell you to ‘keep your head’ or whatever. You can afford to let loose a little, and who knows, maybe if you take out one of Cherry Spices’ goons, it’ll impress Applejack.

“Fine,” you growl and stomp your hoof forward. “If you want to pick a fight with me, I’ll GIVE you a fight!”

Ch. 19 - Vignette

Alright, APPLEJACK, it’s time to get a move on.

While sharing a meal with Twilight and the pegasi, Pinkie Pie explains the basic concept of y’all’s expedition to Rainbow Dash, and Pinkie is VERY enthusiastic about it, and about getting Rainbow Dash to come along too.

Rainbow is hesitant at first, but eventually she agrees and Pinkie Pie goes absolutely bonkers about it, she’s real excited. You’re feelin’ pretty good about it too, cuz havin’ someone with Rainbow’s obvious skill on yer side will probably be a big help.

You approach Rainbow as she sits on the edge of the hill looking over Old Equestria, and you take a seat beside her.

“Hey, thanks for agreein’ to come along with us,” you say. You’re not really sure how to approach Rainbow yet, so you figure earnest sincerity is a good bet.

“Whatever,” Rainbow shrugs. “Hard to say no to Pinkie Pie.”

“Yeah, I know what you mean,” you chuckle into yer hoof. “I barely just met her, and somehow she convinced me to run away from home with her. You think she’s usin’ some kinda sinister spell or somethin’?”

You mean that last part as a joke, but suddenly there’s a part of you at the back of your brain that’s worried about like ‘but what if that’s true though…’, despite how obviously absurd the idea is. Brains just be like that sometimes.

“Nah, I think she’s just super cute,” Rainbow gives a single laugh, “and I’m gay.”

“Ah, yeah, that about sums it up, huh?” you laugh. “I’m right there with ya.”

“Oh worm? Another gay mare gamer?” Rainbow holds out her hoof and smirks at you. “Pound it, sis.”

You look down at Rainbow Dash’s extended hoof and gently place your own hoof against it, Rainbow then co*cking her hoof back and punching it into yours with a bright grin, and you return her smile.

The two of you don’t say anything else to each other for a bit, you just look down across Old Equestria, sitting next to each other in silence. No words need to be said; you get each other.

****

Take a deep breath, PINKIE PIE. Steel yourself, you totally got this.

So like, Applejack was all about how she wanted to grab some of her friends before you all ran away together, she’s got this big epic magical quest where she’s picking up alicorn bones or what have you, and you’re totally down with that because you LOVE friendship.

You’re supposedly gonna meet up with a couple of AJ’s other friends later, she couldn’t quite get ahold of them this morning, but she told her buddies Sweetcream Scoops and Berryshine to meet her in Old Equestria, so that hopefully y’all could all go together!

You don’t really know those ponies but you’re lookin’ forward to meetin’ ‘em, but MORE IMPORTANTLY is the pony sitting right in front of you, skulking in the corner of Rainbow’s camp house.

Her name is Twilight Sparkle and she is a heckin’ cutie, BUT ALSO according to Applejack she’s a bit of a hardcore introvert, doesn’t like talking to other ponies. So your mission, if you choose to accept it, is to figure out how to maybe get on her good side without bothering her. Cuz you wanna get to know her, but you don’t wanna make her uncomfortable or walk over her boundaries, y’know?

Hmmmm, this is quite the conundrum. Thinking emoji.

In fact, this is TOO MUCH thinking for you so you decide to just say screw it, nothing ventured nothing gained!

“HI!” you shout, hopping in front of Twilight Sparkle, who lurches back in surprise. Which is probably not a good sign, that is strike one. “I’m Pinkie Pie! You’re Twilight Sparkle! Applejack told me a little bit about you, and I figure hey since we’re gonna be traveling together we should get to know each other, right?”

Twilight doesn’t say anything in response, she just kinda looks at you awkwardly. That is strike two.

“Uh, so you like, um,” you stumble over your words and it occurs to you that YOU DIDN’T PREPARE A TOPIC OF CONVERSATION! YOU’RE FLYING BLIND! YOU’RE GONNA MAKE A FOOL OF YOURSELF! ABORT! ABORT!! ABORT!!! “Uh, so, y’know, uh, okay, so like, um, y’know, uh, yeah. Yeah, I’ll just.”

That is strike three. Congratulations! You’re the stupidest pony who’s ever lived! Bury yourself in a cave! You’re less than pond scum!

You slither back into the corner like the bottom feeder you are, and you takea couple deep

breaths to try and keep the brain demons at bay. But you try to do it subtly so that Twilight doesn’t see you FREAKING OUT, cuz it’s like she doesn’t need even more reasons to think you’re a FREAK.

“I’m not a very spontaneous person,” Twilight says abruptly, and your ears perk up as you give her a hundred and thousand percent of your concentration. She isn’t looking over at you, and she pawing at the ground, but you assume she’s talking to you cuz otherwise why would she be saying stuff out loud???? “I’d like to get to know you as well, Pinkie Pie.

“Because you’re right, we’re going to be traveling together and so we should learn to get along. But I’m not used to dealing with living ponies, so I would like you to be patient with me.”

“Of course! I’d be happy to!” you say with a bright smile. “Just as long as you’re okay with me uhhh, sometimes being a little overbearing.”

“That sounds like a fair exchange to me,” Twilight says, and she oh so subtly looks over at you and gives you a slight smile, and your heart absolutely MELTS.

****

TWILIGHT SPARKLE, do you think that perhaps you’re just doomed to eternal social isolation for the rest of your days?

You keep saying you don’t care about living ponies, and yet every time you mess up a social interaction, you feel like walking into the ocean and never returning. Truly, you are a complex and multifaceted creature.

Oh well, after that abysmal interaction with Pinkie Pie, you are eager to get this show on the road, so you leave the camp house and approach Applejack to see if she’s ready to leave.

Hm. But she’s hanging out with Rainbow Dash when you walk outside so you’re not really sure if you should bother them. You suppose you’ll just wither away into ash instead.

“HEY RAINBOW DASH! APPLEJACK!” Pinkie Pie yells, coming right up behind you and scaring the living daylights out of you. “WHEN ARE WE LEAVING?! I’M BORED!”

“I’m ready to go whenever y’all are,” Applejack says, and Rainbow Dash nods silently. Applejack smiles at you, and you look over at like a weird rock or something. “How ya feelin’, Twilight?”

“I’m just ready to get–” your words are interrupted by a sudden realization; your rock-looking-at strategy caused you to turn your gaze to the edge of the hill, and you notice a fair amount of movement down below on the ground, so you trot over to the edge to take a closer look.

Your brow furrows and your face curls into a disturbed frown as you recognize the movements of Cherry Spices and her expedition down there.

“What’s the matter, Twi?” Applejack asks as she walks up to you, but you can see her brow furrowing as she gets close. “Oh.”

“Huh, it’s those guys,” Rainbow Dash adds, as she and Pinkie Pie both gather close to see what all the fuss is about.

“You wanna go down there and rough ‘em up a bit?!” Pinkie Pie clamors, pumping her hooves and throwing punches in the air.

“Who cares?” Rainbow Dash shrugs. “Without that drill, what’re they even gonna do, right?”

“Yeah,” you say wistfully, though if you’re being honest, you would still like to go down there and pick a fight regardless, just out of sheer spite. But what would be the point of that, when you couldn’t even win the first time?

What’s curious to you though is that you can see the dungeon from here, and you can see the expedition moving in that direction. But you can also see quite clearly that they are drill-less, so you have no idea what their plans are exactly or how they think they’re going to get in?

Emerald Ray said the only way to get inside was to use unicorn magic, and she also said that there wasn’t anything of value down there anyway, so you really shouldn’t care about whatever they’re doing one way or the other, but it still bothers you for some reason.

It bothers you even more as you watch the expedition disappear into the dungeon.

“HUH?!” Applejack exclaims, mirroring your thoughts exactly.

“Wait, am I going crazy here?!” Pinkie Pie adds. “Did you girls see that?!”

“What was the point of that stupid drill if they could just go down there without it the whole time?” Rainbow Dash asks, and you would be wondering the same thing if your brain wasn’t so clouded by a bright red fog of RAGE.

“Yeah, seriously!” Pinkie Pie yells, throwing her forelegs out in an exasperated manner. “Do they know how much our collective blood pressure spiked because of that?!”

“But wait, this is still a ‘who cares’ type beat, right?” Rainbow Dash asks with a shrug. “Like, I thought you said there wasn’t even anything down there.”

“That’s what I was told,” you mutter, more to yourself than to Rainbow Dash. “And while I have no reason to doubt the sincerity of my source, I’d be lying if I said I weren’t curious now.”

“Same here, if I’m bein’ honest,” Applejack adds, and it does your heart good to hear her be in your corner.

“I mean it looks like they left the door open,” Pinkie Pie hums. “Doesn’t seem like there’s anything stopping us from going down there and taking a quick peek for ourselves!”

“Yeah, I’m always down to go digging for treasure!” Rainbow Dash adds, and that’s the most enthusiasm you’ve heard from her yet.

“Well then,” Applejack stamps her hooves and starts running down the hill, pausing for just a moment to look back at the rest of you with a charming smile, “what’re we waitin’ for?”

no lovelight chapter today unfortunately! ^^;

i need to rethink my posting schedule in general cuz it turns out this daily updates thing is WAY harder than i remember it being from the last time i did it lmao (tho it doesn’t help that i had to put things together for this story kinda last minute, so i didn’t have time to make much of a buffer)

i started this story as a fun side project while i was between lesbian deer story stuff, but the aggressive posting schedule hasn’t left me any time to actually work on lesbian deer story! whoops!

that won’t do, so i’m gonna have to rethink how often i post chapters. i still want to post regularly, ideally at least twice a week, but we’ll have to see what happens. plz bear with me as i get my writing sea legs back! :2

Ch. 18 - Getaway Car

TWILIGHT SPARKLE, is this perhaps one of the most awkward moments of your whole life?

Let’s count the ways, shall we? First off, after Applejack and Pinkie Pie made these grand declarations that they would protect you and your home (which you didn’t contribute to at all, by the way), the three of you turned out to be completely helpless in battle with Cherry Spices! Without Emerald Ray, your magic is functionally worthless.

Secondly, you had to accept help from yet another stranger, who arrived out of the blue and completely showed you and Applejack and Pinkie Pie up. And when you expressed concern that her explosive methods would just cause more problems, you were quickly shown wrong. You really should’ve just kept your mouth shut!

And last but certainly not least, while riding in the stranger’s getaway vehicle, you have to squeeze into a tiny pocket car with Applejack, the two of you squished so closely together that you can practically feel her muscles on your skin, her breath on your neck, the heat radiating off of her…

As someone who doesn’t much care for physical contact with ponies, this would be agonizing under normal circ*mstances. But alas, there’s one more thing that makes this all the more unbearable.

APPLEJACK IS REALLY FREAKING HOT!!!!!

Having a beautiful woman’s body pressed up against yours is just afsdgfhgkjkdshf but you don’t want to make it obvious that you’re being gay about it so you’re trying to just look in whatever random direction but every so often you steal a glance at her and holy moley she’s RIGHT THERE.

You wonder what she’s thinking during this awkward ride. Maybe she’s thinking about you the same way? No, absolutely not, no way, not a chance. She’s probably thinking about how annoying this is and how she doesn’t want to be this close to you or even anywhere near you and about how you’re disgusting and weird and she sure hopes you’re not thinking anything untoward about her.

Ugh. Will this vehicle just hurry up and park somewhere already?!

Actually, while you’re on the subject of this vehicle, it is quite an impressive display of mechanics. Despite the tight squeeze, the ride is very smooth, and it’s able to easily roll through the rough and craggy terrain of Old Equestria like it’s nothing.

This is certainly helped by its driver being quite clearly skilled at operating it, drifting around obstacles with a serene deftness, as if the vehicle is simply an extension of her body. She strikes you as a rather interesting woman.

Lucky for you, the vehicle does end up parking soon enough outside a crumbling building. The driver, Rainbow Dash, gets off the machine and makes the whole thing disappear with her magic, causing you and Applejack to fall to the ground (Pinkie Pie also falls, but she has wings to catch herself).

Applejack lands on top of you and now you’re pinned to the ground by a hot girl, which is JUST DANDY. Applejack stares into your eyes for a moment and you can feel your face turning bright red, but Applejack quickly jumps off of you and helps you up to your hooves.

“Eh, sorry, Twi,” Applejack chuckles.

“Don’t worry about it,” you say with a shrug, and internally you are hooting and hollering for yourself at how cool you managed to play that. Nicely done, Twilight Sparkle!

“Hey, are you girls okay?” Pinkie Pie asks, hovering over you and Applejack and keeping herself afloat with her wings.

This is the first time you’ve ever seen a pegasus in person, and you feel like maybe you should be more shocked or impressed, but there’s nothing unusual about them even if you personally have never seen one before. And quite frankly, you figured Pinkie Pie was hiding something under that cloak of hers.

“Yeah, we’re alright,” Applejack says with a sigh. “Aside from a couple of bruised egos, I think we’re all good.”

“I’m really sorry, I totally dropped the ball during that fight!” Pinkie says, frantically waving her forelegs. “I just got so excited to start PUNCHIN’ that I totally got tunnel vision and ran right into the tunnel. Is that like a mixed metaphor? Whatever, you get what I mean.”

“I think we all could’ve handled that situation a bit better, Pinkie Pie,” Applejack says, massively underselling your collective incompetence. “Don’t worry your pretty little head about it.”

“Aww, you think my head is pretty?” Pinkie Pie smiles and bats her eyes, and Applejack immediately darts her eyes away as you try not to chuckle at her reaction.

“Pinkie Pie,” Rainbow Dash says, leaning against the entryway to the crumbling building, “are these gals stickin’ around?”

“For now at least, yeah,” Pinkie Pie says, and Applejack nods in confirmation. “I wanna help ‘em out, cuz I don’t think we’ve seen the last of that Cherry Spices! We gotta regroup and plan our next move!”

“I dunno what kinda moves you really need to be making,” Rainbow Dash shrugs, “that Cherry girl isn’t gonna be able to do anything without that drill, right? Wasn’t that the whole idea?”

“I hope so,” Pinkie Pie hums.

“Well, whatever,” Rainbow Dash shrugs again and trots inside the building, before sticking her head back out. “Y’all can hang out for a hot minute if you want to, help yourself to some canned raviol’.”

“Ooooo, that sounds good!” Pinkie Pie licks her lips and bounces off after Rainbow Dash.

You’re up on a pretty high hill, you can see a lot of Old Equestria from this position. It breaks your heart to think of what someone like Cherry Spices could do to it, but…

“Y’know,” Applejack walks up beside you, “if we go on this expedition, yer gonna have to leave this place.”

“Yeah, I know,” you sigh and hang your head. You decide NOT to say that someone needs to look out for this place, and that you need to be the one to do it, because you’ve used that excuse too many times to deny Emerald Ray the support she deserves in her mission to come back to life.

“For what it’s worth,” Applejack says, “if anything happens to this place, I’ll help you take it back.”

“Thanks, I appreciate that,” you say.

You take one last look at your home, sigh and hang your head. It’s time to say goodbye, and you HATE sappy goodbyes, so you just turn away from it and look toward Applejack instead.

“But for right now,” you say, forcing a slight smile to your lips, “what do you say we forget about all this stressful stuff and just enjoy some canned raviol’?”

“I thought you’d never ask!” Applejack says with a bright smile.

Ch. 17 - Vivid Trail

Breathe, APPLEJACK. There’s no space for you to make a mistake now. You’ve made your choice, you gotta ride it out.

“Your ‘friends’, huh?” Cherry Spices sighs and shakes her head. “You wound me, Applejack, but I suppose it’s just as well.”

“I’m sorry, Cherry Spices,” you say, looking anxiously up at the massive drill towering behind her. “But I can’t let you lay a hoof on Old Equestria.”

“I’ll do what I have to, Applejack,” Cherry Spices says firmly.

“Yeah, those are fightin’ words, let’s go!” Pinkie Pie cheers, pumping her hooves. “Let’s rock, baby! YEAH!”

“Firecracker, start up the drill for me, would you?” Cherry Spices says sweetly, flashing a charming smile at Firecracker Burst (who looks unenthused) and the rest of her expedition party. “The rest of you? Cheer for me!”

Firecracker climbs up onto the drill’s operations platform while the other ponies start hootin’ and hollerin’ for Cherry Spices. It’s not just an act of ego strokin’, neither; Cherry Spices is a heartkin pony, her magic is fueled by her emotions. And just looking at the proud expression on her face as she soaks in the cheers and praise, you can tell that it’s helping her charge her magic.

“We need to stop that drill,” Twilight Sparkle says urgently, “before it breaks something that we can’t fix.”

“I’m on it,” you nod confidently and charge toward the drill, but Cherry Spices laughs and conjures a cloud of dust in her hoof, which she blows toward you and it suddenly explodes into sparks and flames, forcing you to double back.

“Oh c’mon, it’s just a little flame!” Pinkie Pie scoffs and jumps into the cloud of sparks, making several pained exclamations, but arriving on the other side to give Cherry Spices a fierce punch.

Cherry Spices barely flinches from the attack, instead conjuring a small sphere in her hoof that immediately explodes, sending Pinkie Pie flying and then crashing into the dirt.

“She’s an alchemist,” Twilight Sparkle hums. “A pony who uses their magic to summon items they’ve enchanted with their magic.”

“She sure is,” you grumble. You knew that about Cherry Spices, but you’ve never actually seen her fight before, and it’s makin’ you a mite nervous.

“Alchemy is a versatile school of magic,” Twilight says, “so there’s really no telling what kind of tricks she might have up her sleeve. Though, given her first two attacks, I can hazard a guess.”

“Any idea on how to get in?” you ask Twilight, as Pinkie Pie lets out a battle cry and charges Cherry Spices again, only to be immediately pushed back by another explosion. “Cuz at this rate I’m worried she’s gonna do more damage than the drill!”

“I, um…” Twilight sounds nervous, which is making YOU nervous.

Making you even more nervous is the whirring sound suddenly buzzing in your ears, and a faint rumbling under your hooves that is quickly getting decidedly less faint.

You see a silhouette in the distance, but before your eyes can adjust and let you make heads or tails of it, the thing has already sped right past you and jumped OVER you, leaving a vivid rainbow trail in its wake, along with a buzzing in your ears. Judging by Twilight’s wide-eyed look of stunned irritation, she isn’t any clearer on what just happened than you are.

You look up and try to make sense of what you’re seeing; you quickly realize it’s a vehicle of some kind, a two-wheeled machine being ridden by a single blue pony with a glorious rainbow mane, but the quality of the machine isn’t like anything you’re used to. It’s slick and shiny, with neon lights decorating its edges, and no sign of rust or excessive wear anywhere to be seen, like it just popped straight outta a time machine.

After it jumped over you, it crashed right into the drill—no, not crashed exactly, more like it spun around and intentionally struck the drill with its back wheel, before riding the very air itself until it landed back around behind you, that same vivid rainbow trail tracing all its movements.

The blue pony ridin’ the thing looks TICKED, and she pulls some kinda small machine out from the side of the vehicle, and your eyes widen as you realize what she has. You tackle Twilight to the ground and try to stay outta the way as the blue pony brandishes what is absolutely without a doubt a GUN.

You haven’t ever seen one yourself, but there ain’t no shortage of Old Equestrian art and writing depicting how dangerous those things are. You’ve even tried to make a couple yourself outta repurposed scrap, and they’ve proven to be the most consistently explosive of your experiments.

The pony fires the gun, and the loud POP that tears through the air makes even Cherry Spices look worried, and she has no time to respond before the projectiles fired from the weapon in the ground around her and explode into clouds of rainbow-colored smoke.

“Rainbow Dash!” Pinkie Pie cheers, giving a friendly wave to the blue pony. “Thanks for the assist, lmao!”

“No problem,” the blue pony shrugs, and in shifting her weight, you can clearly see the wings on her back. Even though you kinda sorta got used to Pinkie Pie already, seeing another pegasus startles you, and you can hardly believe this is even real. “How long were you gonna keep me waiting, anyway?”

“Not long, I’d hoped!” Pinkie chuckles bashfully and runs up to Rainbow Dash; meanwhile you and Twilight Sparkle are still lying on the ground, absolutely flabbergasted. “But I kinda ran into an issue here. Would you mind dealing with that big drill for me, please?”

“That thing?” Rainbow Dash asks casually; she’s got a raspy voice, and speaks with the kind of confidence that forces you to pay attention. “I got it, just stay outta the way.”

Pinkie does exactly as promised and jumps away from Rainbow Dash, the blue pegasus brandishing her gun and popping a small tray out from the bottom of it. You can’t really make out what’s going on with it, aside from it being covered in colored lights; Rainbow stares at it intently, and her eyes glow with colored light themselves, and you swear the colors on the tray switch to match her eyes, if only for a moment.

And then the weapon transforms; shifting and stretching with impossible fluidity until it’s become a large cannon with a long neck, which Rainbow Dash is somehow capable of wielding with just her hooves.

“Wait!” Twilight exclaims, holding out her hoof. “If she fires a weapon that big at the drill, it’ll—”

It’s already too late by the time Twilight voices her concern; the weapon is fired, and a large shell is blasted forth, penetrating the thick metal shell of the drill before detonating, tearing the drill to shreds in a blast of flame, fury, and smoke.

The flames don’t expand outward though, instead they’re sucked in toward the center of the explosion, shifting into rainbow colors before exploding again into a harmless drizzle of misty rain.

“You were saying?” Rainbow snaps at Twilight, who has nothing to say in response.

And just like that, the drill is just GONE. The explosion cleared out the smoke from Rainbow’s initial shots, leaving Cherry Spices, Firecracker Burst, and their whole expedition visible as they gawk in terrified awe of the superior weaponry that Rainbow Dash just demonstrated.

Rainbow Dash looks over at Pinkie Pie, who flashes an encouraging smile your way which you are compelled to respond to in kind.

“Pinkie, what are you wearing?” Rainbow scoffs.

“Huh? Oh, yeah,” Pinkie giggles as she looks down at the heavy black cloak constricting her wings. “I guess I don’t really need this anymore!”

She grabs the cloak and throws it into the air, the cloth disappearing into green light just like it had originally appeared. Everypony present who wasn’t already aware of Pinkie Pie’s wings—Twilight,

Cherry Spices, her whole expedition—stare in shock as Pinkie flexes her wings.

“Ah yeah, that hits the spot,” she says with a grin.

“P-p-p—PEGASUS!” Cherry shouts, pointing a floppy hoof at Pinkie Pie, and then at Rainbow Dash who flares out her own wings as if she were offended to be left out. “You two are—“

“Aw crud, this is about to get weird,” Rainbow Dash sighs. “C’mon, Pinkie, let’s blow this popsicle stand.”

“Sounds good to me!” Pinkie nods happily and jumps onto Rainbow Dash’s vehicle, putting her forelegs around Rainbow’s barrel to keep herself stable, before immediately jumping right back off of it. “Oh but wait!” Pinkie turns over to you and Twilight, beckoning you with frantic hoof gestures. “Applejack! Twilight! C’mon, let’s get outta here!”

“Ugh, are you serious?” Rainbow Dash gripes, but all it takes is for Pinkie to glare and puff up her cheeks for Rainbow to relent. “Fine, whatever. Let’s just GO already!”

The vehicle morphs just like Rainbow’s weapon had, with a small side-car popping out of its frame. It looks like a tight squeeze for ONE pony, let alone two, but it’s either that or be left behind with an increasingly irate Cherry Spices and her small squadron of loyal followers, so all it takes is one shared glance between you and Twilight Sparkle for the both of you to make a break for it and dive into the side-car, squeezing yourselves in as best you can.

It turns out to be an even tighter fit than it looks, and while you and Twilight are somehow able to miraculous both fit inside, you’re pressed up against each other chest to chest so tight that your noses can’t help but touch, and the two of you awkwardly look away from each other.

“Annnnd, we’re off!” Pinkie clamors as she holds on tight to Rainbow Dash, the blue pegasus revving up the vehicle and then taking off faster than you can blink.

You’re not exactly sure what you got yourself into, but you’d be lyin’ if you said you weren’t at least a little excited to find out.

lovelight pinkie pie!

not only is she a notorious cyber criminal, but she's cute too!

she gets up to all sorts of adorable antics in her home, the high-tech flying city of pegatropolis; antics like vandalism, bank heists, corporate espionage, and even arson! what a scamp!

but everypony needs a vacation especially when they're on the run from the law, so this high-spirited flyer is trying to lie low in the realms of the earth ponies, lest she be thrown into a black site by her rival cupcake and is never seen again.

pinkie believes helping ppl is GOOD and hurting ppl is BAD, unless ur hurting bad ppl in which case it's EVEN BETTER than helping ppl. she's a fiercely loyal friend, but extremely self-absorbed and a bit unreliable. u never know when she's gonna get distracted by a petty grudge.

Ch. 16 - BREAK

Alright APPLEJACK, it’s time to show Cherry Spices you’re not about to let yourself be pushed around! And more importantly, it’s time to show Twilight Sparkle that you won’t stand for ponies terrorizing her home.

Your party jumps out onto a dirt path directly in front of Cherry Spices’ expedition, Cherry clearly surprised by the sudden interruption. Pinkie Pie, her wings still hidden underneath her heavy cloak, jumps out behind you, and Twilight Sparkle stands by your side.

You’re a mite intimidated by the size of Cherry’s expedition group; gotta be about a dozen ponies or more, which is a lot more ponies than you and your two friends. But even more intimidating than her numbers, is Cherry Spices’ artillery.

The massive wheeled drill that she prepared looms large over her group, casting an ominous shadow over yours. That thing is dangerous, and frankly it’s not like any machine you’ve ever seen. Even though it’s obviously made from scrap metal, there’s no rust, no signs of a slapdash or makeshift construction; the thing looks brand new.

“Applejack!” Cherry Spices exclaims, her eyes widening in surprise, then quickly glittering with affection. “I didn’t expect to see you here! When you didn’t show up this morning, I thought that—”

“Cherry Spices,” thought it pains you to interject, you have to grit your teeth through it because you know that Cherry Spices’ sweet words and silver tongue will give you pause if you let her speak. “What are you doing here? What is this thing?”

And yet, you just can’t resist asking her a question. You want to understand her intentions, you want to believe that she isn’t as careless as she appears to be acting.

“This,” Cherry Spices smiles proudly and pats her hoof against the drill’s metal shell, “is a drill. The entrance to the dungeon is locked by powerful magic. We don’t know how to unlock the door, so we’re simply going to make our own door.”

“You can’t just be doin’ that, Cherry!” you exclaim, stamping your hoof in the dirt for emphasis. “Old Equestria is DELICATE! You can’t just start tearin’ stuff down like it ain’t gonna cause a bigger problem!”

“Applejack, Old Equestria is a monument to ponies’ PAST,” Cherry Spices says, taking a confident step forward. “What is the point of caring for this weathered old relic if we’re not going to use the lessons of its history to make a better FUTURE for ponies?! Keeping the knowledge of Old Equestria locked up does a disservice to all of Equestria, past and present. You know that.”

“I know, you’re right about that, but…” you take a look at Twilight Sparkle; she glares pensively at you, and you have to avert your gaze. “There’s gotta be a better way than just breaking everything!”

“And what way is that, Applejack? Hm?” Cherry Spices arches an eyebrow, and you struggle to muster a retort. Cherry Spices is a professional, she knows what she’s doing, and you’re just some dumb backwater hick from nowheresville.

Everyone is staring at you now, expecting you to say something. You SHOULD say something! You KNOW in your heart that Cherry Spices is wrong, but your tongue gets tied and your chest seizes up when you try to argue. You don’t know what to say to convince her; you don’t know what to say to convince ANYONE other than Twilight, but who’s gonna listen to HER either?

“Applejack, come here,” Cherry Spices says softly.

She steps toward you and, despite your better judgment, you walk toward her too and let her put a hoof on your shoulder. It feels nice. You look back at Twilight and Pinkie Pie; they’re givin’ you weird looks. And why shouldn’t they?

You let them down. You’re a complete screw-up, you can’t even argue for the protection of Old Equestria, a place that you dearly love and respect. A place that is Twilight’s HOME, and you couldn’t even muster an argument in its defense.

Not against Cherry Spices. She puts a foreleg around you and pulls you close to her, and she whispers in your ear.

“It’s okay, Applejack,” she says. “I know how seriously you take this place. I won’t damage anything more than I have to. But I WILL get inside that dungeon, and I’ll find the truth of Old Equestria’s secrets.

“You just stand back and watch, okay? You don’t need to fight anyone over this.”

That’s a nice thought, isn’t it? Just standin’ to the side and not getting involved in all this stressful stuff. If Cherry Spices is willing to take responsibility for it, you don’t even need to argue with people about it.

“Well I didn’t want to, but Cherry Spices…” that’s what you could say.

But it wouldn’t be right. It’d eat you up inside somethin’ fierce, you KNOW that. Even if you can’t totally articulate WHY you feel that way, that’s how you feel in your heart.

You just don’t know how to break that to Cherry Sp—

“BREAK!” Pinkie Pie shouts as she slams Cherry Spices in the head with a running punch, sending Cherry crashing into the ground.

“Uhhhhhh,” you say, mouth agape. You look back at Twilight who appears to be similarly surprised, and then look toward Pinkie Pie who is standing confidently between you and Cherry Spices.

“I’ve heard enough!” she yells, scraping her hoof across the dirt. “Maybe you’re right about Old Equestria and its secrets or whatever, but this is my friend’s HOME you’re messing with, and I’m not about to let you tear stuff down in here without a fight!”

You look back at Twilight, as if silently searching for approval; she has a faint smile on her face as she stares at Pinkie Pie. Cherry Spices picks herself up off the ground and glares at Pinkie. You need to make a decision, Applejack, here and now, about what you want to do.

No turning back now.

“I’m sorry, Cherry,” you say hesitantly, stepping up beside Pinkie Pie, “but I’m sidin’ with Pinkie Pie. All this stuff about tearing through Old Equestria, it doesn’t sit right with me.”

“It doesn’t ‘sit right’ with you?” Cherry spits, but then she sighs irritably, takes a deep breath, and is back to her usual graceful self. “Applejack, what are you talking about? You would honestly prioritize the bygone history of ponies over its FUTURE?”

“I—“ you hesitate; you don’t know how to respond to that.

“Shut up, nerd!” Pinkie groans. “We don’t have to explain anything to you! We don’t have to rationalize fighting to protect our friend and her HOME! And I see what you’re trying to do, framing it like Applejack’s the bad guy here! But YOU’RE the one who brought an illegal weapon into Old Equestria! So spare us the cringey moralizing you’re tryna do, and put up your dukes if you think you’re so tough!”

Woah. She’s so fierce, it’s kinda…

“Applejack?” Cherry Spices asks, narrowing her eyes at you and at Pinkie Pie. “Is THIS the kind of behavior you want to associate yourself with? I’m trying to be reasonable and rational here, and this woman is ready to throw hooves. Can you really say you’re okay with that?”

Twilight walks up and stands beside Pinkie Pie, glaring at Cherry Spices. You look at them, then at Cherry Spices.

It would be so easy to go along with Cherry Spices; she’d treat you nice, you wouldn’t have to worry a day in yer life, and she’s got enough clout to convince almost anypony to go along with her.

But you look up at that drill, and you know what it’d do if it was allowed to activate in these here ruins, and you just… it wouldn’t be right.

“Yeah, Cherry Spices,” you struggle to get the words outta yer throat, and to hold yer head up high as you stand beside Pinkie Pie and Twilight Sparkle, who both offer you reassuring smiles. “I’m gonna side with my friends.”

i hope everypony enjoyed today’s lovelight chapter and its juicy cliffhanger ending. i’m gonna be taking a break for the next week to catch up on some irl stuff but i’ll be back again with new chapters next saturday! :2

Ch. 15 - This is (not) a Drill

Make your way back home, TWILIGHT SPARKLE.

You couldn’t find Applejack after all, though to be honest you barely made an effort. After leaving the bakery, you wandered aimlessly around the town for a minute and then the malaise and bitterness creeping over your heart like a shadowy claw compelled you to just go back home, which is where you’re headed now.

There are no spirits to greet you when you arrive, they’re all still slumbering under the earth. Frankly, you feel like you should be asleep too, but being around Applejack for only a couple days somehow managed to bork your circadian rhythm. You oughtta make her pay for that.

That is, if you ever see her again. Chances are, after the novelty of knowing you wore off, Applejack just returned to her other friends who she already knows and cares about, forgetting about you completely. Probably for the best for everypony involved, if you’re being honest.

As you skulk around the spires of rusted metal that characterize your home, something irks you. You’re not sure which you notice first, the rumbling sound in the distance behind yu, or the faint trembling of the earth underneath your hooves. Something is coming, and it can’t be anything good.

You have a very bad feeling that you know what you’re going to see as you chase the source of this rumbling and trembling, and your fears are confirmed as you spot the machine rolling over a hill on the horizon.

A large drill forged out of repurposed scrap is rolling toward your home, and the sight of it makes you sick to your stomach.

You’ve seen heavy machinery like this only a few times before, they’re generally not allowed by most scrappers into the ruins of Old Equestria, and for good reason. You’ve seen it firsthand, the cataclysmic destruction they’re capable of wreaking on the fragile monuments of the past.

Your fear instantly turns to rage, burning in your heart like a demon. You wonder who could possibly think to bring one of these things into your home, and your query is answered as Cherry Spices follows behind the drill up the hill.

Her expedition group is fairly large, a machine of that size and complexity naturally requires a large crew to operate, but you don’t see anyone else you recognize aside from Firecracker Burst, who you KNEW was bad news!

The smug satisfaction of being right is a cold comfort though as the machine slowly rolls toward your home, casting a shadow of apocalyptic destruction over the world as you know it.

You wonder where Applejack is; wasn’t she supposed to be in that expedition? You worry about her a little, but the much more harrowing worry for yourself and your home mostly drowns it out.

You want to go out there and do something, use your powerful magicks to fight for your home and defend it from invaders, but you know beyond a shadow of a doubt that you would get bowled over.

You talk a big game, but without Emerald Ray your magic is all but worthless, and frankly even WITH Emerald Ray, it’s still only mediocre. She has to channel all her ancient alicorn powers through YOU, after all.

There’s nothing you can do but to stew in the ocean of RAGE swirling in your heart. You can only watch as they carelessly destroy everything you love.

Or you could run.

Run, or die? You have to choose, Twilight Sparkle. And you have to choose NOW.

“Twilight!” Applejack whispers from behind you, and you nearly jump out of your skin.

“Woah holy @#$%, what the &$@# is that thing?” a pink pony that you don’t recognize wearing a heavy cloak points out toward the drill.

“Oh, geez,” Applejack puts a hoof up to her lips, “that’s not good.”

“No kidding, Applejack,” you say flatly. “How very insightful.”

“I’m so sorry, Twi,” Applejack mutters, cradling her head in her hooves. “I had no idea she was gonna do somethin’ like this. I should’ve stopped her, I should’ve been there this morning like I said I would, I should’ve—”

Applejack shakes her head and stands up, stomping her hoof on the dirt.

“Well, it ain’t too late,” she growls. “I’m gonna stop her NOW, before she can use that drill to destroy this place.”

“Applejack,” you sigh irritably, “you’re just gonna get yourself beat up or killed.”

“I ain’t about to just stand here, Twilight,” Applejack spits, “and let her tear down this place that means so much to you. What kinda friend would I be then?”

“I’m with Applejack,” pink pony nods confidently. “I’ll fight for your home, Twilight Sparkle. No problem!”

“What do you say, Twi?” Applejack holds her hoof out to you. “You wanna give Cherry Spices a piece of yer mind?”

You think Applejack might be insane. She’s walking into a lion’s den with a string of comical sausages around her neck. You appreciate what she’s trying to do, but it’s pointless to try and fight back against ponies with so much more power than you.

And yet…

You look back at Cherry Spices, at Firecracker Burst, at the drill. ‘RAGE’ is not a strong enough word. You HATE them, and your hatred burns you inside, like hot coals under every inch of your skin. But the heat feels good, like the nectar of heaven in your heart, and you’ll let it burn you to ash if it means getting a single shot at HURTING the ones you hate.

“Applejack,” your eyes go wide, your grin wider, as you take Applejack’s hoof, “let’s do this.”

Ch. 14 - Run Away With Me

Rise and grind, APPLEJACK! Time to attack the day!

You groan and put a pillow over your head. You don’t really feel like rising or grinding today, if you’re being honest, but then again you don’t exactly got much choice, do you? Another day, another… day.

You slide out of your comfortable bed like a puddle of sludge and hit the hard wooden floor. With a groan, you force yourself up onto your hooves and let out a weary sigh.

Okay, NOW it’s time to attack the day.

“HEY APPLEJACK!” Pinkie Pie calls out and causes you to jump; you totally forgot she spent the night here in the shop.

You head out to the entry room thingy, the ‘foy-er’ or whatever, and Pinkie greets you with a big smile and a wave as she comes in the door.

“I got breakfast!” she says, brandishing two bags from Ribbon Heart’s bakery. “I asked the lady behind the counter what you’d want, so hopefully it’s good!”

“You went out by yerself?” you ask, grabbing the bag that Pinkie tosses to you. “I’m supposed to keep an eye on you.”

“I’m not a child, Applejack,” Pinkie scoffs. “I get that I have to keep my wings hidden, but I’m an adult and I can look out for myself. Don’t worry your pretty little head over it, lmao.”

“Yeah, alright,” you sigh and sit behind the counter. The food is good, but you barely taste it, and once you’re done with it you cradle your face in your hooves as your mountain of responsibilities start pilin’ up on you.

“You okay?” Pinkie asks, putting her hooves up on the other side of the counter. “You don’t look too good.”

“Got a lot on my mind, that’s all,” you force a smile. “No worries.”

“Okay, I won’t pry or anything, buuuut,” Pinkie hums, “sometimes it’s easier to deal with stuff if you’re not dealing alone, y’know?”

“Nah, it’s just,” your groan and rub your temples as you think about all the things, “I gotta get you back to Daisy Dreams, I gotta help out Cherry Spices with her expedition, and I like Cherry a lot but she kinda worries me sometimes cuz she doesn’t have the care for Old Equestria and its history and its fragility and its denizens, and she hired me on BECAUSE I have that care, but that makes me think I’m gonna be havin’ to babysit for her and her crew, not to mention I’ve got an expedition to prep with Twilight, and I’ve never been that far away from home before and…

“It’s just a lot.”

“Sounds like it,” Pinkie says, and she puts her hoof over yours. “And hey, I know I said I wanted the Ponyville tour, but you don’t gotta do that for me if you’re overwhelmed, okay?”

“I WANT to do that though,” you grumble, puffing up yer cheeks. “I love givin’ ponies the tour.”

“Then let’s do it!” Pinkie chirps, a big smile on her face. “But don’t worry about Daisy Dreams. Like I told you, I’m an adult and I can take care of myself. I’ll get back to Daisy on my own, I’ll say really nice things about you and about our time together, and you can just focus on Cherry Spices or whatever.”

“I…” you fold your forelegs on the counter and rest your head down on ‘em. “Yeah, I guess that’s a good idea. I appreciate it.”

“OR! Consider this!” Pinkie leans over the counter, forcing you to lean back as she pushes her nose right up against yours. “Run away with me!”

“Eh?” you scoff at what an obviously absurd thing that is to say, but Pinkie just stares you down and it slowly dawns on you that she’s being serious. And while that SHOULD make it even more absurd, instead you find yourself asking; “Run away where?”

“I dunno yet,” Pinkie Pie shrugs, but her doubt doesn’t diminish her enthusiasm at all. “That’s part of the fun! I’m headed into the ruins in your backyard, right? I’m gonna meet up with my pal Rainbow Dash, and we’re—”

“Yeah, that’s what yer doin’ with Daisy Dreams, right?” you mutter, feeling the weight of responsibility pressing up against the back of yer skull again.

“Hm, sorta,” Pinkie mutters. “Like that’s what we hired her to do yeah, me and Rainbow hired her to get me from one place to where I was gonna meet with Rainbow. But Daisy has her own agenda she thinks I don’t know about, but I’m smarter than she gives me credit for lmao.”

“Wait, what?” you ask, lurching your head up in alarm and feeling your heart sink into your stomach. “What agenda are you talkin’ about?”

“Eh, I dunno the exact details,” Pinkie shrugs. “And to be honest, I don’t really care. But Daisy is SUPPOSED to get me to Rainbow Dash, but I know that she’s planning on giving me up to Cupcake on our way to the meeting place. I dunno what Cupcake offered her, and again I don’t really care, but I’m not going back to Cupcake.”

“Wow, I really played right into your hooves, huh?” you sigh dismally, resting your cheeks on your hooves.

You wanna be upset about Daisy, either defend her from what Pinkie is accusing her of, or else feel disappointed in Daisy for betraying a pony’s trust like that, but Daisy is a businesswoman and this is just kinda what they do.

You just like to pretend like yer all on the same side, but people like Daisy, and Cherry for that matter, who are all about makin’ their own way and getting ahead, they’re on their OWN side. And you can try and attach yerself to ‘em like a remora, but that don’t make you a shark.

“Ehhhh, kinda?” Pinkie hums, tapping her chin ponderously. “Me and Daisy were always gonna have to part ways before we reached Old Equestria, and I hadn’t figured out my escape plan until you came along and offered me the opportunity of a life time.”

Pinkie turns back to you and smiles brightly.

“Which is why I wanna return the favor, baby,” she says with a cunning grin. “You helped me escape, let me help you escape. From all these responsibilities, all this stuff that’s making you so clearly unhappy. Run away with me!”

You take a deep breath and close your eyes as you prepare to turn Pinkie Pie down. It’s awfully nice what she’s offerin’, at least in theory, but the real world don’t work like that. You can’t just run away from the stuff that you’re meant to do, you can’t just burn all the bridges behind you and move onto the next thing like it’s no big deal.

You open your eyes and open your mouth to speak, but before you can say anything you notice the Friendship Bracelet on your foreleg. You forgot to take it off last night before you slept, but the thing didn’t scrape or scuff ya during the night at all. In fact, it felt kinda natural to have it on.

Twilight… you promised her that you would help her and her friend find the body they’re lookin’ for, and you were gonna find the Apple ponies and their history, figure out yer place in this world finally.

But that was so silly. You can’t just up and leave Ponyville. This is your whole world, it’s all you know. You were never really gonna leave it, even if you tried, you’d just get pushed back into your comfortable little box where nothing ever changes, and the box is always gettin’ smaller.

You look up at Pinkie, who’s fidgeting and jittering with excitement. Her heavy cloak hides the shape of her wings, but you know they’re underneath there; a clear visual sign that the world is bigger than the box you know.

You close your eyes and take a deep breath, before letting it out slow in a long sigh. You open your eyes, open your mouth to speak, looking down at the Friendship Bracelet and then at Pinkie Pie.

“Pinkie,” you give her a nervous smile, “let’s do it.”

“YYYYYYESSSSS!” Pinkie Pie cheers, pumping her hooves. “I was hoping you’d say that, Applejack! Let’s freaking go! POGGERS!”

You can’t help but chuckle at Pinkie’s antics, even though deep in your stomach you feel like you’re gonna throw up. You look down at the Friendship Bracelet and give it a curious glance.

A faint pink light glows from underneath its shell.

Ch. 13 - Meat Prison

How does it feel to be home, TWILIGHT SPARKLE?

If you’re being honest, it feels… strange. It’s been a LONG day, a long couple of days actually since you had to chase that other girl and take back that ocarina. You’ve spent way more time than you’re comfortable with interacting with flesh and blood ponies, and it reminds you just how much you’re not like them.

And while you’re happy to be home, welcomed with open arms by dozens of pony spirits who come out of the woodwork to greet you, it’s hard not to notice that you’re not like the spirits either.

You’re a pony of flesh and blood, shackled to the inside of a meat prison chosen for you by fate’s cruel hoof.

You’ve worked a lot of magic to make your meat prison fit your ideal vision of yourself, making it look more like a mare’s body was a great start for one thing, but you often worry that being stuck in a body of flesh and blood will ALWAYS be a prison, regardless of the look or shape of the body.

You wish that you were spectral. You wish you had the freedom to come and go as you please, to not be bound by any corporeal form or immutable shape.

But the grim reality is that there’s only one way to become a ghost, and you’d rather not start thinking about THAT.

Emerald Ray appears beside you, curling around you like a soft blanket. You appreciate the gesture, but the one benefit to flesh and blood ponies is that you can actually feel the warmth coming from your body; Emerald Ray’s attempt to comfort you is symbolic, she can’t hold your hoof or dry your tears no matter how many times she’s tried.

But the same is true in reverse; Emerald Ray empathizes with your discomfort and struggle with your body, but she misses her own desperately. The benefits you perceive to a spectral existence are no comfort to her.

You are just two miserable ponies, unable to give the other what they need, but you’re both trying your best, and what else can you really do in this world?

The other spirits of your homeland can sense your pain just as Emerald Ray can, and though you could stack a hundred ghosts on top of you and it would feel the same as zero, you once again have to admit that you appreciate the gesture.

You all have nothing, but you all have nothing together, and there’s something beautiful about that.

You sleep through the night and awaken alone, the spirits returning to their own rest come the morning. You didn’t dream, because a brief respite in the realm of dreams is too much to ask, you suppose.

Oh well. When you wake up, you feel the same as when you went to sleep; antsy, disgusting, pain. It takes a while each morning for you to get used to the meat prison again, to swallow the disgust and shame that comes from being a prisoner inside it, but you have things to do today so you try to rush the process as much as you can, and then take off for Ponyville.

You swing by Applejack’s shop, but after knocking on the door for a minute it becomes clear that she isn’t home. This strikes you as odd, but your growling stomach captivates your attention.

Applejack said that things like meals are free in Ponyville, you just have to ask for what you need, and though you don’t relish the thought of having to speak with another pony, you know Emerald Ray would scold you for your foolishness if you didn’t at least try to take care of yourself.

Off to the bakery then; you can wait to figure out what’s going on with Applejack after you have a full stomach.

There’s thankfully very few ponies inside the bakery; the single customer is engaged in a lively conversation with the woman behind the counter, though the latter gives you her attention as you walk inside.

The menu is posted on the counter, all you do is point to what you want and the woman whips it up for you quick as anything, no conversation needed. It’s a small victory, but you treasure it nonetheless.

You finish your meal undisturbed, but your body feels too heavy to move it after you’re finished. Not from the food, to be clear, but from the general crushing malaise of being powerless in a dark and infinite world.

The two women are still conversing, and you realize that you recognize them both; the woman running the bakery is of course that girl you met here yesterday, Honeybelle, and the customer is Berryshine, one of Applejack’s friends.

You can’t really make out their conversation, and you don’t really try, but you find yourself looking in their direction anyway.

How do they do it? How does dialogue and conversation and FRIENDSHIP come so easily for them? One of them tells a joke and they both laugh, and you wonder what you’re doing wrong that you never feel like you can do that. What do they have that you don’t?

Even when you do manage to hold a conversation, you always feel rancid afterwards. Your mind is transfixed by everything you said wrong, every weird gesture, you can feel your failures crawling on your skin like a swarm of ants.

There’s no end to it either, no moment where you have a good social beat and you think to yourself that ah from now on things will be different! You will never ‘make it’ in the way that you want to, there will never be a moment where you feel truly comfortable or okay with yourself.

Oh well.

That’s life.

Ch. 12 - Wow! Library!

It would be a waste of time to tell you to try and contain your excitement, TWILIGHT SPARKLE.

The Ponyville library is, objectively, not a very large building. It’s a single story and you can see the far wall with perfect clarity from the moment you enter, but it is stocked full of books that are meticulously organized, with categories for art, crafts, magic, science, sports, war, history, animals, niche hobbies, and more, all perfectly arranged and with dozens of volumes for each.

It’s overwhelming, you don’t even know where to start!

You end up with a massive pile of books stacked up on a table; it amuses you to think about a scenario where you build a little fort made out of books, but you would get weird looks from the other library-goers, of which there are a few even with a town this small, so you try to forget about it, but the idea still makes you smile.

“Are you enjoying yourself, Twilight my dear?” Emerald Ray asks you as she rouses from her daily slumber.

“Ah, about time you woke up,” you think, communicating telepathically with the spirit housed inside your body. “I’ve been waiting on you, I wanted to ask you something.”

“By all means, ask away,” Emerald Ray says. “My knowledge is yours, after all.”

“Cool, oh and also yes I am enjoying myself, thank you for asking,” you clear your throat to help you arrange your thoughts but you accidentally do it a bit too loudly and get a couple annoyed glances from ponies deep in their books. “I wanted to ask you about the dungeon in our backyard.”

“You want to know what’s inside it?” your spectral companion asks and you confirm that yes obviously that’s what you want to know. “I’m sorry to disappoint you, but the answer is ‘nothing’. Or at least, nothing of any real value. If there was anything down there worth taking, I would have opened it myself already and had you extract the treasure.

“But alas, it is simply a vault crafted by an Old Equestrian wizard, and not a particularly renowned one at that. The only treasures down there would be ones of personal significance to the wizard who stored them, completely useless things to you and me.”

“Huh,” you muse. “I’m a little disappointed.”

“I thought you might be,” Emerald Ray says.

“And here I was worried there was like an ancient evil sealed down there or something,” you hum.

“No, the ancient evil is sealed someplace else,” Emerald Ray says; you can’t entirely tell if she’s just joking, and quite frankly you’re too afraid to ask.

“So it shouldn’t be an issue if the ponies around here delved into it?” you ask, just to be on the safe side.

“It shouldn’t be any more of an issue than them delving through any other part of the ruins,” Emerald answers, and you feel a little relieved if you’re being honest. “Though if they can’t find a way to interact with the unicorn magic that keeps it sealed, I doubt the earth ponies will make much headway with it regardless.”

“Unicorn magic?” you react with surprise, though after a moment you realize that’s a foolish reaction. “No, I guess that makes sense.”

Just because this region is home to only the earth ponies now doesn’t mean it was that way in Old Equestria, and you aren’t so foolish that you would deny the fact of unicorns’ historical significance. You would have to be pretty ignorant to think that they were only ever myth.

Though that does redouble your curiosity, now that you think about it. Emerald Ray says there’s nothing noteworthy inside, but if it was sealed by a unicorn wizard, there might be historical evidence of unicorns’ existence inside, or at the very least something of some cultural or novel value.

Hm, you are intrigued.

You put a pin in that curiosity for now though, and decide you’ll just talk to Applejack about it tomorrow. For now, you would like to focus on the vast amount of delicious reading material laying in front of you.

And focus on it you do, for several hours that only feels like several minutes, until eventually a librarian comes along to politely inform you that the library is closing.

You’re disappointed, but don’t want to put the library workers out, so you simply tell them you understand and trot toward the exit, making a mental tally along the way of what topics you’d like to revisit the next time you swing by.

You hear the pounding of a hoof on a wooden table and it makes you jump. You instinctively turn back to look for the cause of the sound, and you see an irate looking earth pony with fiery hair arguing with one of the librarians.

“I’m not leaving until I finish my research!” the fiery-haired mare says, in a voice that is far too loud to be appropriate for a library.

The librarian tries to tell her that the library is closing, but the fiery-haired mare is resolute and refuses to budge, the two librarians on standby looking helplessly at each other.

“Ma’am,” you say sternly, walking toward the fiery-haired mare, “they asked you to leave. You need

to respect the rules of the library.”

“Great, ANOTHER interruption,” the mare says, not even looking up at you from her book. “Get lost.”

“You’re making things difficult for the librarians,” you say coldly, “I’m not okay with that.”

While generally speaking, you HATE sticking your neck out for living ponies, it does feel weird to see someone causing problems for other ponies and just standing by doing nothing. You feel compelled to intervene if nopony else will, and it helps that librarians offer an invaluable service and are some of the few living ponies you respect just on principle.

“I don’t care,” the woman says. “Leave me alone. This is the last time I’ll say it.”

“Is that a threat?” you scoff, stamping your hoof on the ground.

Finally, the woman looks up from her book and glares at you.

“It’s a warning.”

Your attempts to intimidate the woman aren’t working, she isn’t afraid of you. The librarians are afraid though, and their fear should be sufficient for charging your magic if you decide that you need to remove this woman by force.

And quite frankly, you think that might be the best option. Not simply for the rude way she’s treated the librarians, but for daring to speak to you like you’re some nuisance. You’ll show her just how scary you can be.

“Don’t lose your head, Twilight Sparkle,” Emerald Ray reminds you, just like she ALWAYS does, and you know that she’s right, but sooner or later you’re gonna have to lose your head before the dang thing explodes from the stress.

But fighting inside a library feels bad, so maybe you should just—

“Firecracker Burst,” a woman’s voice calls out, and the fiery-haired mare’s ears twitch and her lips curl into a scowl. She must be Firecracker Burst.

The woman speaking walks up beside you, and while it takes you a moment to recognize her, you remember seeing her at Applejack’s shop. Cherry Spices, the woman planning that expedition you were thinking about earlier.

“What do you want, Cherry Spices?” Firecracker says.

“I want you to stop making me and my company look bad by association,” Cherry says, her brow furrowed in apparent contempt, “with these childish antics of yours.

“I came here to collect you, and the librarian informs me you’ve been not only refusing to leave past closing time, but acting like a complete boor to the staff? Shameful behavior, and unprofessional to boot. Not the kind of thing I tolerate in my peers, Firecracker.”

“Tch, whatever,” Firecracker pushes her chair out from behind the table and trots off, pushing past you and one of the librarians. You’re pretty sure she did that on purpose, and it leaves a sour taste in your mouth. “If my research isn’t up to snuff for the expedition tomorrow, you will only have yourself to blame.”

“Speak to me like that one more time, Firecracker,” Cherry Spices dons a polite smile and tilts her head ever so slightly, “and you’ll never be hired ever again.”

“Whatever,” Firecracker groans and leaves the library. The fear you can feel radiating off the librarians hasn’t subsided, it’s only be transferred to Cherry Spices.

“I apologize for my colleague,” Cherry Spices says with a dainty bow. “I promise such uncouth behavior won’t happen again.”

The librarians thank Cherry Spices, and they thank you as well which makes you feel weird; you didn’t DO anything. As the library closes, you and Cherry Spices exit together, and though you only walk with her a few steps, you can’t help but feel a bit uneasy. This woman makes you nervous.

Though you suppose that most living ponies make you nervous when you’re around them, so maybe that isn’t much of a feat.

“You’re Applejack’s new friend, aren’t you?”

Crud, she’s talking to you.

“Uh, yeah,” you say stiffly, eager to simply walk away and not have a conversation.

“Look out for her, won’t you?” Cherry Spices says with a smile. “She’s a sweetheart.”

“Sure,” you blurt out and start walking, and thankfully she doesn’t try to stop you or say anything else, allowing you to escape from the worst case scenario: having a conversation with another pony.

Ch. 11 - Honest Business

Look alive, APPLEJACK.

“Oh, who’s your friend, Daisy Dreams?” the pink pony who just bounced out of Daisy Dreams’ warehouse looks at you with a sparkle in her eyes, but you can barely focus on anything aside from said pony’s WINGS.

“You’re a—you’re—” you stammer weakly, unable to get the words out through your shock.

She’s a PEGASUS! They’re real after all! That is… A LOT to take in!

“Pinkie Pie! Get BACK inside!” Daisy Dreams growls and shoves the pink pony back into the warehouse, slamming the door on her, then looking around anxiously to make sure she didn’t disturb anypony; it’s pretty late at night for slammin’ doors after all.

“Pe-pe-pega-pe-p-p-pe—” you continue stammering like a goof, at a complete loss for what else to do.

“Applejack, I can explain,” Daisy Dreams says.

“You really were smugglin’ a pony!” you exclaim, and Daisy Dreams’ ears go flat against her head.

“I mean, yeah,” she says awkwardly, “but it’s not like I kidnapped her! She’s the one who hired me. I can explain everything, but I don’t want to do it out here. Please, come inside.”

You bite your lip and avert your gaze; you don’t really know what to do here. If you go inside and she like jumps you or something… well honestly, you could probably take her. But still, you don’t know how much you really wanna get involved with—

“Applejack, please,” Daisy Dreams pleads to you. “You know me, I’m an honest pony trying to run an honest business. I promise I can explain everything, I just need you to come inside and listen to me.”

You got a couple options, Applejack.

Number one, you can trust Daisy Dreams and hear out her explanation, and potentially get drawn into a massive outside world where pegasi and potentially unicorns or even alicorns are real, completely shattering everything you thought you knew about modern Equestria.

Number two, you can tell Cherry Spices that she was right and let this be her problem, though you don’t really like that option cuz you don’t know what Daisy Dreams is up to and as much as you like Cherry Spices, you don’t really trust her to take things lightly with a business rival like Daisy Dreams OR a pegasus.

Number three, you can just walk away now and pretend this never happened and that you didn’t see nothin’.

All of these options suck but number one sucks the least, so you let out a frustrated sigh and brace yourself for the world shattering.

“Alright, Daisy Dreams,” you say begrudgingly, “you got me.”

Daisy Dreams puts a hoof over her chest and sighs in relief, before opening up the warehouse and letting you inside. It’s actually really nice in here, with a couple of soft lookin’ beds in the corner and kept super tidy.

“Oh hey, you’re back!” the pegasus says, waving enthusiastically at Daisy Dreams.

“Pinkie Pie, what did I TELL you about blowing your cover?!” Daisy Dreams scolds the pegasus, who shrinks into herself sheepishly for like exactly one second before popping back up with renewed enthusiasm.

“Lmao sorry, I just can’t help it!” she jumps and dons a bright smile, fidgeting her wings. You’re still not used to them and you can’t stop yourself from starin’ like an idiot. “I see a new friend and I just gotta introduce myself!”

“You’re lucky,” Daisy Dreams groans. “If it’d been anypony but Applejack, I don’t know what we would do, but Applejack’s a friend and I trust her.”

“Th-thanks, Daisy,” you say reflexively, your eyes still glued to the pegasus’ wings.

“What’re you starin’ at?” Pinkie Pie giggles. “You never seen a pegasus before?”

“I really haven’t,” you admit.

“I TOLD you, Pinkie Pie!” Daisy Dreams slaps a hoof against her forehead. “No one here has ever seen a pegasus! The earth ponies have never seen pegasi or unicorn, even I thought they were just myths until… well, y’know.”

“What, you meant that LITERALLY?” Pinkie Pie asks, her mouth agape. “I thought you were just like… doing a bit or something.”

“Yes, Pinkie, I meant it literally,” Daisy Dreams gives a long suffering sigh. “Why did you think we had to sneak you into Ponyville? If anypony sees you, it’ll be complete chaos!”

“I thought it was just to avoid Cupcake’s goons,” Pinkie Pie shrugs, and you are starting to realize that you have fallen into the deep end of a very large pool. You need to start gettin’ your facts straight.

“Somepony wanna tell me what’s goin’ on?” you ask helplessly, turning to Daisy Dreams, but you can’t entirely let yourself look away from the pegasus. The shock is starting to wear off but in its place is the realization that she is GORGEOUS. “Daisy Dreams, you said you were gonna explain yourself?”

“Yeah,” Daisy Dreams sighs. “Geez, where do I even begin?”

“I can do the explaining!” Pinkie Pie chimes in and raises her hoof.

“NO,” Daisy Dreams immediately shuts Pinkie down. “You keep your mouth shut, or else we’ll be here all night. Why don’t you go grab a juice box from the fridge?”

“You got it, boss!” Pinkie gives a salute and bounces off into another room, and you can practically feel the weight falling off of Daisy Dreams’ shoulders.

“She a bit of a handful?” you ask with a playful chuckle.

“Yeah,” Daisy answers seriously. “But it is what it is. Anyway, I owe you that explanation.”

“Hit me,” you say, sitting on your haunches and listening intently.

“Basically,” Daisy says, “I’m bringing Pinkie Pie away from her homeland and into the open arms of a mutual friend of ours, someone who should be waiting for us in the ruins behind Ponyville.”

“How’d you get wrapped up in this?” you ask.

“Like I said, a mutual friend hired me,” Daisy says. “But that’s all I’m gonna say on the matter. I told you I’d explain what’s going on with Pinkie Pie, but what’s going on with ME is my own business.”

“Fair enough,” you shrug. “And you had to smuggle her through town, cuz if any of the earth ponies saw her—“

“Like I told her,” Daisy says coldly, “it’d be chaos.”

“Personally, I really like chaos,” Pinkie Pie bounces back into the room, talking with her mouth full of apple. “But I can be a good girl, I’ll stay quiet.”

Daisy Dreams rolls her eyes at that remark.

“Hey, Pinkie Pie,” you say, bashfully rubbing your neck. “Sorry I freaked out earlier, I just have really never seen a pegasus my whole life. I thought they were just mythical or whatever.”

“No worries!” Pinkie Pie beams. “I’m surprised though, can’t you just look up pegasi on the internet? Go to hot pegasi in your area dot com or somethin’?”

“We don’t HAVE the internet, Pinkie,” Daisy Dreams groans. “I told you this already.”

“WHAT?!” Pinkie exclaims in shock, jumping in the air and staying afloat with her wings, and you put your hooves over your mouth to stop yourself from cursing in surprise. Her wings actually work! They ain’t just for show!

“We don’t have the internet,” Daisy repeats, sounding more and more exhausted with each word, “we don’t have phones either.”

“Oh, so y’all just use laptops still?” Pinkie hums. “I would’ve thought you were still on flip phones at least, I was kinda hoping for it tbh, flip phones are cute.”

“We don’t have computers either,” Daisy says. “We don’t have that kind of technology AT ALL.”

“YOU DON’T HAVE COMPUTERS AT ALL?!” Pinkie shouts, once again hopping into the air and flapping her wings. It’s just as impressive to you the second time. “You were SERIOUS about all that stuff?! Wow, I thought you were just on some like charming rustic cavepony thing, Daisy Dreams. But this place is like the legit boonies, huh?”

“Yep,” Daisy shrugs, and then affects a charming smirk. “But we also don’t have a fascist megacorporation dictating our every move, which seems like a good tradeoff if you ask me.”

“Heh, you got me there!” Pinkie says with a bright smile.

“Somepony wanna fill me in here?” you say awkwardly, tilting your head in complete and utter confusion. “What’s a computer?”

“Applejack, I love you, but I’m sorry,” Daisy Dreams sighs and shakes her head, “I am NOT explaining what a computer is to you. I barely understand the bloody things myself, and trust me, you’re better off not knowing.”

“Relax, I got this,” Pinkie holds her head up proudly. She holds her hoof into the air, and an array of green sigils appear around her hoof and suddenly she’s holding a little pink rectangle; the face of it lights up bright white and she enthusiastically thrusts it into your face. “Check THIS out!”

“What am I lookin’ at?” you blink twice, not even sure where to start. You get that she’s got some kinda magic doohickey, but you’re not sure what the big deal is.

“It’s like a library in the palm of my hoof!” Pinkie says proudly, and NOW you’re interested! You bet Twilight would love that. “Except,” Pinkie taps at the rectangle and puffs up her cheeks, “I can’t connect to the internet right now, so actually this thing is a worthless brick that does nothing.”

“Uh…” you are no longer impressed.

“We’ll put a pin in the computer thing for right now!” Pinkie laughs, making the rectangle disappear.

“Anyway,” you chuckle; now that you’re starting to get a read on Pinkie’s vibe, she’s pretty cool. “Sounds like everything you’re doin’ here is on the up and up, Daisy Dreams. I’m sorry I doubted you.”

“It’s no problem,” Daisy says with a smile. “I appreciate you giving me a chance, Applejack. I know this is a lot.”

“Anytime,” you say with a nod. “Anyhoo, I’ll be takin’ off for the night. See ya around, Daisy. And uhhh, I guess… I dunno if I’ll be seein’ you around, will I, Pinkie?”

“Awww, you’re leaving already?” Pinkie falls on the floor and she looks like some kinda weird mix of a deflated balloon and a melting pudding cup. “But we just met!”

“It’s just as well,” Daisy Dreams says, “we were just about to head to the ruins and meet with our friend anyway. Figured it would be good to move under night’s cover, but Pinkie Pie here has been difficult about getting back into the suitcase.”

“I don’t WAAAAANNAAAAAA go back in the suitcase!” Pinkie whines, flopping around on the ground and banging her hooves on the floor. “It’s cramped in there!”

“I know, Pinkie,” Daisy Dreams sighs, and she walks over to Pinkie Pie and puts a comforting hoof on her head. “But we’re SO close to getting you home free, and we can’t take a chance of anypony seeing you.”

“I know,” Pinkie Pie pouts.

“Hey, I got an idea,” you chime in, and the two women look at you expectantly. “All we gotta do is hide Pinkie Pie’s wings, right? As long as nopony knows she’s a pegasus, she can walk around town like normal. Let’s just get her a cloak.”

“HEY, YEAH!” Pinkie cheers, jumping into the air and in one swift motion she creates a black shroud from nothing, those same green sigils you saw before hovering in the air around her as she puts it on, the cloak big enough to hide the silhouette of her wings. “Lookit that! No wings!”

“How did you—” you blink, and then shake your head. “Never mind, it’s not important. I can’t give you the tour tonight, Pinkie, cuz it’s dark and everypony’s asleep, but tomorrow morning I could—”

“NO,” Daisy Dreams says sternly, surprising both you and Pinkie Pie. “Pinkie, we’re getting you home TONIGHT, that’s what we agreed on, remember?”

“I know, but…” Pinkie shrinks down, her ears going flat and her lips curling into a pout. “I don’t wanna go back in the suitcaaaaaaase!”

“It’s ONE NIGHT, Pinkie,” Daisy Dreams sighs.

“Exactly, Daisy, it’s just one night,” you say, walking up between Daisy and Pinkie and putting a comforting hoof on both. “Can you just let her have this?”

“Pleeeeeease?” Pinkie pleads, pressing her hooves together and giving Daisy Dreams a really impressive set of puppy dog eyes.

“I…” Daisy Dreams bites her lip.

“Tell ya what,” you say enthusiastically, excited about a really good idea you just had, “I’ll even take her off yer hooves tonight. She can sleep at the shop, with me.”

“Yeah!” Pinkie cheers. “We can tell spooky ghost stories and roast marshmallows and I can bake you a lava cake!”

Daisy Dreams does not look as enthusiastic about this plan, her face scrunching up in concern.

“If anything happens to her, I’m—” Daisy murmurs.

“I won’t let anything happen to her, you can count on me,” you say softly, putting your hooves on Daisy Dreams’ shoulders. “I’ll take her home tonight, give her the tour first thing in the morning, and have her back with you in no time. I’ll even keep Cherry Spices off yer tail, to boot!

“You don’t need to do everything all by yourself, Daisy,” you say with a self-deprecating chuckle. “Believe me, I know how it is.”

“Promise me everything will be okay,” Daisy Dreams whispers.

“I promise,” you say confidently. “Let me take care of everything. I’ve got you.”

“And this is what you want, Pinkie?” Daisy Dreams asks.

“Mhm!” Pinkie nods excitedly.

Daisy Dreams sighs and hangs her head.

“First thing in the morning!” she says sternly, pressing a hoof against your chest. “You bring her back to me, okay? I’m counting on you.”

“Swear on my ma and pa!” you say, nodding affirmatively. “You can count on me!”

“I know I can count on you, Applejack,” Daisy sighs, but this time she has a slight smile on her face. “Okay, fine. You can take her for tonight.”

“YESSSSSS!” Pinkie pumps her hooves. “Goodbye, stinky suitcase!”

“But you’d better not let anypony else know that you’re a pegasus!” Daisy Dreams taps Pinkie on the chest.

“Relax, this is a heavy cloak,” Pinkie says, “I couldn’t get my wings out even if I wanted to.”

“Okay, okay fine,” Daisy sighs and starts gently pushing you and Pinkie toward the door. “Thank you, Applejack. I appreciate you.”

“I won’t let you down, hon,” you say, bowing your head to Daisy Dreams before hopping out the door, Pinkie Pie hopping out just behind you. You turn to her and the two of you smile at each other. “C’mon, Pinkie Pie, maybe you can tell me what this internet thing is about.”

“Oh, Applejack,” Pinkie Pie grins ear to ear, “you are in for a TREAT.”

Ch. 10 - Quite a Day

Quite a day, huh APPLEJACK?

Getting to know Twilight was a blast, seeing so many familiar faces return to Ponyville was a treat, and heavens know getting cider with your pals is always a grand ol’ time.

You’re still buzzin’ from all the social interaction as you say goodnight to Sweetcream Scoops and Berryshine, and it’s still pretty early in the night so you decide to swing by Cherry Spices’ place to see if she’s still up to talkin’ to you about her expedition. Hopefully she’s not too mad about you being late!

Cherry Spices has a humble wee villa by the river, so it’s an easy matter of followin’ the water to get to her, and you find her sitting outside the villa. You’re relieved that she’s still up and about tonight, and her eyes light up as she sees you approach, which puts yer mind at ease even more.

“Applejack, you absolute doll!” Cherry Spices cheers as she embraces you in a big hug, rockin’ you back and forth. “I’m so glad you made it!”

“Sorry I’m late,” you say bashfully, rubbing the back of your neck.

“Pffft, water under the bridge, sweetheart,” Cherry Spices scoffs, and then points at the nearby bridge. “You see that? Exactly what I’m talking about.”

“Hehe, I appreciate it,” you say with a bright smile. “So what’s up? You told me you were plannin’ on goin’ into the dungeon in the scrapyard, but that place is locked up tighter than a rattlesnake with uhhh, with uh some kinda thing. Y’know what I’m tryna say here?”

“I do, and I understand your skepticism,” Cherry Spices hums. “But I’ve assembled a crack team of scholars, demolition experts, and muscle. If we can’t make it into that dungeon, well then I’m afraid nopony can.”

“Demolition experts, huh?” you narrow your eyes and puff up your cheeks. “Cherry, I sure hope you ain’t thinkin’ of causin’ too much trouble in them ruins.”

“Not at all!” Cherry exclaims, holding her head up high. “In fact, our main demolitions expert is ALSO our main scholar. She’s a very thorough and historically minded pony, specializing in clearing away dangerous or obstructive debris without damaging the relevant historically significant artifacts. You should see her in action, she’s quite the miracle worker.”

“Anypony I know?” you ask curiously, already intrigued to meet this so-called miracle worker.

“Her name’s Firecracker Burst,” Cherry Spices says, and you give a helpless shrug. Doesn’t ring a bell. “I’ve worked with her a few times, I know she’s good. I’d say you two would get along famously, but she’s a rather introverted sort so social interaction isn’t exactly her forte. But she gets the job done, and that’s what counts.”

“Sounds like you got all yer ducks in a row,” you say happily, feeling quite impressed at Cherry Spices’ organizational efforts. “What do you even need me for?”

“Nopony knows this town or those ruins like you,” Cherry Spices says, putting her hoof underneath your chin and lifting your head up a bit. “And I know you are very meticulous about doing things the proper way, so as not to cause friction with the spirits that linger in the area. I’d like you to guide us through the ruins so that we can get this done with as little fuss as possible.”

“Aw, shucks, I appreciate—“

“But more importantly,” Cherry Spices puts her hoof over your lips and smiles at you, “if we can unlock this dungeon, this is going to be the gold rush of a lifetime. You’ve worked hard, Applejack. Harder than anypony I’ve met. You deserve to be a part of this big break.”

“Th-thank you, Cherry Spices,” you mumble awkwardly, your cheeks burnin’ at like a hundred degrees. It feels good to be praised for your hard work, but for her to lay it on so thick is kinda embarrassing, but like in a nice way. “I—I dunno what to say.”

“Say you’ll help us,” Cherry Spices says with a bright smile.

“Yeah, of course,” you nod confidently. “I mean, I was gonna help ya even before you said all that nice stuff about me.”

“Excellent!” Cherry Spices cheers and grabs you by the hooves. “I knew I could count on you, my sweet doll!”

Your face turns all red again; you’re not sure how to feel about all her affectionate pet names, other than that you are maybe a little too lesbian to just be called a ‘sweet doll’ by a beautiful woman.

“I am trying not to get my hopes up TOO high,” Cherry explains, “but I feel like unlocking the secrets of the dungeon will play a big part in understanding the true mystery of Old Equestria. The power of alicorn magic.”

“Alicorn magic?” you ask blankly, and your mind immediately turns to Emerald Ray. She claimed to be an alicorn herself, and you thought she was just pullin’ yer leg, but the more you think about it… the less sure you are. “Isn’t that stuff… I dunno, wasn’t it all like smoke and mirror stuff from back in those days?”

“I’m surprised to hear you say something so off the mark, dear,” Cherry Spices arches an eyebrow at you, and now you feel like you’ve been put on the spot.

“Well, I just mean that—“

“The alicorns shaped the landscape of Equestria as we know it,” Cherry explains passionately, and you elect to just let her talk over you, since you apparently have no idea what you’re talking about. “True, their power seems a bit hard to believe when placed against the rather humble magic of earth ponies, but they were very much real.

“And I believe the secrets of their power aren’t as long forgotten as many ponies believe.”

“What makes you say that?” you ask curiously.

“I’ve traveled many places, Applejack,” Cherry Spices continues, her passion only intensifying, “and I’ve heard many rumors of winged ponies who live in cities that fly through the air, of ponies with magic horns hiding deep within the forests.”

“You really believe all that stuff?” you ask, kicking your hoof in the dirt. “About pegasi and unicorns still bein’ real, and living out there in hiding? Seems a little farfetched, don’t it?”

“I’m surprised a historically minded pony like you DOESN’T believe,” Cherry says. “You’ve seen the art and writing in Old Equestria, you know that pegasi and unicorns must have existed once. What makes you think they’re not still out there?”

“I guess it’s just that, if they ARE out there, then the world is a lot bigger than I always thought it was,” you say bashfully, sitting down on your haunches and hanging your head shamefully. “And that’s scary, to think there’s a whole world out there and I understand so little of it.”

“Applejack,” Cherry Spices tilts up your head, holding her hoof gently under your chin, “if we are able to unlock the secrets of this dungeon, the world is about to get a whole lot bigger. I need you to be prepared for that.”

You don’t know what to say. You want to be helpful to Cherry Spices and her expedition, and you want things to go well for her, but… well, you already said it yourself. It’s scary to think there’s a whole world out there. The world outside your hometown could be so very big, and you are just one little pony.

“That’s a beautiful piece of jewelry you’ve got on,” Cherry Spices says.

“Oh, this?” you ask, jingling the Friendship Bracelet. “A friend helped me make it.”

“That cute little purple thing, right?” Cherry asks with a knowing grin.

“Heh, yep,” you nod. “Twilight Sparkle. She seems like a real sweetheart.”

“Always warms my heart to hear about you making new friends,” Cherry Spices smiles, and then her ears perk up and she taps her cheek. “Oh! Speaking of friends, have you seen Daisy Dreams?”

“I ran into her this morning, yeah,” you say. “Why do you ask?”

“Watch out for her, will you?” Cherry Spices says coldly. “She’s up to something sketchy. I think she might be smuggling a pony.”

“EXCUSE ME?” you exclaim, taking a step backwards in shock. “Cherry, you can’t just accuse someone of smuggling a pony!”

“You think I make that claim lightly, Applejack?” Cherry glares at you, her tone as firm as a solid stone. “Daisy Dreams, bless her heart, is a business rival, so I always need to keep some kind of eye on her. But my birds in her organization are being bizarrely mum about her recent activities.

“There are only a few things that would cause them to be so tight-lipped, even to me, and other factors at play make me believe it’s pony smuggling. Likely some kind of criminal hired her services to transport them from one place to another under the radar.”

“That’s… quite a claim,” you say flatly. Your mind immediately goes to the giant suitcase Daisy Dreams was traveling with, the one that was conspicuously pony-sized.

There’s no way, it couldn’t be… could it? Nah, no shot. Now you’re just being completely paranoid!

“Whatever she’s up to, I don’t like it,” Cherry Spices sighs and shakes her head. “But I’ve got my hooves full with this expedition, so Daisy Dreams’ mysterious goings-on will have to wait.”

“I see,” suddenly you’re not feelin’ so well. “I think I’m gonna go turn in for the night, Cherry. It’s gettin’ late. I’ll talk to you tomorrow about the expedition, okay?”

“Sounds good,” Cherry Spices nods. “I can count on you to come with, right?”

“Yeah, I’ll be there,” you force a slight smile, for your own sake as much as for Cherry’s. “Goodnight, Cherry Spices.”

“Goodnight, Applejack,” she says sweetly. “Pleasant dreams.”

You walk away from the conversation feeling dizzy. There’s a lot to unpack there, kinda like there would be a lot to unpack from a suitcase that is conspicuously the size of a pony!

No, don’t start going there. You got no reason or basis to be worried about Daisy Dreams, she’s a sweet pony who wouldn’t get involved with messed up stuff like smuggling criminals back and forth.

…

But maybe it wouldn’t hurt to just go check up on her. Or at the very least, give her a head’s up that Cherry Spices has an eye on her. That sounds like somethin’ a friend would do.

You head on over to Daisy Dreams’ place, she owns a little warehouse on the northern side of town. The perfect place to hide a smuggled pony—no, stop that! You’re gonna be cool about this and not get all paranoid and freaked out!

Daisy Dreams is a nice gal, and you trust her. Which is exactly what makes it so scary to imagine that she might be up to no good, cuz if you trust her and she’s a bad pony, what does that make YOU?

You note that you are not doing a very good job at being cool about this.

You knock at the door of Daisy Dreams’ warehouse, your heart pounding in your ears. You sit there in silence, wondering what you’re even doing here. You feel completely insane, about to ask a friend such a drastic, accusatory, and downright ludicrous question.

You’re just about ready to pack up and leave, when the door opens and Daisy Dreams walks outside, a kind smile on her face. She looks exhausted, as she often does, but you can tell she’s trying her best.

If you’re gonna broach this topic, Applejack, you need to do it with some sense of tact and dignity.

“Oh! Hello, Applejack,” Daisy Dreams says. “What can I—“

“Are you smugglin’ ponies?” you blurt out. “Cherry Spices said you might be.”

Absolute dead silence.

“Ehhhh, e-excuse me?” Daisy Dreams laughs awkwardly, and you shamefully bury your face in your hooves.

“I’m sorry, Daisy Dreams, I dunno what I was thinkin’,” you shake your head and mutter into your hooves. “My brain is all screwed up on account of me bein’ stupid.”

“Uh, what did Cherry Spices say to you exactly?” Daisy Dreams asks.

“She said you were up to somethin’ sketchy,” you explain, “and that her people in your group weren’t tellin’ her anything.”

“So she DOES have people in my group,” Daisy Dreams mutters, tapping her chin. She turns back to you and lets out a slight laugh. “But what made her, or you, think I was smuggling ponies? My business is in collecting scrap, same as yours.”

“C-cuz you got… that big suitcase, it’s like… pony size.”

The more you speak, the more stupid you sound.

“Oh, is that all?” Daisy Dreams laughs. “That’s for hauling scrap, duh. I don’t have a lot of horsepower, so I gotta lug a lot of the loot around myself. I need a big pack so I can carry as much as possible.”

“Yeah,” you sigh and hang your head, feeling equal parts relieved and humiliated. “OF COURSE that’s what it was. I’m so sorry, Daisy Dreams, I dunno what came over me.”

“It’s okay, Applejack,” Daisy Dreams chuckles. “I know that talking to Cherry Spices can be intoxicating, she could get a pony to believe the sky is red.”

“You can say that again,” you say, and you and Daisy share a good laugh.

“Hey Daisy, who you talking to?!” suddenly a bright pink pony you’ve never seen before comes bouncing out of Daisy Dreams’ warehouse, a big smile on her face. Your eyes widen at the sight of her, and your jaw drops.

“Pinkie Pie! I told you to stay inside!” Daisy Dreams chastises the pink pony with a shrill whisper, but you barely hear it; you’re completely taken aback by the appendages flared out on either side of the pink pony’s barrel.

This pony has WINGS.