Chapter 9

A Cold Hearth

"There was an uneasy silence between us. I wanted to answer her, but I honestly didn't know why I was here. Why I was risking my life to save this pony…"

I half limped, half stumbled through the snow, trying to blink away the stars in my eyes as Candy Cane led me up the street.

For hours now, she had navigated the streets for me, turning corners or leading me through dark, dimly lit underpasses that tunneled through the collapsed, concrete behemoths of old. Every twist and every turn were detours she steered through with absolute confidence. It became apparent to me that she had been through this place countless times.

She led, and I followed, closely, in silence. I wasn't exactly the kind of pony who reveled in small talk, so much of the walk up till now had been a quiet one. Candy Cane would spare me a few curious, furtive glances every now and then, but besides that, nopony spoke a word.

We were still just two strangers.

Our pace was beginning to slow, however, all thanks to my exhausted state. A wheezing breath erupted from my lips, and I stopped for a moment, falling to my knees, too tired to continue like this.

Candy Cane heard the hoofsteps behind her stop, and swung her head around to see me lying in the snow. She knelt next to me, and I heard her voice for the first time in nearly an hour.

"What's wrong?"

"Just ah … heh …" I chuckled, face-hoofing tiresomely. "I'm just feeling a little under the weather, right now." She gave me a worried, yet exasperated look. My bitter sarcasm was lost on her. Being hurt in any sort of way didn't seem like a laughing matter to her, but a wry chortle every now was a sign that I was still lucid enough to say those things deliberately.

She regarded my long, weary face with soft eyes. "That detour we took out of that sinkhole was rough. Those platforms just weren't stable enough to jump on …" she sighed, dabbing a hoof in the snow. My, she was a mind reader.

After that stunt we pulled off to heave ourselves from that sinkhole … Goddesses. My horn wasn't the only thing that was burned out. Hopping from roof to roof, we had suffered a terrible cave in that had forced us back to bottom of that snowy abyss. She had found another way out, but it was an exceptionally long ordeal; I was shocked, really. I never knew I could rock-climb.

"No, no, it helped get whatever blood I'd left in me flowing," I said, bitterly, grinning at her. At her hooves I laid, limply. My muscles ached and my eyes begged me to shut them closed. I had nearly passed out from my previous exertions; it was difficult to do anything strenuous after having lost so much blood.

"We can't stick around for too long," Candy Cane said quickly yet quietly, double-taking over both her shoulders. "This part of town belongs to the cafones."

"Lovely," I crooned, staring blankly at the snow. A yawn parted my cracked lips, and I winced as I inhaled a breath too large for my lungs.

I looked up, groggily. "Didn't you hear them, earlier? They think we're dead."

She crossed her left foreleg over her right. "I'd rather be safe than sorry," Candy Cane intoned, darkly.

"Okay … but let me just lie here for a bit." I groaned, the powder biting my livid flesh. Sleep. I sleep here now. Sighing, I lowered my chin into the pale, clenching my eyes, and shuddering violently. "Damn that's cold." My eyes fluttered open at the mare's worried gaze. "It's alright," I murmured faintly as I shivered in the snow. "The cold reminds me that I'm still alive."

She knelt beside me and laid a hoof on my forehead, muttering to herself. Her hoof was icy cold against the frost melting surface of my flesh, and I shivered at her touch. The look she gave me suggested that whatever she saw was not good.

"What's the diagnosis, doc?" I chattered through my teeth.

"You've a fever, likely caused by your magical burnout," the mare remarked.

She pursed her lips, conjuring a glowing orb of light. Candy Cane cupped a hoof over one of my eyes and levitated the orb in front of the other. My eyelid twitched sluggishly, closing slightly, but my retina did not dilate. A flat, ohhhh, seethed out of her lips.

At least when she found something bad she didn't berate you like Doctor Stitches did. Because what she saw in my twitching eyeball didn't seem too good either.

She exchanged hooves and tested the other, summoning from her a terse exhale.

I groaned, "Isn't it just wonderful being a glorified earth pony with a horn?"

"You just need to rest. Sleep it off. Just not here, Red Dawn."

I sighed, letting my head roll back into the snow.

"Can … can you still walk?"

I shook my head free from the drifts, cringing as that only worsened my headache. "Sure," I winced. "I can do you a few squats if you want, doc."

"I'm a nurse, Red Dawn," she stated, somewhat annoyed by my pain induced quips.

With a foreleg and a swirl of her gray magic, the mare pulled me back to my aching hooves. We stood there in the snow in silence as she probably wondered what in the Goddesses' names was she was going to do with me. I was deadweight at this point.

She hung her head and sighed, exhaustedly. The irritation faded from her expression as her eyes softened once more. Candy Cane touched my shoulder with a tender hoof, before pointing down the street. "Come on, we're almost there," she whispered. "I'm sure you'd prefer a bed to a blanket of snow?"

I smiled faintly, peering into the mare's gentle, gray eyes.

"Whatever puts me to sleep the fastest, I guess. That is, if hypothermia doesn't get me first." She frowned at that, but motioned me to follow her with a swish of her swirly tail.

As we plodded through the snow-swept streets, the uncomfortable silence between us was beginning to settle in again. That's alright, I was too tired to care in the first place. But Candy Cane's gait slowed so that we were walking shoulder to shoulder.

"How long have you been out here?" she asked suddenly, glancing at me.

I thought for a moment. I wasn't even sure … it felt like I've been wandering this wintry wasteland for months – no – years now. The bags under my eyes and my grime encrusted … everything … made me feel as if I had been away from home for an eternity.

In the stable, there had never been a day when I hadn't had a shower, or a full meal, or eight hours of undisturbed sleep. It felt like an eternity since I had lived in the comforts of Stable 91.

I stared longingly at the snow that crunched beneath my hooves. "Too long," I grunted, tersely.

Candy Cane hesitated, looking away for a moment, she parting her mane as it bobbed in front of one of her eyes. "You … you look like you've been through so much in such little time."

"You don't even know half of it," I replied, severely. I caught her looking at me expectantly in my peripherals as I stared onward and into the dimly lit street. "Ponies died, and I lived." I gulped down the lump in my throat. "That's all …" I muttered, with grim uncertainty.

The mare turned her troubled gaze away from me and we parted the shifting drifts in silence. Candy Cane's pace began to quicken, and so did mine.

Nearly ten long minutes later, she stopped in her tracks and we found ourselves standing before our final destination. The inn, I supposed.

"Is this the place?" I asked Candy Cane.

She nodded as I trotted up to the door. The inn was a quaint, cozy-looking two story building with windows that glowed with giddy, dancing firelight.

At least that's what I had imagined it may have looked like two centuries ago. As I walked up the icy, blackened steps, I peered curiously through the boarded up windows which belied any suggestion that there was life behind this door. I raised a hoof to its thick, battered wooden surface, and knocked.

A few seconds passed, and the only sounds that we heard were the distant wagons and the sound of hooves crunching through snow behind us as we stood there, waiting for the door to open. The only light that shone upon my face was a dim, flickering light bulb that was begging to be put out of its misery.

The snow began to fall again. Powdery flakes of balefire winter clung loosely to my bloodied security barding, and I shivered on my hooves. Glancing over my shoulder, I mouthed to Candy Cane, if she was a hundred percent certain that this was the right place. The mare nodded.

So I knocked again.

This time, a speakeasy door slid open and two navy blue eyes narrowed back at me. I opened my mouth to speak, but the pony cut me off.

"We're closed," a mare told me, before the speakeasy door slid shut.

My face turned sour. I lifted a hoof to the door and knocked again. The speakeasy door opened once more.

"Hey! I said we're closed, okay? So scram!" The mare shouted through the speakeasy door before slamming it shut.

I sighed, glancing over my shoulder at Candy Cane.

"Well isn't she a ray of sunshine," I muttered.

Candy Cane, snorted, before she took my place and knocked.

"Goddesses – I said we're closed –" A mare hissed, but her voice was lost on her lips. The mare saw me first, but her eyes fluttered instantly to the pony next to me. "Candy Cane … ?"

---

I shifted on my stool, a rickety, neglected old thing that creaked underneath me – much like the inn itself. A fine layer of dust had settled upon the lonely bar in front me. Resting my legs upon the counter, I kicked up a small cloud of dust that roused from my cracked lips a sneeze.

Behind it, on a wide rack, were rime encrusted whiskey bottles by the dozens, most were empty, others with little less than a shot remaining. There wasn't a single drink in this place that could relieve even the most lightweight of drinkers of the inn's deplorable state.

I thought about unhooking my holster and stowing it in my bags, but it was too late for that now. We had left our bags by the door. And I didn't feel like walking all the way back there.

Sniffling, I heard hooves clop upon the creaking wooden boards behind me. The innkeeper passed by a cold hearth – unlit and forlorn as she made her way, sluggishly, to the bar. Candy Cane, sitting next to me, rubbed her hooves together, briskly; the bite of the northern wind was trying desperately to fully penetrate the walls of this place. It scratched upon the boarded up windows like an animal begging to come inside.

She trotted past me, but not before shooting a careful gaze my way. The mare regarded me – the stranger – with apprehension, noticing the gun holstered around my chest. My presence was making her edgy. I knew I should've stowed my gun away.

"I'm really sorry you have to see me like this, Cane," the mare began, still keeping an eye on me. "Sorry to see my place like this. A lot's changed since I saw you last; the last time they took you, I never thought I'd see you again."

"It's been too long, Summer Smiles."

The two hugged warmly, Summer Smiles sighing as she closed her eyes, and squeezed her tight. Letting go, the blue mare turned her eyes to the floorboards.

"Heh, well I don't smile so much anymore." Summer Smiles sighed, brushing her blonde braids with a hoof. "The inn's been closed for nearly a month now. The cafones've been stepping up their game, and making us lose ours." She shook her head. "It's gotten so bad that my sister and I have been living from paycheck after paycheck."

"What happened to your savings?" Candy Cane asked.

Summer Smiles glared at the bar's counter, her jaw clenching. "It's … we're … the cafones upped their prot taxes. I've been using it to pay them. Though, most of it was used up when my sister lost her job and had to find a new one."

"That's terrible … they keep raising their taxes. I don't know why, though," Candy Cane remarked.

Summer Smiles snorted, shaking her head. "They don't need no reason to, they just do." She spat, "Bastards … all of 'em." The mare noticed the bitter look I wore as they spoke of the ganger menace.

There wasn't much else I needed to hear anymore to convince me that the Palominos needed to be taken down. They were sucking the life out of this place.

"How are the girls? Your sister?" Candy Cane asked.

Summer Smiles hesitated for a moment, no doubt watching me in her peripherals. With one eye on Candy Cane, and another on me, she leaned forward and rested her hooves on the counter.

"Doodle and Hops have gotten bigger since you last saw them." Summer Smiles said, proudly. She chuckled, "To me, it's like they haven't grown older at all. Same Doodle, same Hops."

Candy Cane's visage flickered cheerfully. "What about Hops? Her ... legs?"

Summer Smiles shook her head. "She was born that way, Cane. There's no healing genetics."

The maroon mare clenched her jaw, saddened, her ears drooping.

"They'll be glad to see you, Cane," she added, touching her hoof. Candy Cane salvaged a smile out of that.

"What about your sister?"

She glanced at the door. "She hasn't been around, lately. Went off on an assignment ... she's still out there. I don't know where, though." Her brows furrowed with impatience. "If she doesn't come back soon, I won't have any more caps left to put food on the table. And I can't leave the inn to find work ... not if it means leaving Doodle and Hops behind."

"It just keeps getting worse, doesn't it?" Candy Cane murmured.

The blue mare blew a puff of dust off the counter, sighing. "You think you'd get used to it, living out here." Her gaze found its way to meet me. "You never do." Summer Smiles made her way behind the bar, and tapped her hoof on the counter. "I'd get you two a couple of drinks, but …" she looked over her shoulder, sparing the empty racks a dismal glance.

Candy Cane's smile belied the dimness of this place. It felt a little warmer, seeing her do that. "It's okay; at least we're out of the snow," she said, softly.

"Out of the snow ... huh." Summer Smiles looked at Candy Cane strangely. "How'd you get out this time?" Her ears drooped, wistfully. "You disappeared for two years ... Candy Cane. Doodle and Hops have always wondered where 'Auntie Cane' went. I could never bring myself to tell them what happened to you ..." the mare said, softly. "I really never thought I'd see you again."

Candy Cane grinned as she turned to face me.

"I had some help," the mare said, her lips arcing faintly.

Summer Smiles blinked, cocking her head at me. "Really? I've been wondering: who's this stallion you brought into my home?"

"Of course you have, you've been watching him like a hawk since we got here," Candy Cane chuckled.

The blue mare shifted on her hooves, irked at her observation. It's not like she wasn't making it obvious.

Her friend grinned, one brow cocked. "Relax, Summer. He's not going to bite your leg off."

She scowled back. "Oh you know stallions; they're good at biting, and leaving marks." Our host snorted, "Just look at my sister: two foals and a stallion nowhere to be seen."

I laughed nervously as Candy Cane's expression darkened. Summer Smiles wasn't the only pony in this room that has had a problem with stallions. Candy Cane – more so than anypony else I currently knew.

"My name's Red Dawn."

"Sure it is." Summer Smiles nodded, studying the arcane device wrapped around my foreleg. "You're from a stable, Red Dawn?"

"Yes ma'am," I nodded, stifling a yawn as I tapped my pipbuck with a hoof.

The mare cocked an eyebrow, perplexed.

"Heh, what in the Goddesses' names is a stable-dweller doing out here? There are few ponies around the wasteland with those things around their legs." Her voice turned sour. "I can imagine why," she added enviously, scorning her disheveled, pitiful surroundings.

She imagined right. Beneath the earth, stable ponies slept in their stables while ponies like Summer Smiles and Candy Cane suffered outside, helpless and cold. I thought back, sifting through my family's countless generations, thankful that my great, great - something - grandmare had been chosen to live in Stable 91.

It began to occur to me, that despite the terrible things I'd seen so far, nopony was luckier than stable-dwellers like me were. We had lived in a stable for most of our lives while the world outside went to shit. I sighed. Better there than here, of course.

"Just wanted some fresh air, I guess," I chortled, dryly.

She snorted, vaguely amused. "Are you one of those ponies from Stable 2? The one everypony keeps hearing about on the radio?"

That's the second time somepony's asked me that.

"Uhh ... no. I'm from Stable 91, about twenty or thirty miles out from Poneva, I think."

"That's a pity ... Stable 2's the only stable I've heard of that hasn't let out anything but dust and skeletons." The mare looked unassumingly sure of herself. "Something bad must've pushed you out."

I nodded, chuckling dryly. "I've been told that a lot. We're going to be like the others, soon enough, I think," I added, flatly. "Our water talisman broke. Now we've got two months to live. Well they, really. I ... we ... my friends and I, we left Stable 91 to find another."

Summer Smiles glanced at Candy Cane. There was only two of us, and only one of us had a pipbuck around our legs.

"Your ... friends?"

"They're dead, now," I intoned; the mare blinked, expecting me to say more. I didn't. All she got was an exhausted stare that pleaded to be put to sleep.

I hadn't told anypony what had happened that night. What had happened to my friends - how Star Glint was ... and Amber Fields ...

A grim silence hung over the three of us as we sat there, unmoving. Contemplating the grisly fates of my best friends only fed the thrumming headache that bored into my skull. So I just stuffed them back in the corner where I couldn't see them.

The mare studied my troubled face, and the blood that caked my chest, and the grime that covered my face. Candy Cane was about as bloodied as I was – although most of it was mine, anyways.

"You ... you two both look like you've been through hell."

I scoffed, hanging my head languidly, "I guess that's one way of putting it."

"You've got a lot on your hooves. Why're you with Candy Cane anyways?"

I stared at her, my heart flickering with surprise. I do in fact have a lot on my hooves. Though, as much as I hated to be idle like this, I knew that if I continued to throw myself out and into the fray, I'd die from fatigue if the wasteland or its damned inhabitants didn't get to me first.

Her eyes narrowed at me when I didn't answer. "How'd you meet her?" she asked, warily. "It ain't everyday somepony walks in with an escaped slave."

The maroon mare beside me spared me a glance. She parted her peacoat's collar, folding it down flat so that Summer Smiles could see the matted, red coat beneath.

"Your bomb collar - it's gone?"

Candy Cane grinned ecstatically.

"He saved me, Summer Smiles. He freed me from the Scullion ... and he took the collar right off."

Summer Smiles' eyes widened with disbelief. "He … oh my Goddesses …" she leaned over the counter, reaching out with a hoof to touch the matted indentation where her collar used to be. She rubbed the patch of fur, tenderly, stricken with disbelief. "How? You – removed – you did that?"

I nodded, slowly, "It wasn't easy." I nearly killed Candy Cane during that ordeal.

Summer Smiles couldn't believe what she was hearing, her expression struck with bewilderment.

"How'd you do it? I mean, how'd you make it past the cafones?" she stammered, breathlessly.

"We nearly died." Candy Cane rubbed her bloody hooves together, tipping her head at me. "Well, I nearly died. Those Palo … those cafoneswouldn't let up." I explained to her how I broke into the Scullion, our confrontation with Grifter, and our flight from the brothel. She couldn't believe the words that she was hearing. When I got to that part about the sinkhole, she just about lost it there.

"You … you jumped into a sinkhole? That's … that's insane."

I chuckled at Candy Cane. "That's exactly what I told her."

Candy Cane waved me off with a hoof, shamelessly.

"Though it's because of her I'm still alive." I pointed a hoof to my blood caked chest as Candy Cane fixed her unassuming gaze to the floorboards beneath her. "One of those cafones got me. Candy Cane pulled the bullet right out of my gut," I added, with a grimace. I could vaguely remember the touch of cold steel worming around my innards.

"Barely," Candy Cane said sheepishly, still staring at her hooves. "You almost bled out." She played with her curls absent mindedly, frowning as she said, "My skills are out of practice."

I snorted, the grimness of my expression belied my whimsically sardonic tone. "We'll be traveling together soon, so I'm sure you'll get a lotof practice."

Candy Cane chuckled once, unamused. "Then there's going to be loads of roof hopping to do if you're going to be traveling with me," she replied, with a smirk.

I wheezed a nervous laugh, my brows furrowing.

"So, you two are traveling together?"

We turned to each other simultaneously.

"I promised I'd help him," she stated, adamantly.

Our host frowned at her. "I would've imagined you'd want to settle down after … you know?" Summer Smiles said, gingerly.

Candy Cane thought for a moment, laying her forelegs on the counter and resting upon them her chin. "Sure, I'm free. But what about the other slaves? I left them behind, Summer. I don't deserve to be free any more than the other mares at the Scullion." Candy Cane began. "I have nothing to do with my life; I've not much to lose." The mare turned to me, saying, "Red Dawn wants to join the resistance. He wants to help us … and I want to help him help everypony else I left behind."

Summer Smiles shifted uncomfortably on her hooves.

"I thought he was looking for a water talisman?"

"I still am. And I found one ... or several. Well, not exactly." I explained to her my meeting with Steam Sprocket and the promise he made me. Like Candy Cane, she was overcome with shock at the fact that I'd been granted an audience with the World Tree Company's executive hermit. I told her exactly what I told Candy Cane. She nodded, silently, irked at the mentioning of the Orphanage. "I need to join them. I can't just sit around, waiting for Poneva to roll over."

Candy Cane spoke up. "So do I. That's why we're traveling together. We need to find the Orphanage."

Summer Smiles cleared her throat, scoffing. "The ... the Orphanage?" she asked, feigning ignorance to my exasperation, much like the rest of the ponies outside in this city.

Candy Cane narrowed her eyes at her.

"We need your help."

Summer Smiles' eyes darted to my face.

"So that's why you brought him here," she intoned, warily. "You … you told this pony? He knows?"

"Yes –"

The mare leaned over the counter towards Candy Cane. "I really don't appreciate that, Cane. Theywouldn't appreciate that. You know this!"

"I-"

"What were you thinking!? If word gets out that I'm with the Orphanage, they'll kill us all! Andthe foals!" she hissed. "I thought I could trust you!"

"You still can!" Candy Cane stated, upset. "If he was with the plantations he wouldn't have been at the Scullion, breaking me out of there. If he was with East Eden, he would've hauled me to theircamps." She glared at her. "I wouldn't have agreed to help him if I didn't think that he was a good pony, Summer."

A … good pony? My heart fluttered at that. Am I really? If only she had known the things I did … that mare I butchered. I shot her in the knees and left her to die – and that Blood Brother I … murdered. I murdered him. Both of them.

I looked at my hooves. The dark corner of my mind was whispering to me again. That Candy Cane was just a stepping stone. That I needed her help, and that was it. I pushed it away, disgusted with its incessant murmuring. I wasn't a good pony. I was just a pony with a mission to finish.

Summer Smiles caught the apprehension that haunted the good pony's eyes, and smirked. She wasn't buying it. And I wasn't either. "I don't know, he looks pretty nervous, Cane." Anypony else would be if they were put on the spot like she was doing to me, right now. "I know he saved your life and all, and you might think you owe him something, but … you'd trust that pony with your life?" She asked, as if I wasn't there. "Our lives? You might've just endangered my entire family –"

Candy Cane cut her off, "He went through hell to save me – he nearly died – and he doesn't. Even. Know. Why." I found that she was staring deep into my eyes as if she could see the soul behind them. "He was willing to help a complete stranger … there aren't that many ponies like that around anymore." Candy Cane intoned. "You know that."

Summer Smiles nodded, slowly, her gaze still fixated upon me.

"I do," she murmured. "That's what the Orphanage stands for."

Silence hung over us as she tapped her hooves nervously on the counter. She eyed me hesitantly.

"I'll … I'll think about it, okay? If they find out … and they take me … I don't know, Cane. Doodle and Hops won't have anypony to take care of them."

"Goddesses forbid that ever happens. But … what … what about your sister? They're her foals, after all."

Summer Smiles shook her head.

"She hasn't come back from her job yet," she murmured, distantly. "Soon, my savings will run dry and nopony will be able to feed them anymore. She was the one paying the bills after all …" Summer Smiles stared past us at the door. It seemed like she had been doing that ever since her sister had left. "Her daughters have been asking for her for the last five days now. "Sugar Rum's been gone for almost two weeks now."

I froze. Sugar Rum. Sugar Rum. Sugar … oh my Goddesses. My mouth opened, but words would not escape my lips. I remembered her. The screams, the sounds of flesh tearing. Then the pop. The simultaneous pop of every collar Sugar Rum had control over.

Crack. And Sugar Rum had taken her own life. The mare, the mare that had stayed behind to grant the ponies she had wronged a final respite, had left behind these three: her sister, and her daughters. Why … why didn't I recognize Summer Smiles until now?

"Red Dawn?" I heard Candy Cane ask, as the blood drained from my face. "You look like you've just seen a ghost."

"I … I did." I dipped my head into my bags, searching for Sugar Rum's family photo. The one she had given me as she bled out into the snow. I found it, laying upon the surface of my hoof the blood-caked, frayed piece of paper.

I turned my haunted gaze to Summer Smiles, whose eyes were darting towards my own and the photograph that was held in my hoof.

"What's that?" she asked, apprehensively.

I held the photo to my face, eyeing the four ponies – the family whose smiling faces had been frozen in time. Sugar Rum was sitting next to her sister, Summer Smiles, a blonde, blue coated mare, as she wrapped her forelegs around her two pale-coated daughters. Lowering it, Summer Smiles was standing alone.

"Why are you looking at me like that?"

I said nothing as I gave her the photograph.

The mare stared at it desolately, her hoof trembling before her muzzle. She stared at it for a long time, pale-faced, her eyes drowning beneath the rising tides of horror that drained the blood from her face. They beheld every speck of blood, every splatter of dried crimson that had sullied the aged photograph. The canyons on her ghastly expression deepened with every grim thought she shoved away to the back of her mind, in denial. A hoof grazed her sister's frozen smile, her eyes darting to the door, and back, to the door, and back.

Summer Smiles met my numb gaze with desperate repudiation, her eyes widening and her chin quivering.

"Why … why do you have this?" she croaked, her voice faltering.

I looked at the floorboards, and she knew. Goddesses, she knew. I opened my mouth once more, but could not find the strength to say the words I needed to say. "WHY DO YOU HAVE THIS!?"

I hung my head, shaking it as beads of cold sweat formed on my forehead. Again and again, I heard the resounding gunshot that took Sugar Rums' life as the howling bloodletters permeated my thoughts.

Crack.

"Sugar Rum … my … my sister …" Summer Smiles fell upon the counter, her shoulders shuddering and her chest threatening to tear itself apart.

Candy Cane was left breathless as the horror began to settle in. She looked at me with teary eyes, unable to believe what she was thinking. "Goddesses … you don't mean she's …"

"Dead. She's dead, Summer Smiles." I intoned, the burden of being the only pony who knew of Sugar Rum's fate weighing heavily upon my chest.

Summer Smiles buried her face in her hooves, her sobs echoing throughout the inn as she wept. Her tears washed away the dust that had settled upon the counter as she wailed into her coat. She leaned up suddenly, and slammed her hoof on the counter.

"Damnit! Why!?" She demanded. "How!? Her foals – Goddesses, her foals!" Summer Smiles clenched her eyes shut, trying to stymie the tears that refused to stop falling. But it was in vain. "she's dead … their mother ... my … my sister … my only sister. She's. Dead!"

My heart hung as low as my head as I stared at the floorboards, unable to meet her gaze. I could never stand to see a mare cry; her weeping made me stricken with guilt. Somehow, I felt responsible. Somehow, I felt that I could have saved her. Could have.

Just like the zebras, and the slaves. I had failed them all.

If only I had seen the bloodletter before it saw her. I could've … I could've stopped it. I could've SAT'sed it to death. I … she could've been here with us, with her sister, with her two daughters.

The sound of a filly's voice broke me from my rapturous state.

"Auntie? What's wrong?" a girl asked. I turned and, looking down at us from the top of the stairs at the other side of the room was a filly, her coat an alabaster white.

Goddesses. No.

Summer Smiles struggled to compose herself – for the sake of the children, she couldn't tell them. Not now. The mare wiped her bloodshot eyes vigorously, her breaths coming in and out as broken sobs.

"Doodle – go back to your room," she told the filly, her voice quaking.

The filly looked at us, terrified. Another pair of eyes peered over her back, and I found that another pony was clinging to her sister's coat.

"Are … are they going to hurt you?" the other asked, in Doodle's voice.

Summer Smiles croaked, "Hops …"

"Auntie –"

"GO BACK TO YOUR ROOM, NOW!" She screamed, and the twins scrambled back upstairs.

Summer Smiles slammed a hoof on the counter once more as her shoulders quaked with sobs. Her anguished grimace ran wet with fresh tears as her strength waned and her dams broke once more.

"Damnit … I shouldn't have done that. The last thing they needed to see was that … their mother's dead, for Celestia's sake. I need to be strong ..."

Candy Cane wrapped her hooves around her, comforting her until her sobs began to die away. I couldn't look at her like this. I struggled to contain tears of my own.

"What happened to her? How'd she go?" she asked me, trembling.

I eyed Candy Cane and hesitated. I wasn't sure what she'd think if she knew Sugar Rum was a slaver … she never would've associated herself with these ponies if she'd known.

But I relented. Summer Smiles deserved to know, whether or not Candy Cane liked what she was going to hear.

"She and her crew … they … they picked me up. Chained me to the back of their wagon with the other slaves …"

Candy Cane slowly turned towards me, her embrace loosening for a moment as her ears perked, unsure if she heard me right. She nearly let go and dropped Summer Smiles' head onto the counter.

"As we were heading up to Poneva, we were ambushed by bloodletters. They … they butchered everypony." I bit my lower lip, shaking my head. "Sugar Rum stayed behind with the slaves. She gave me that photo … she wanted me to tell you that she went out a good pony."

A trembling sob forced its way through Summer Smiles's throat, and she broke down in tears once more, burying her face into Candy Cane's chest.

"A good pony?" she whimpered, as Candy Cane held her head to her chest, running a tender hoof through her mane. Candy Cane's compassionate demeanor was betrayed by the shock and horror that haunted her visage.

I nodded, solemnly. "The other slavers ran off – left the slaves to die in their cage. The bastards left them to the bloodletters so that they could escape." Their dying screams echoed faintly in my ears and I cupped a hoof around my mouth as I shuddered. "A bloodletter got her …" I remembered her torn throat, the grisly scene replaying itself over and over in my head as I touched Sugar Rum's pale, blood-drained cheek.

"She was dying. She stayed behind with the slaves as those monsters were tearing them apart, and … gave them a merciful death." I finally met Summer Smiles' gaze, struggling to hold it as I forced myself to continue. "Then Sugar Rum did herself out … before the bloodletters could."

Summer Smiles whimpered into Candy Cane's peacoat as the maroon mare brushed her mane, tenderly. But her gentle hooves were lost upon the horror that skittered across her features.

"Summer … I didn't know Sugar was … a slaver," Candy Cane murmured, her voice trembling with consternation. Not even Candy Cane had known.

With a shuddering sob, the blue mare pulled away from her, shaking her head.

"I'm sorry I didn't tell you … please, you mustunderstand! We needed the caps – we needed to put food on the table!" Summer Smiles sniffled, pitifully as she rubbed her eyes with her hooves. "She was a good pony … a good pony until the end, Candy Cane. She never liked her job ... she hated it! But it was all we had ... it was all we could do."

Candy Cane exhaled a breath she had been holding in, closing her eyes. She shook her head, her curly mane tumbling in front of her eyes. The mare wasn't sure what to think, and for several seconds, she sat there, unmoving as Summer Smiles' gazed at her pleadingly. To my surprise, she took Summer Smiles hoof in hers and squeezed. "I … I know she was ... she was the pony who found me half dead in the snow when I first escaped."

I cast my eyes to the floor. "I'm sorry. I should've … I could've saved her –" I began, but Summer Smiles cut me off.

"She enslaved you!" She looked away, ashamed. "I wouldn't have if I'd been you."

I shook my head.

"It wasn't like that. I knew she was different … she wasn't like the others. She was meek; she hesitated before she captured me, Summer Smiles. She. Hesitated." Only at the behest of her fellow slavers did she tap my skull with the butt end of her carbine. Beneath those blue goggles was a pony who hated what she was and what she had to do. I continued, "She cut down a bloodletter that was going to eat me alive. I owed her my life."

Tears began to well up in my eyes, but I fought them off, steeling myself as I clenched my jaw, tight.

Summer Smiles struggled to wipe her cheeks dry, her tears refusing to wane. "It's … I'm just glad somepony was able to tell me. Usually ponies just disappear here, and nopony ever hears from them again. For the last two weeks I thought she was going to be one of those ponies … " The mare found the strength to reach over the counter and touch my hoof. "Thank you … for telling me. It's reassuring knowing how she went out. Knowing about what she did."

But the utter hopelessness returned to her voice, and her eyes turned low. "With my sister dead, we won't be able to pay our dues. Our family relied on her paychecks …" She cradled her head in her hooves. "I don't know what I'm going to do … the foals … Goddesses, the foals."

Knock, knock, knock.

Hooves rapped against the door behind us, riveting us from our solemn hour.

Summer Smiles looked up, an abominable look of terror and fear draining the blood from her face. The three of us swung our heads to the door, none of us making another sound. Seconds later, the knocks came again, as assertively and insistently as the last.

The blue mare got to her four hooves and stumbled to the door, wiping her eyes vigorously with the sleeve of her winter coat. She sniffled once, glanced over her shoulder, and told us to get out of sight. And so we hid behind the counter as the door opened.

I peered furtively over the counter, and saw bowler caps. Son of a bitch.

"Nice to see you again, Summer Smiles," a mare greeted, whimsically, tipping her hat.

Our host just scowled at her, parting the door wide enough for me to see the mare's face. The two gangers behind the mare craned their necks over her shoulder, trying to get a look at Summer Smiles. One of them whistled, chuckling at the other.

Summer Smiles bit her lower lip, closing the door slightly.

My hoof crawled up my chest, resting upon my pistol's holster. Candy Cane squeezed my hoof with hers, shaking her head.

The Palomino mare cocked her head. "Why the long face, ol'pal?"

One of the stallions laughed, "I can make her smile for ya!"

"Pipe down, you dogs!" the mare hissed, shooting them a murderous look. She smiled politely once more when they pulled themselves together. "Sorry, they're new. Unblooded, sorry little young'uns."

Summer Smiles scowled at them, growling, "It doesn't matter to you." She planted one hoof on the door and stretched out a foreleg to the doorstop.

The mare laughed, amiably. "Of course it doesn't." The bowler cap craned her neck, peering into the inn. Summer Smiles tip-toed on her hind legs, leaning in front of the opening, obstructing her from a view inside. Giving up, the mare cleared her throat, simpering as she straightened her neck and brushed down her peacoat. "Eh, well, I think you know why we're here?" She asked, with a shrug.

They exchanged brief stares before the mare chimed in once more.

"We gonna have a staring contest here, Summer Smiles? I didn't come here to play no games."

"No … you didn't, did you." Summer Smiles tipped her head at the automatic weapons slung around their chests. The Palomino smirked, noticing the resentment in the mare's eyes; she gawked at her own submachine gun as if she just now realized it was there.

"I'm the only pony between you and my fillies."

She chortled, "The only thing between us and your fillies're, no, this entire establishment of yours, is the caps you owe us." The mare leaned against the railing outside the door, her accomplices wearing crooked grins. "It's pretty cold out here," she said, blithely. "We might just come inside for a bit, check out those caps of yours, because I know you got 'em. Whaddya say, Summer Smiles?"

Candy Cane and I exchanged worried glances.

"T-that won't be necessary."

"I hope so," the mare replied, sparing her submachine gun an evocative glance. "I hate scaring foals. It's just such a shitty thing to do, wouldn't you agree?"

Summer Smiles bit her lower lip, tapping the doorframe frantically.

"Can … can you just give me a break? Just this once? I'm never late on my payments …"

The Palomino shook her head, pursing her lips contritely.

"Girl, you know I can't do that," she whinnied.

The muscles beneath my barding tensed as I saw her glance back inside.

"I …" Summer Smiles gulped, pushing more of the door between her and the Palominos outside. There was a loud thump as the mare outside planted a hoof on the door's surface.

"I think we need to come inside," She said, indelicately. The mare threw her head over her shoulder and nodded at the others. "Last chance, Summer Smiles."

The mare tried parting the door further, but Summer Smiles leaned her weight against it.

"Summer Smiles?" she sighed, the sounds of bolts clacking made my ears perk.

My hoof lunged for my holster once more, and so did Candy Cane.

"Red – " I shook her free, and drew my pistol, cold sweat beading up on my forehead. "Red Dawn!" she hissed. "Don't."

I glared at her, saying nothing as I flipped the safety off. If they stepped a hoof through that door, I was afraid I'd have to kill again. And these Palominos were begging to get shot. I ducked behind the counter as a strained silence hung over us all once more.

The mare tipped her cap over her eyes, chuckling.

"Come on, boys-"

Bang.

A jolt of adrenaline surged through my veins as Summer Smiles stomped her hoof into the floor. I nearly threw myself over the counter, mouthbit clenched between my teeth.

"Wait!" she cried, the sound of hooves shuffling outside sent my heart pounding. I could hear, faintly, as Candy Cane's breaths hissed out of her mouth. "Wait here. I have the caps … just wait. Here."

Hooves clopped across the room as Summer Smiles made her way upstairs. She stopped at the foot of the stairs, looking back at us grievously. Another sum of her savings was going to be spent paying these bastards the money she didn't owe them.

I pressed my back against the bar, clenching my jaw as I heard her hoofsteps fade away upstairs. My eyes flicked to Candy Cane's, and she watched me as I brought my pipbuck to my muzzle.

Grifter's voice echoed in my thoughts.

… 435, 436, 437. … Uhh... uhh... Fuck! Lost count …

I'd lost count of what I had in my bags as well.

I sifted through my inventory. Not too long ago I'd trampled Grifter beneath me and stolen from him a sack of caps; there had to be hundreds in there. My pipbuck confirmed my suspicions. Eight hundred and twenty caps. I had eight hundred and twenty caps logged in my inventory.

Why I snatched it off his desk, I didn't know; it seemed like a good idea at the time. Perhaps it was to spite him? To tell the Palominos that that money wasn't theirs? That they were a bunch of thieving parasites?

My gaze slowly parted from my pipbuck's screen, firm and resolute.

It didn't matter now. They had taken this money from their victims.

It was time to give it back.

Candy Cane's jaw dropped, speechless as I bit my teeth around the sack of caps and yanked it out of my bags. Words were lost on her lips as I held it in the air before me. She had never seen so many caps – not even in her previous workplace.

"How – where … how much?" she murmured, eyeing the heavy bag with wide eyes.

I shook my head slightly, jingling the caps inside.

"Enough."

Summer Smiles came downstairs, her face contorted with despair as a bag of caps jingled between her teeth. Fresh tears were streaming down her face as she made her way down the steps, slowly, and deliberately. That must've been some of the last of her savings.

I knew what she was thinking. How were those two fillies going to eat?

I waved a hoof at her as she reached the bottom, and motioned for her to come closer. She trotted towards us, uneasily. Then I held out to her my bag of caps.

The mare stopped in her tracks, her small pouch dangling precariously from her mouth. Summer Smiles gasped, her mouth agape; her bag tumbled to the floor, erupting in a shower of bottlecaps.

"What's going on in there?" The Palomino mare outside demanded, her patience thinning, as she swung the door open with a hoof. The freezing winter breeze blew past her, showering the floorboards with fresh powder and welcoming in the wasteland's chilling bite.

Summer Smiles appeared oblivious to the winter storm that was now blowing into her home. It didn't matter. Safety and security lay upon my hoof.

"What …"

I held my leg out farther. "Take it."

The distrust she had reserved for me made her hesitate. Summer Smiles' curled lips said no, but her bloodshot eyes said yes. She needed this. For her sister's orphaned children.

"Summer Smiles!"

The mare swung her head to the door, broken from her trance like state.

"I … I just dropped my bag. Give me a second."

She knelt down beside me, biting the heavy bag, gingerly. Her teary gaze met mine, and she hesitated, narrowing her eyes at the spoils that she clenched between her teeth. I cracked a faint smile, and nodded.

"Why are you doing this?" she whispered, the immense sum of caps confounding her.

I sighed, "Because I can."

Summer Smiles needed this more than I did. I didn't need material possessions to get what my stable needed. I didn't have a home to pay taxes for, and I didn't have a family to provide for. I was adamant that she'd take it.

And the damn bag was beginning to weigh down on my hoof. My leg was starting to hurt.

"Go on," I said, softly, with a lopsided smile.

For the first time since we'd arrived, I saw it in her eyes. A sliver of hope flickered behind the windows to her soul. Something inside coaxed her onward. She needed this. Her sister's ... her foals needed this. And she did. She took it from my open hoof.

Summer Smiles rose to her fours and relinquished the sack of caps to the Palominos outside. There came an astonished gasp as the Palomino mare seized her spoils and shook, her ears perking at the sound of glorious currency – music to her ears.

"This … this is … a lot," the Palomino gawked. She cleared her throat, composing herself. The mare glanced at Summer Smiles as she shuffled nervously on her hooves. "Give us a few minutes. We'll count this up for ya. We ain't a bunch o'welchers," she grinned courteously, hoofing the bag to her subordinates. Her eyes never once left Summer Smiles' apprehensive visage. "One hundred caps, boys."

I was expecting the cafones to take the whole bag and gallop off with it. I was surprised really; there appeared to be some sliver of honor amongst these thieves.

A few minutes passed as the Palominos levitated out one cap after the other. When the deed was done, they unceremoniously dumped Summer Smiles' dues into the other's satchel bag. The mare smiled courteously before hoofing her back the sack of caps, one hundred caps lighter.

"There ya go," she said graciously, tipping her hat at her, and turning around to take her leave. "I'm glad we didn't have to do something neither of us would'a liked." The looks on her subordinates' faces begged to differ; they looked to be itching for a firefight. Or Summer Smiles' body.

"Like … likewise," our host managed as the sweat on her forehead turned to frost.

The mare held the bag in her hoof, frozen, and unable to speak. She looked on, distantly, as the Palominos started down the steps.

"You be a good girl, now," the mare called over her shoulder as Summer Smiles pivoted around, sluggishly, and shoved the door closed with a rear hoof. The inn was colder, now, but a different kind of warmth lingered among us as we stepped out of hiding.

Both of the mares were staring at me with a mixture of relief, gratitude, and disbelief. Summer Smiles had just dodged an explosive bullet. I caught Candy Cane's gaze, and saw that she was wearing that same look she had when I had dismantled her bomb collar.

"Thank you, Red Dawn," Summer Smiles began, trotting to the bar with a shell-shocked look on her face. "Now they'll leave my family alone for a bit." She set the bag of caps on the counter and pushed it towards me.

I shook my head, and slid it back, much to her surprise.

"It's yours now," I insisted. She just stood there, looking troubled. I nudged it towards her with a hoof when she didn't budge. "You need it more than I do."

She parted the bag's lips, and peered inside. It was a decently heavy bag. And it was hers now. She still couldn't believe it.

"I still don't know why you're helping me."

It bothered me because I didn't know why either. What's with me and helping random ponies? I could've used those caps to buy me rations for a week, or maybe some ammunition for my pistol. Maybe even a new bulletproof vest, which I desperately needed, if they sold that out here. A part of me was regretting that decision, now.

Those caps – my spoils – my loot – could've funded my journey.

My journey. I was growing fond of helping out random, unimportant ponies. Like … Candy Cane? Summer Smiles? But somehow, it seemed, everypony was important to somepony. Even I was important to somebody; I thought of my mother. I thought of Doodle and Hops as I stood there, my thoughts in conflict with one another.

How was helping Summer Smiles going to help me?

When I didn't answer, she pursed her lips, and posed another question. "How much is in there?" she asked, faintly, her eyes fluttering.

I poked it. It was still about as heavy as it was when I had taken it out of my satchel bags.

"Seven hundred and twenty caps."

Summer Smiles curled a hoof around its neck, her leg trembling.

"This'll last us weeks … maybe even a month." she murmured. The mare blinked, and shook her head. "I can't take this, it's not mine."

I sighed, growing irritated with her resolute down to earthness. Kindness seemed to be an alien concept in this wasteland. "If you don't want it, I'll just leave it there. The extra weight makes it harder to vault over rooftops," I smirked, dryly, glancing over at Candy Cane whose astonished grays continued to stare through me.

Our host just stood there again, dumbfounded. So I nudged it again, and again, and again, until it was banking precariously off the counter's edge and she was forced to hold it with her hooves. I smirked, slyly.

And Summer Smiles finally relented, clutching the bag tight.

She regarded the sack of caps with grim relief. "Thank you, Red Dawn. Doodle and Hops can eat for a while longer, now, thanks to you." The mare paused, hesitantly. "Candy Cane might just be right about you," she murmured, looking away. "Ain't that many ponies who'd just give out caps like that around here."

"Eh, they weren't mine to begin with. I stole them from the cafones."

Her eyes widened with shock.

"Goddesses bless you, Red Dawn. Sugar Rum would've kissed you for this …" I shrugged, my lopsided smile stretching across my cheeks.

"I need some time to think about this. The Orphanage I mean." She turned to Candy Cane. "I don't suppose you were planning on staying here for a while?"

"We were hoping we could." Candy Cane rested a hoof on my shoulder. "If you'll have us, of course?"

I couldn't help but notice as Summer Smiles' name matched her likeness. She was grinning from ear to ear.

"I could never say no to you ..." Summer Smiles intoned, staring deep into Candy Cane's eyes. She blinked, and fixed her gaze upon me. "Not to either of you." The mare could see the weariness in my eyes, and the way my posture dipped languidly from side to side as I stood, idle. "I'm sure you'd like a place to sleep."

"Sleeping would hit the spot, right about now," I yawned.

Candy Cane folded her legs across her chest. "We won't be here for long. We don't want to be a burden."

"Nonsense! Please … stay – stay for as long as you'd like." She glanced at the door one last time. "It's the least I can do for an old friend … and … a … good pony, I think."

I looked away, flattered; I was starting to believe that. Entering forth unto the wasteland shattered the expectation I had built over decades of ignorance. Entering forth unto the city of Poneva took whatever hope I had left and grinded it into a fine dust, before scattering it into the frozen winds.

But seeing somepony smile … somepony in this wasteland, made my livid flesh and the graying soul beneath just a little warmer.

Despite this, I hated having ponies owe me things; never did ask for or allow anypony to give me any sort of payment for fixing up their doodads and trinkets at 91. I didn't want to do that now …

But she was offering us a place to stay; no matter how much I wanted to refuse her kindness and keep hoofing it, a bed and a roof to come back to every now and then sounded divine. But she didn't need another burden on her shoulders. With her sister gone, she had more important things to worry about than a stranger staying in her home.

"If you'll let us stick around, I could pool whatever caps, food, supplies I come across," I chimed in. Candy Cane nodded agreeably; she too cherished in the idea of having a roof over her head in the event of another winter storm.

"We'd like to pull our own weight," she offered, cheerfully, holding Summer Smiles' hooves. "It'll be like old times!"

The mare exhaled with relief, hugging her. "That's more than I would've asked for." She panned her gaze and her expression turned sour. She scorned the dusty, neglected room around her. "This place is just despicable. Sugar Rum would've hated to see you returning to my inn like this. I have rooms unoccupied upstairs, but I haven't cleaned them in months ... ever since I closed this place down, I kind of just forgot about everything else myself, my sister, and her foals didn't use."

I waved it off with a hoof. "It'll do. I've been sleeping in metal boxes for the past two weeks. Any bed to lie in is a bed nonetheless."

Candy Cane bowed her head. "Yes, whatever you can spare is good enough for me," she assured, graciously.

Summer Smiles nodded, hesitantly, grumbling under her breath. She wanted the best for her guests. "You look like you're about ready to drop," she remarked, cocking an eyebrow at me.

"Do I? I can't even … tell," I yawned languidly, rubbing my eyes.

Candy Cane chimed in, "He's been beat up pretty bad." She touched a hoof to her chin. "How he's still standing, I don't know."

"After that sinkhole dive, I don't know either, Candy Cane," I said, rolling my bloodshot eyes.

Summer Smiles waved us onward. "Come on, I'll show you both to your rooms, upstairs."

"Let me just get my bags." I trotted over to the door where I had left them, and swirled around them a magical field – and white hot agony arced through my veins.

I uttered a rasping gasp, collapsing to the floor in a heap, my eyes tearing up with blood as crimson poured out of my nose. Stars exploded in my eyes as my head connected with the floorboards, and I just laid there, limply, as I bled out of every orifice on my face.

Summer Smiles shrieked as Candy Cane galloped towards me, rolling me over on my side to cringe at my bloodied visage.

"What the hell'd you do, Red Dawn?!"

Her shrill voice sent a terrible twinge through my ears, dazing me; meanwhile, somepony slowly screwed a metal bolt into my skull. I groaned, my limbs twitching erratically as my mind began to give up on being lucid.

"I'll n-never get used to being an earth pony," I wheezed as the two mares lifted me to my hooves.

She glared at me. "You don't have to be … don't go around trying that until after you've slept this thing off!"

"What's wrong with him?" Summer Smiles asked, wincing.

"He burned out his magic," she said, grunting as she propped me up against the wall.

I gasped for breath, clenching my eyes shut as my brain floundered around within my skull. Having a burnout induced headache was like having a debilitating muscle cramp but inside your brain. I was getting sick and fucking tired of this useless horn of mine.

I shrugged them off, irritated with myself. "It's … I'm okay. I can … I can walk."

I took a feverish step forward and nearly fell on my face once more, prompting Candy Cane to lean up against me. A long, drawn out sigh wheezed out of my lips.

"Let me just get my bags," I repeated. "Let's try this again," I murmured, much to Candy Cane's dread that I'd try magic again.

"I can get those for you –" she began, but I brushed her off, and reached for them myself. This time, I curled my hooves around my bags' straps and hurled them over my back with a grunt.

I looked up, and found that the two mares were staring at me.

"What?"

Summer Smiles covered her face with a hoof, muttering to herself.

"You're getting blood on my floor."

---

I stumbled around in almost complete darkness, the only light coming from the open door that led to the hallway behind us. I shuffled blindly across the floor, and ran into something solid; I nearly collapsed again. Whatever I had struck rattled and shook, my muzzle stinging where it made contact. I was too tired to care really. All I wanted to do was to find the bed that was supposed to be in this room.

A light switched on, and the obstruction revealed itself to be a dresser. Glancing over my shoulder, I caught Candy Cane's worried stare, her hoof hovering over a button on the wall.

"Thanks."

Candy Cane watched, silently, as I set my bags down next to an old bed that lay beneath a shuttered windowpane. I could hear, faintly, the wind moaning outside.

The air inside was chilly; but thankfully not bone gnawingly freezing like it was outside, especially with the storm blowing past us. I was glad I was inside, this time. The room was furnished with a table with an uneven leg, a dresser that was missing a drawer, and a cracked mirror, through which I gazed at my reflection. The bags under my eyes and the redness of my sclera were sorry sights to look at.

I was a sorry sight to look at. Candy Cane knew this too.

"I think I got it from here," I told her, but she didn't budge an inch. The two mares had helped me upstairs, because I was apparently too loopy to walk up a flight on my own. What'd they know? I had four legs that weren't broken … yet. That's what I told Candy Cane, but she said I'd get one if I kept being stubborn.

Summer Smiles had left to check on the fillies, but the maroon mare had remained.

With her still leaning against the doorway, I rummaged through my bags, pulling out my Stable 91 jumpsuit. It was clean; I haven't worn it since I left the stable. And I wasn't about to wear my bloody security barding to bed. I ran a hoof up my chest and curled it around the zipper under my neck. I frowned, Candy Cane's shadow still stretching across the floor next to me. I glanced over my shoulder, questioningly.

"Oh … sorry," she said, turning away. You can leave, you know, I wanted to say. Whatever. I sighed and shed my battered barding. My teeth chattered, rifling the inside of my skull, and joining the dull pain that throbbed in my head.

With a zip, I slipped into the blue and yellow jumpsuit, the numbers 91 emblazoned onto my sides.

I turned, and found myself unsurprised. "You're still there," I remarked, as Candy Cane turned her head back to me.

She smiled, faintly. "I'm just here to make sure you don't fall on your face again."

I rolled my eyes and flopped onto the bed with a groan, laying my head down on the pillow. My eyes fluttered closed. Soft. The blankets were cold beneath my flesh, but the bed was soft. It had been a while since I'd lain down on something like this. I almost felt like I was back at home. I took a deep breath and imagined I was lying in my bed. I imagined Dew Drops lying next to me, sleeping soundly as I closed my own and began to drift off into a peaceful slumber.

Then I felt the air above me shift. My bloodshot eyes flew open and I eeped. Candy Cane was staring down at me.

"Shit …" I murmured, tucking my legs to my chest as she placed a hoof on my forehead.

"Your fever's gotten worse since I last checked. Give me a minute." The mare trotted away, disappearing outside. She returned, shortly after with a wet towel, which she draped over my forehead. Candy Cane sighed, "There. Is it cold?"

I shivered, kicking the blankets under me before pulling them over my numb flesh.

"Y-yes," I managed, as I felt my headache begin to wane.

"Thank Celestia," she muttered, relieved. "That should cool you down. I don't want you having a meltdown inside that skull of yours."

"Thanks, Candy Cane," I said, staring up at the ceiling.

She stood there for a few heartbeats, looking like she had something to say.

"What you did earlier … I'm glad Summer Smiles didn't have to give them her caps. Doodle and Hops mean the world to her," she whispered.

I sighed, wishing she'd just leave me be so that I could sleep. I mustered through my pervasive headaches a crooked smile, and nodded, but the towel slipped down my face. Candy Cane snorted, somewhat amused, and tugged it back onto my forehead. I shivered, my muzzle wet with cooling water.

"You made me a pony again, Red Dawn," she said, tenderly, staring into my heavy eyes. Candy Cane nudged my shoulder with a hoof. "So I'll help youbecome a unicorn again."

I had already fallen asleep by the time the light flicked off and the door creaked closed.

Footnote: Level 6

XP: 250/3450