III

They were crushed. They were destroyed. They were emptied. Everything that they had once been was gone. They were drained of all emotion. The fear that they had known, the anger, the frustration, the angst, the ambition, the fleeting premonitions a new emotion greater than all others, all of that was gone. They had nothing left. Golden Delicious had abandoned everything that he had stood for. Zecora would never be the Princess. They were hollow.

The mind abhors a vaccuum. The hollowness filled with something new. They were filled with thoughts of revenge.

They contacted the resistance. They too were broken and scattered. The few survivors were hiding, their morale dashed. Even their cause had evaporated. Still, Zecora and Golden had managed to make contact with Major. He told them of a cache of supplies hidden in Mareputo’s slums. He told them they could do what they wanted with it. Then he told them to never try to contact him again.

They found the cache.

PRESIDENTIAL PALACE
MAREPUTO
09:00

A sleek Marecedes-Benz sedan pulled up to the guard station. It had two small Equestrian flags sticking up from under the hood, an embassy vehicle. The guard stepped out of his booth and looked through the window. There was an Equestrian pony, bright red coat and orange mane. The guard looked down to see he had a large green apple cutie mark on his flank.
“Good morning,” the guard said, “how can I help you today.”
“Yes, hello,” the pony said, “I’d like to speak with the President please, or at least the Foreign Minister. I’m an attaché for Ambassador Sprinkle with the Equestrian Embassy.” The pony handed the guard some paperwork, all with the official embassy letterhead and watermarks.
“I’m looking at my schedule, sir,” the guard said, “and I’m not seeing that you have an appointment.”
“That’s right, I haven’t got an appointment today,” the pony said. “In fact, that’s why I’m here. Ambassador Sprinkle would like to arrange an appointment with the President, but not through the usual lines. It concerns the Equestrian pony you have been looking for. These are unusual circumstances.”
“He is at the embassy?” the guard asked.
“I can neither confirm nor deny that, officer,” the pony said. “Sorry.”
“I can’t let you see the President,” the guard chuckled. “But I might be able to let you see on of his secretaries, if you don’t mind the wait.”
“Not at all,” the pony smiled. “I have all day.”
The guard opened the gate and waved him through. The pony drove the car into the parking garage and stopped in the guest parking. There were two armed guards waiting for him. They would escort him into the palace, search him, make him wait for three or four hours in a stuffy waiting room and then tell him the secretary was too busy. They’d ask for his phone number, and then send him back to the embassy. Not because any real business was going on in the palace, but because that was how these things worked in tin-pot dictatorships.
The guards were escorting him halfway down the hallway when the bomb went off. The guards weren’t ready for it, but Golden was. He knew the entire trunk and undercarriage of the car had been packed with high explosives. He had packed half of it himself. The guards were almost knocked off their hooves. Golden was unarmed, but he could still kick. A kick from a pony was as lethal as any gun at point blank range. He smashed the skull of the first one; he never knew what hit him. The second saw but couldn’t stop it. The second guard only took a grazing blow, but still enough to drop him. Golden finished the business with a few more kicks to the stricken guard. He gave it no second thought.
Golden grabbed one of the guards’ rifles, and waited. Zecora emerged from the smoking end of the hallway. She had taken out the guard post, climbed over the smoking rubble that had been the parking garage, and followed Golden into the palace. She had three fully loaded pairs of saddle bags loaded onto her. She transferred two pairs of bags to Golden, then grabbed one of the guns for herself. They continued forward.
They entered a large room and then ducked back into the hallway as they were peppered by bullets from a handful of guards making a stand. Zecora reached into one of the saddlebags on Golden and pulled out a grenade with her mouth. Golden reached forward, pulled out the pin with his mouth, and Zecora threw it into the room. The explosion was followed by screams, but still more guards poured on fire. This time Golden reached into one of Zecora’s bags and pulled out six sticks of dynamite. Major’s cache of supplies had been cobbled together from everywhere, and odd assortment, but it was effective. Zecora lit the dynamite with a strike match, and Golden threw.
This time there were no screams that followed the explosion. While the grenade had left small pieces of shrapnel in the marble facade of the palace interior, the dynamite had simply left a cratered ruin. Zecora and Golden hurried through it as the roof began to groan. It collapsed a few seconds later.

They found themselves in another hallway. A door suddenly swung open and a mare flew out. Zecora gunned her down. Golden recognized her, a whore from Mbinguni’s harem. Golden threw a lit stick of dynamite threw the door she had just come from, kicked it shut, and they both ran down the hallway. The door behind them bulged outward from the explosion, but didn’t give way.

They were no in the large room where Zecora had gunned down the two guards a life time ago. Whatever new guards had been re-stationed here, they had since fled. Others were fleeing from the couple still. Golden and Zecora were firing at those that they saw; they hit many of them. Mbinguni would be behind the heavy double doors. Another stick of dynamite, another obstacle was cleared.

They proceeded down the concrete corridor. They found Mbinguni in his secured office, the one meant for clandestine business. His guards had deserted him. He fired his weapon at the door, but both Golden and Zecora dodged back into the hallway, on either side of the door. Mbinguni’s gun was emptied, they both heard the furious clicking as he tried to fire anyway.

Golden looked to Zecora. She was speaking something, but he couldn’t make out what language it was in. He could still tell that it somehow rhymed. There was a loud thump and exhalation of breath from within the office. Zecora turned to him, nodded, and entered the office. Golden followed her.

Mbinguni was pinned up against the wall, off the floor, by some unseen force. His muscles strained but only his eyes could move. His eyes were wide with fear. He had already pissed himself. Years of torturing and oppressing his people had finally come back to haunt him, just like he always knew it would. In other minds, that may have made the whole experience less surprising, less terrifying, but not in his.

Zecora and Golden turned to each other, expecting the other to say something now that their business had reached its conclusion. Neither said anything. They turned back to Mbinguni as he tried to scream. They raised both their guns and fired. They fired until they too were empty.

Golden Delicious and Zecora left the palace. Not in flight, as they had done a lifetime ago, but with their work accomplished. They climbed over the rubble of the parking garage, left through the shattered iron gate, and commandeered a jeep from a frightened gazelle. They sped away from the palace. They were soon slowed by the Mareputo crowd. As fast as the couple was, they were not faster than the news that the president was dead. They drove through firefights. Partisans and revolutionaries were erupting up all over the city, destroying government troops were they could find them. The headless government was putting up a poor fight. Then they passed into the riots. Those who couldn’t fight had stopped their work to protest. They passed the riots and entered the celebration. The tyrant was dead, the whole world now knew. The streets were packed with jubilant throngs.

Zecora and Golden paid no attention to any of them. They were done. Once cleared of traffic, they opened up the throttle and left Mareputo behind in their mirror. Neither of them ever returned.

NOWHERE
01:13

When the jeep ran out of gas, they simply started walking. They hadn’t said a word to each other since before the attack the previous morning. Still, they kept on walking in silence. The road had long since turned to dirt, and was now barely a trail. Neither knew where they were going, they had just wanted to go. Eventually reality caught up to them. They found a spot to sleep for the night. It was just a small patch of grass, surrounded by cacti and scrubby looking pine trees. It would do.

“I guess we’re done then,” Zecora said, “our story’s over, we’re at an end.” It was a poor rhyme. Zecora was too tired to care. It didn’t really matter anymore anyway.

“I suppose we are,” Golden said as he eased off the last of his gear. “Still, it feels like there’s something missing. I can’t say what it is.”

“Your oath is broken,” Zecora said, stepping close to Golden.

“Your claim is destroyed” Golden said, stepping closer.

“Even our revenge...,” Zecora started.

“Is now just a void,” Golden finished.

“We have nothing left,” Golden added. They both knew it was a lie.

They had each other. And then they kissed.

NOWHERE
HOURS LATER

They collapsed into the grass. The sweat from their bodies billowed like steam into the cold arid night air. It took them minutes to catch their breaths. It now turned chilly, and Golden rolled over to spoon with Zecora.

“I love you,” he said.

“I never told you,” she said.

“What?”

“I’m sorry, I love you too. I never told you.”

“What didn’t you tell me?”

“My name. You asked me what my name meant back when you were treating me in the hospital.”

Golden raised his head up from the grass to look at her face.

“Sunshine,” she said. “In my native language, in my little village back near Neighrobi, my name meant ‘Sunshine.’”

Golden rested his head back on the grass. “I think I’ll call you Sunny,” he said. “It will be my special name for you. Just me.”

Zecora smiled. Then frowned, “what are we going to do now, Golden.”

“I should take you back to Equestria with me. We could be happy there forever together,” Golden said.

“I’ll never get a visa.”

“Then I’ll smuggle you back in.”

Zecora laughed. “I think I would miss my jungle. Mareputo isn’t anything like the jungle. And I don’t think Equestria would be like it either.”

Golden grew serious for a moment. “There’s a forest... a forest back in Equestria. I have a cousin. His name is Big McIntosh. He works on an apple farm in a place called Ponyville. There’s a forest nearby. It’s called the Everfree Forest. It doesn’t work like the rest of Equestria. There’s no magic. It’s simply... a wild forest. We’ll live there together, and no one will bother us. I think you would like it.”

“I would like to see it,” Zecora admitted.

“Golden?” she asked.

“Yes?”

“Did you just say you wanted to be happy with me forever.”

“Uh huh,”

“You want to spend the rest of your life with me?”

“Yes.”

“I would be your bride?” Zecora asked, finishing a rhyme that Zuwena had started a lifetime ago.

“If you’d have me,” Golden said. “I don’t care about any crown jewels,” he kissed her neck. “You’re the only jewel I need. You’re my element of providence.”

Zecora opened her eyes wide. Golden didn’t notice. The Element of Providence. She did not know much about prophecy, her education in zebra magic had not taken her that far. But she knew that Golden thought of her as the Element of Providence. And that metaphor was powerful, as far as magic went.

She let the thought go as Golden continued to tickle her.

“So we’re going to be married and live together in Equestria,” she said.

“Mmmhmm,” Golden said.
“So what about foals?” she asked.

Golden stopped suddenly. “I have two thoughts about that,” he said.

“Oh?”

“Should we name our first Sunny Delicious, or Golden Sunshine?” he tickled her again.

Zecora laughed. “Golden?”

“What now?”

“Can zebras and ponies even have foals?”

“Good question,” he said. “They never taught me about that in veterinary school. But I do know something.”

“What’s that?” she asked.
“I know we can keep trying,” he said, rolling over on top of her again.

Zecora burst out laughing. The laughter turned to moaning. The moaning echoed off into the night, as the stars reeled over them.

Epilogue

Miles away, in a sweaty leather tent, an old mare, Zuwena, was instructing her new foal apprentice.

The apprentice was huddled over a large cauldron, peering in at things that were not there. Zuwena was instructing the foal in the art of scrying. This was a simple lesson. The rhyming exercises would still be another year off, and it would be years before the lessons in prophecy.

Scrying was much simpler than prophecy, more accurate and precise. Zuwena was careful to drill that into her student. Prophecy could tell the future, but it was full of pitfalls. The prophecies generally came true, but they were half truths. They rarely came true in the way expected. It was all so vague.

“Do you see them?” Zuwena asked.

“I see...,” the foal said, “I see two auras. They are very close together.”

“Describe them.”

“One of them is gray. Equal portions black and white. A zebra?”

“Correct, go on,” Zuwena said.

“The other is red. But it’s a false red. I don’t understand, he looks brown underneath.”

“That is very good. He has dyed his coat to hide his appearance. You can see well. Now tell me, child,” Zuwena said, “What are they doing?”

The foal peered more closely into the cauldron. The auras were touching each other, mixing with each other, becoming one great aura brighter than the sum of its parts. “Oh my!” the foal said, blushing.

Zuwena saw the reaction on her student’s face, and sprang up to look for herself. She sat back down.

“Oh, that,” she said. “That is not what you think. The two of them have found love. What you see is true love.”

“So Zecora has lost her throne,” the student said, “but she has found true love?”

“That is an important thing,” Zuwena said.

The student smiled.

“Back to your work, child, your work isn’t through. Tell me, look at Zecora’s mind. Does she realize that she is the Element of Providence?”

The student looked. She didn’t know how, but she could see.

“I think she does,” the student said.

“That’s good,” Zecora said. “Now tell me, child. This is important.”

“Yes?”

“Does she know that her brother is still alive?”

The End