Dew Drops and I worked side by side, digging our hooves and tools into the machinery that jutted out of the long hall’s steel wall. I finished lubing up the hydraulic water diverter and reached for a wrench to tighten its bolts. But it slipped from my hooves and clattered to the floor. It took more than my magic alone to tighten one of those things, and that mess wasn’t really helping.

Industrial grease was made to lube up machinery, not people. You could've slid my entire body horn-first up a centaur’s ass if you tried, and the bastard wouldn’t have even broken a sweat.

“Fuck.”

Dew Drops spared me a quick glance over her shoulder as she reconfigured the pressure control system to my right. She chuckled, glad that she wasn’t me before returning to her work, her clean hooves clacking loudly against the terminal’s keyboard.

“Didn’t you bring any towels?” she asked, still staring into the terminal screen.

I swung my head to my saddlebags with my hooves crossed. Then I saw that all our towels were bathed in grease. So were my bags.

'Nice.'.

I sighed, muttering, “Yes …”

She didn’t even have to look to know that they were all dirty.

“Any degreaser?”

My left forehoof came to tap my PipBuck’s controls. But I stopped myself at the last moment, glaring at the sticky black hoof that hovered over my PipBuck’s glowing, teal screen.

'Nope.'

Didn’t want to grease up my PipBuck too. Celestia knew that an unlubed PipBuck might be the only thing stopping me from slipping down a poopy, pony-sized pipe.

I figured I’d check my inventory the old-fashioned way. Not like it mattered. My bags were as dirty as I was, anyway. I pulled them close and rummaged through them, tossing our slick towels against the wall and fumbling for the rest.

My ears drooped.

“I think I left it in the supply room,” I murmured, face hoofing. “Fuck,” I swore under my breath at the slimy guck that clung to my face and swore some more when I peeled my greasy hoof from my face.

“Fuck!” I snapped, jumping to my hooves and – "Shit!" I slipped on a black skid and flopped on my belly.

I was going to need a new swear jar.

I stood up on my hinds, glaring at the black Red Dawn shaped puddle of goo that was splattered across the floor.

“Great – just great!” I groaned. “You know what – I don’t even care anymore. I don’t care!” I cried, lathering the black goo all over my chest.

I actually cared immensely.

Dew Drops finally glanced her head over at the squishing sounds I was making with my wet jumpsuit.

“Hold on a ‘sec.” She tapped her keyboard one at time and gave me her full attention. “Do that again – but slower this time,” she grinned, winking at me.

I swiped at her muzzle with a greasy hoof instead.

“H-hey!” she giggled, wrinkling her nose.

I sighed, plopping down on my rump. “I wonder why the MAS didn’t just make a greaser talisman or something.”

“Hmm, out of the budget, maybe?”

I laughed bitterly. “They made incinerator talismans, air-conditioning talismans, water talismans – everything but greaser talismans,” I whined. “How convenient.”

“Looks like you’ll have to go back and get some degreaser.”

I cocked my head at her. “Go back? That’s four levels above us!” I cried.

Dew Drops rolled her eyes. “Oh come on, you big baby. I’ll go with you, then,” she yawned, lowering herself to her forehooves to stretch, summoning a pop from her back. “I need to get the blood flowing in these legs of mine, anyways. We’ve been down here for hours now, haven’t we?”

I didn’t answer. Instead, I sighed, pouting like a pony princess with a big muddy stain on her dress.

“Well, the day’s not getting any brighter, come on!” Dew Drops trotted down the hall, motioning me to follow her. I lathered my hooves through my once red mane, loathing the trail of black horseshoes I was leaving behind me with every step I took.

“We’re in a stable, DD. I don’t know what ‘day’ looks like,” I mumbled. “All I know is that there’s a fifteen minute walk ahead of us.” I glowered over my shoulder. “And a lot of cleaning to do.”

We had been there all day trying to fix our level’s water pressure. Everyone else in our shift had already clocked out and gone to bed.

Still, everyone in B block was having limp dick water pressure, because the terminal controlling it on that level was all kinds of fucked. Everyone at B was probably wondering what the hell we were doing.

I sighed. I couldn’t wait to shower all that guck off at 1.5 gallons per minute.

“Well Red, as your teacher, it’s my job to accompany you and guide you along this long, long road.” She paused for a moment, smirking. “To become the best engineer you can be.”

I chuckled, crassly.

“Right. Thought you were gonna say that you’re here to guide me ‘to the fourth floor.’ Fuck me if I forget how to walk,” I drawled, rolling my eyes.

She grinned, bumping my flank with hers. “Of course! Momma Dawn wouldn’t want her little boy to get lost on his way home, now would she?” Dew Drops leaned in and tried to peck me on the cheek.

“Hey!” I snapped, my cheeks reddening beneath the sludge. “I’ve got shit all over me!”

Dew Drops lunged forward and scored a glancing blow with her lips.

“Now I do too!” she laughed.

I clenched my jaw and stared at the floor.

“Screw it,” I mumbled, thankful that the black slime was covering my blushing cheeks. “I could’ve went up myself.”

Dew Drops smiled smugly. “Oh come on, it’s always great to have some company.”

“DD, I don’t need you to hold my hoof … okay?” I looked away. "I forgot the degreaser.” I narrowed my eyes at the mare. “So I have to get it.”

The mare looked straight on ahead as we trotted down a long, wide hall.

“Besides, if you stayed behind, you could’ve finished your work on that terminal. Then we wouldn’t have to be down here for much longer.”

“I wouldn’t have to be down here much longer,” Dew Drops corrected me.

I cocked an eyebrow at her. “That’s a good thing, you feather-brain.”

She chuckled, “For me, yeah. But what about you? It’s lonely down here.”

An exasperated groan hissed through my lips as I shook my head, my greasy, plastered mane flopping around and splattering the floor with muck.

“Lonely … sure. I’m only here because I’m your apprentice, anyways.”

Dew Drops looked at me for a moment. Then her ears drooped as she lowered eyes,

“Shit … I didn’t mean it like that, DD …”

She sighed, shaking her head. “I know you didn’t. Yeah, the engineering board assigned you to me but I’m your friend and we’ve always done everything together.”

“But DD ... you don’t even need me down here. I’m the one learning from you, after all.” I snorted, “You can probably redivert the water to B-Block with one hoof and troubleshoot its terminal with the other hoof. And not just with your forehooves. I mean, with your hind hooves, too.”

She rolled her eyes. “Well, you’re down here with me for a reason. And that wasn’t because I could do it myself.”

I just laughed at her.

Dew Drops glowered at me. “You act like I’m the Masked Matter-Horn or something!”

“Yeah, but you are. You should be in the classrooms lecturing ponies on bipolar arcanomechanical systems, not getting your hooves greasy at engineering.”

“Mhm.” She groaned, “I’ll start teaching bored teenagers when I learn how to shit rainbows and fart pixie dust.”

I smirked. “Bet you know how to do all that, too.”

Dew Drops wasn’t smiling back. She stared at the floor as our hoofsteps echoed down the hall.

“I … I can’t, Red. I can’t do everything by myself, no matter how good you think I am at doing things,” she said, softly. “I know how to reconfigure a heating talisman to a cooling talisman – but then what? What happens when I’m not at engineering, doing what I do best?”

“Sleeping? I only see you go to your room twice a day.”

She shook her head again. “Oh, Red … it feels … great being with you guys. You guys make me feel needed, wanted – cared about. It takes two to tango. I can’t feel that way alone.”

Dew Drops narrowed her eyes at me as I stared onward down the hall.

“But you … you always go back to your room between breaks.”

“Because I always have a lot of things on my queue!” I cried in protest.

“Ugh, RED! You just don’t get it, do you!?” she snapped.

We both stopped in our tracks as I peered into her glaring eyes.

Dew Drops blinked, shook her head, and looked away.

I frowned, staring at the floor. None of us moved an inch. Not one inch until I put one hoof forward and started walking once again with Dew Drops trailing behind me. We followed a tight, multi-tiered stairwell that ascended to the top, in silence. A few quiet minutes passed and we stopped outside the elevator doors.

I tapped its controls and waited for its car to arrive.

The elevator door opened and we stepped inside. I stared at the elevator’s control panel for a long time, my hoof hovering over the button to the sixth floor.

“Red … don’t you … don’t you ever feel … lonely?” she finally asked me.

I thought for a moment, biting my lower lip.

“Do you?” I asked quietly.

She smiled at me, peering deep into my eyes.

“Not right now.”

A blue forehoof crossed over mine as Dew Drops tapped the number six, holding my gaze. My eyes darted away from her as the elevator car became remarkably warmer.

We shared that ride together in silence for the next forty seconds as the heavy, industrial grade elevator car ascended up the floors.

We never made it up that elevator.

As much as I would have loved to stay … I didn’t … and thinking about it now, I wished that I could have. But I never made it. I left her in that elevator just like I left her out in that blizzard.

I was awake.

My eyes fluttered open at the sounds of hooves clopping against the creaky wooden floorboards. I rolled over away from the muffled voices that were trickling into my droopy ears.

“… burned out,” I heard Candy Cane say, her voice somewhat familiar in my senses as they slowly began to wake. “Girls, he’s just really tired,” she explained to the ponies I didn’t know were there.

Another voice, this one too high pitched to be that of a grown mare, whined, “He’s been sleeping for like five days now!” Whoever that filly was, she was close. Like, yelling into my ear, close. “Doesn’t he get tired of – uhh – being tired?”

“Two days, Doodle. He’s been sleeping for two days, now,” Candy Cane corrected the filly.

Somepony prodded my chest with a hoof. I let out a muffled groan as I buried my muzzle in my pillow. But that did nothing to hinder the hooves that assaulted my ribcage with their merciless jabs. A raspy breath struggled out of my lips as I rolled over in bed. I crammed a pillow into my face in an effort to stifle the poking and the muffled voices that wouldn’t leave me alone.

A voice, gentler and quieter than the last squeaked, “Uh-uh … Mister Dawn?” She sounded a lot like Doodle. It must’ve been her twin sister, Hops.

“Grrr … he’s not waking up!” Hops squawked, her voice cracking. Wait. No, that wasn’t Hops. It sounded more … well, agressive. Like an angry squirrel, if I’d ever heard one. It was Doodle again. "You've been here forever!"

“I guess he’s still sleepy …” Hops murmured, nervously.

I heard hoofsteps clops furiously against the floorboards.

Doodle’s voice cracked viciously, “Okay, that’s it! You wanna do this hard way?” I heard her stomp the floor with a hoof. “We’ll do this the hard way!”

Candy Cane’s voice cut in, “Doodle, wait –”

Hooves slammed into my chest. I sat up, biting my tongue as I choked back a string of curses that struggled for a way out of my throat. For the sake of the children, I merely thought of punting the filly off me instead.

Doodle or Hops – one of the two was crushing my chest with her hooves, grinning at me with Sugar Rum’s blue eyes.

“Wake up, sleepy head!” she shouted at me, her voice like broken glass to my ears. “It’s morning!” I groaned, and let myself fall back onto my pillow, staring blankly at the ceiling with a somewhat renewed sense of clarity.

'Morning,' I thought, 'Morning?' The dim glow of candlelight was all that illuminated my dim room. But it was still dark outside. I wondered, how in the hell those ponies could tell if it was morning or not if it was always night time!? But then again, I didn’t know what morning was … or what the sun looked like … but still!

I batted at the air, eyes still half-closed until the filly groaned, stepped off my chest and walked over to the edge of the mattress. I sat up and looked out the window. I was vaguely amused to find that it was a cool, midnight blue outside.

One of my ears perked as Candy Cane cleared her throat. I panned my gaze across the room and over the monster filly who was prancing impatiently in place at my bedside.

Clinging to Candy Cane’s lower neck and lying upon her back was Hops, her hind legs dangling from sides.

So that meant that the filly that had stomped my chest in was Doodle.

“Breakfast, breakfast, breakfast! Come on, everypony!” Doodle cried, grabbing me by the shoulders and shaking me violently. With a furious whinny, she hurled herself off my bed and onto the floor with a loud thump.

Candy Cane swung her head between her legs as the filly scampered between them and out the door, leaving us three to the fading echoes of her one-pony stampede. I turned and cocked an eyebrow at the other pale filly that clung to Candy Cane’s back.

Hops grimaced and hid behind a thick curly lock of Candy Cane’s mane before we could even make eye contact.

“Um ... so ... how long have I been out?” I asked Candy Cane as she cooed comfortingly into Hops’ little ear.

“Two days, Red Dawn,” she answered, reassuring the little pony who was still inching her head into her mane.

“Two … days? Seriously?”

“Seriously.”

“I was that tired?”

She nodded, “Apparently so; you didn’t even wake up once. You were completely and utterly exhausted. Almost comatose.”

Well, I certainly felt refreshed.

I blinked and saw Hops staring at me again. When I caught her eyes, she turned them away and buried her muzzle in Candy Cane’s mane once more.

“Is she … um, okay?” I asked, rubbing my forehooves together, nervously. Little kids usually had the tendency to stare at people for no reason. I never knew how to react whenever I’d meet the blank stare of some dribbling toddler … but Hops was no toddler. She, like her monster foal of a sister, was reasonably sapient.

Candy Cane smiled once more, ruffling the filly’s mane with a gentle hoof.

“She’s just a little shy.”

The soft spoken filly murmured something through a mouthful of Candy Cane’s mane.

“What was that, Hops?” she asked the girl.

More quiet murmuring. I frowned at them both, but that only made her whimper some more.

Candy Cane chuckled, “You’re going to have to speak louder, Hops.”

“Can we go downstairs now?” the filly asked, one of her blue eyes showing through the strands of Candy Cane’s hair.

“Of course we can, you’re probably starving right now!” she chuckled, looking at her, then at me.

I stared down my chest and heard and felt my stomach grumble.

“Ohh …” I groaned, wincing.

“That means you too, Red Dawn,” Candy Cane said, sounding like my mother. “You’ve had nothing to eat for two days. You should join us.” The mare turned and started for the door, but glanced over her shoulder. “Summer Smiles made applesauce and carrot juice.”

'Applesauce? Carrot juice?' My tongue moistened at the thought of a bowl of applesauce. I rolled out of my bed, stretching out my limbs in a series of satisfying pops. I held my breath and stretched out my spine – “Ahhh …”

I was surprised my legs hadn’t atrophied. I didn't know it was possible for anybody to sleep that long.

I walked over to the broken mirror across the room. I stood upon my hinds and peered into it, running a hoof through my mane with a yawn. I blinked, pausing for a moment. I frowned into the mirror, eyeing my reflections. Something was off. Different.

There was something wrong with me.

I drew my hoof away from my mane and stared at it, scrutinizing it. I leaned into the mirror, eyeballing my mane – my face – my neck.

Goddesses. Not a hair out of place. Not a single hair was out of place. I was clean. I was clean. I dropped to all fours, reached for my collar and yanked the zipper down. My chest.

My entire body. Clean. Spotless.

Even my mane looked brushed.

The blood drained from my face as realization dawned upon me.

I couldn’t have gotten cleaned up by myself. 'That means' … I gulped. The inn was filled with mares. And … someone cleaned me up … some mare saw me … my …

“Oh, fuck.”

Hooves clopped in the doorway.

Candy Cane poked her head inside.

“Red, are you coming?”

“Hrk!” I nearly jumped out of my skin. I swung my head around and saw her standing there in the doorway. “U-uh – uh yes,” I stammered, blood rushing to my cheeks. I watched, suspicion fluttering inside my chest, as I watched her face for an awkward smile – a knowing stare – a wandering eye.

Nothing.

I gulped. “Yes … I’m … coming.”

Candy Cane stared at me for a few seconds. I looked down, and my zipper was still halfway down my chest. My hoof flew to my zipper and I yanked it back up to my collar, a stupid, lopsided grin stretching across my face.

“Okay …” she said, somewhat confused. “We’ll be downstairs.” And she was off.

I watched her tail disappear out the door, my face turning blue. I gasped for air, letting out a breath that I realized I’d been holding it.

“Oh, Celestia …”

I’d seen pictures in the history books – ponies walking around with their backsides uncovered. That was then. This was now. At least in my stable, we wore clothes all the time. And underwear. I was glad that Candy Cane and everyone else I’d seen so far were wearing trousers. Probably because it was cold.

I suppose it was to prepare us for the frozen world above, but it did wonders with imagining what was under someone’s jumpsuit … and made the idea of someone seeing what was under mine, a nightmare.

The only other mare that had seen me naked was Mom. And Doctor Stitches.

But Candy Cane … I grimaced – half remembering her dark silhouette standing in the light of the doorway as I slept.

'Candy Cane saw me naked.'

'Candy Cane saw my dick.'

I started down the hall outside and down the stairs, my shadow dancing against the walls in the candlelight. I kept telling myself that Candy Cane was a doctor, and that it was just as normal and uncreepy as Doctor Stitches giving me a physical. It was the only time Stitches wasn’t a complete stooge during an office visit.

As I climbed down the stairs I remembered that Candy Cane was a nurse. I also realized that my headache had subsided. Must’ve been how I was able to make that distinction.

Then I smelled the applesauce. My nostrils twitched as the scent spirited me downstairs and into the dining area. Sitting at one of the seven tables was Candy Cane, Doodle, and Hops, as Summer Smiles hung a pot of steaming goodness from her mouth. She saw me and smiled, setting the cauldron down upon the table.

“Good to see you, Red Dawn!” she said, somewhat cheerily as the fillies eyed the applesauce hungrily. I could hear the forcefulness in her voice. The pain in her eyes was still there.

Looking at the fillies’ smiling faces, it became apparent to me that she hadn’t told them the truth about Sugar Rum’s fate. She hadn’t told them that their mother was dead.

I suppose it was for the best. Summer Smiles wanted them to be happy.

“I thought I’d treat us all to some fresh food …” Summer Smiles began, pouring the fillies their bowls before pouring two more for Candy Cane and I. “We have enough caps to eat at least twice every other day now, thanks to you.”

I shook my head, staring down at the steaming bowl of sweet, sweet applesauce. “It smells amazing …” I murmured, suppressing a drooling grin.

“Auntie makes the awesomest applesauce, ever!” Doodle neighed, before lunging at her bowl.

“‘Most awesome’, darling,” Candy Cane corrected her.

Doodle stopped an inch above her bowl, frowning until she was cross-eyed.

“Most awesome applesauce, ever!” she added, opening her mouth to lap at the bowl of applesauce.

“Doodle! Wait a minute, young lady!” Summer Smiles snapped, frowning at the filly. “We haven’t said grace.”

Hops chimed in, her voice as soft as ever. “We haven’t said grace since Mom left …”

Summer Smiles stared at the filly, quieted by her innocent remark. She gulped down the lump in her throat.

“For old time’s sake … let’s say grace before we eat. We have to thank the Goddesses for this blessing …” she said, eyeing me, then the applesauce.

“Summer Smiles …” I began, quietly, but she shook her head and took the fillies’ hooves. I lifted my open hoof. Candy Cane just stood there as if she hadn’t heard Summer Smiles say a thing.

We all looked at her in the corners of our eyes. She just stared at her hooves, quietly, waiting for us to continue.

If she was thinking what I was thinking, then I wasn’t sure what to do, either. Back at ’91, I didn’t pray to the Goddesses as much as I think I should have. I looked at Candy Cane, who wore a distant, bitter expression upon her face.

It didn’t look like she did either. At all.

I wasn’t sure if I’d ever even heard the prayer Summer Smiles said next. It made me realize that the religion many of us followed at home was noticeably different in practice outside.

The two fillies echoed her as they prayed. “Dear Princess Celestia; Dear Princess Luna; thank you for blessing our table with family, friends, and the food that we are about to share because of your wondrous, eternal works.”

I felt Summer Smiles raise my hoof, and I did the same as they finished their prayer. “To the Eternal Princesses; your faithful subjects, amen,” they said, together. Not even a second passed after we unhooked hooves when Doodle attacked her bowl in a frenzy of blurring white coat and splashes of yellow applesauce.

I looked back at Candy Cane and watched as her distant expression faded away. At the sight of Doodle’s famished frenzy, the darkness in her eyes caved in to a warm glow.

Candy Cane smiled.

“Doodle, you’re making a mess!” she giggled.

“It’s been awhile since they’ve had anything better than cram or canned bread …” Summer Smiles intoned. I shivered. Canned bread. I remembered the disgusting, tube-shaped, sludgey monstrosities they stored deep inside ‘91’s warehouses. It’d probably be what my stable-mates would have to eat if I didn’t hurry up and get them their water talisman. I pitied them. But I pitied Summer Smiles’ family even more.

Summer Smiles folded her legs across her chest. “I’ll let it slide, this time.” She glared at the filly. “Do you hear me, young lady? Only this time.”

Doodle nodded, her cheeks bulging with applesauce, before she swallowed and gobbled up some more.

Hops, a unicorn, levitated a small spoon and dipped it into her bowl, making an effort to not make any sort of noise whatsoever. She didn’t even let the spoon touch the side of the cracked porcelain bowl.

I looked down at my breakfast, wondering how much it had cost her. The mare noticed I hadn’t even disturbed the surface of my applesauce.

“Eat up, Red Dawn,” Summer Smiles told me, “You haven’t had anything in days.”

I nodded, blankly. Honestly, at that moment, despite my empty stomach, all I could think about was my stable. It was like a pain in my gut that wouldn’t go away. Two days. I hadn’t done anything in two days. Two days. Two days of their rations, gone. All because I was sleeping.

“Heh … right,” I said. I took a spoonful of applesauce down my throat, but the usually orgasmic flavor of golden delicious apples was lost on me. The recently underused bile in my stomach wasn’t the only thing that was eating me up on the inside. Swallowing, I wondered, ‘When is Summer Smiles going to make up her mind?’

'When was she going to hook us up with the Orphanage?'

Somepony cleared her throat, and my eyes darted to the mare sitting next to me. Candy Cane had noticed the turmoil in my stare.

“How are you feeling?”

I turned to her and almost met her eyes. I hesitated and fought back a blush at the mare and her professional, medical hooves. I sighed. I was at least relieved she wasn’t asking what I was thinking.

I finally turned to see her.

“My head isn’t hurting as much anymore, thankfully,” I replied, running a hoof through my brushed mane. I dipped my spoon into my applesauce, before narrowing my eyes up at my horn.

“But I’m not so sure about this bony, vestigial thing on my head.” I was afraid to try it out. I was getting tired of bleeding out of every orifice.

“Oh, it’ll get better, Red Dawn,” she reassured me, as I lifted the spoon to my lips. “You might just need a little bit more rest, maybe a more few days, even.”

My spoonful of applesauce froze in mid-air.

“A few more … days?” I asked, my voice wavering.

She narrowed her eyes at me.

“I don’t want you walking around with a headache, you might have an accident and hurt yourself again.”

Summer Smiles nodded, thoughtfully. “You were really, really loopy when we took you upstairs two nights ago.” She chuckled, “You hit your head on the steps on the way up.”

“I … I don’t remember any of that,” I murmured.

“Exactly," Candy Cane said, "You couldn’t even think straight. You need to rest and keep your head down for a bit … If you’re going to be traveling with me, I’d rather have a conscious pony watching my back than an unconscious one.”

I shook my head, my ears drooping. “You don’t understand,” I began. “I’m running out of time. My stable’s running out of time, and the more time I spend just sitting here …” I trailed off.

“You should listen to her, Red Dawn,” Summer Smiles remarked. “She’s been at your bedside almost by the hour for nearly two days now, trying to keep your head from exploding.” She glanced at the mare who was staring at her bowl of applesauce in quietude. “Don’t ruin all her hard work by hurting yourself some more.”

I sighed, shaking my head once more. I pulled up my PipBuck, eyeing the date at the top of my screen. It’d been almost a week and a half since I left home. I looked up from my PipBuck, my face alight in its teal glow as I caught Doodle’s curious eyes.

“You’re from a stable?” Doodle asked through a mouthful of applesauce.

“Yes. I’m from Stable 91,” I replied, nodding solemnly. “It’s not too far from here. Maybe sixty, eighty miles out?”

“Ohhh, so that explains the glowing Pip-thingy around your leg!” she grinned. My eyes glanced at the PipBuck that was wrapped around my right foreleg.

“Oh this little thing?” I asked, raising my leg for her to see.

Doodle nodded, excitedly. “Well what are you doing out here? My mom says that ponies have it good down there.” The filly looked around her. “Better than what we have here in this dump. Mom says ponies who go inside stables never come out.”

Summer Smiles frowned at her, but she didn’t seem to notice.

“For good reason, I think,” I said, rather quietly.

Doodle looked saddened, the ravenous scourging of the applesauce in her bowl slowing to a halt. “Do you miss your home?”

I looked down at my hooves.

'Home …'

“Everyday, Doodle. Everyday.”

She pursed her lips. “Don’t you want to go back?”

I chuckled, softly. Candy Cane and Summer Smiles were watching me silently. “Of course I do! Of course I want to go back.”

“Well what’s stopping you?”

For a moment I felt like I was at the emergency meeting at ’91 again, standing before the Overmare and hundreds of my other stable-mates.

I exhaled a trembling breath. “I can’t just go back. Not yet. Not until I’ve finished what I started out here.”

“Oh …” she trailed off, staring down at her bowl. A heartbeat passed, and her face lit up again. “Well … maybe when you go back, you can take us with you!?”

I stared at her, my mouth suddenly dry. I wouldn’t be going home for a long time.

Summer Smiles clopped her hooves together.

“Now, Doodle, you’re asking too many questions. Red Dawn still hasn’t even finished his applesauce yet.” Doodle groaned, rolling her eyes. “Maybe when he has a full tummy you can ask him some more, okay?”

She nodded, disappointed, and proceeded to finish her breakfast. I figured that I should've done the same. The applesauce was delicious, but my mind was trailing off elsewhere, off to places and to ponies I wished I could see again.

Stable 91 was my home, but that inn was the closest to a home I was sure I’d ever have in the frozen wasteland.