Dew Drops screamed.

“DON’T STOP FOR ANYTHING!”

The chillingly brutal wasteland wind howled past our faces as we tore through the snow with our frantic hooves. I couldn’t see them – the monsters that were hounding after us. But I could hear them, barking, snarling, howling into the darkness like animals thirsting for our blood.

They were ponies. But hardly ponies at all. The scorched brush flattened beneath them as they gave chase …

There was nothing else we could do. Nothing, but run.

Their inequine cackles echoed from every direction through the gnarled black trees. They were closing in. Closer. Closer. The path before our hooves narrowed between the gangly scorched trunks like a suffocating black tunnel that both of us knew we couldn’t escape.

Dew Drops' death flashed before my eyes.

I knew how it was going to end.

Tracers lanced through the air. Bullets screamed past us and kicked up showers of snow across the drifts. Their mindless giggles and savage barks demanded a taste of our blood.

They wouldn’t stop. Not until they massacred us all.

Beneath it all, permeating my thoughts – suffocating beneath that horrific cacophony were the shrieks of my dying friends. Their deaths rippled through my conscience like a drop of blood plummeting into a still pond.

I could still hear them screaming … every single one their tormented screams in the distance as Dew Drops and I ran for our lives … because we couldn’t save theirs.

Because I couldn’t.

They had been torn to pieces. Soon. We would join them.

The snow erupted in front of us.

They’d been waiting. Waiting for us the entire time. Three pairs of forehooves wrapped around me, their cold flesh curling around my legs.

“NO!”

I tried jerking away from them. But muscles tore and joints snapped out of place as they hurled me to the ground. I opened my mouth to scream, only for a hoof to come crashing into my skull.

Stars exploded in my eyes. My ears rang and everything around me faded in and out of blackness.

I blinked the darkness away … and stared up into the mindless, black-veined sclera of a grinning monster pony. He laughed in my face. I writhed and kicked helplessly as they held me down. My eyes darted down my chest – and I watched as a psycho pony sunk her chilling, broken teeth into the flesh of my hindleg.

A bloody grin stretched across her lips. She looked me in the eye and told me I was a dead pony. I screamed. I screamed my throat raw. She tore into me again and again, as the onlooking psychos cackled gleefully at my agonized cries.

“No! RED!” Dew Drops shrieked as she leveled her carbine. Her horn glowed to pull the trigger – and somepony swatted the weapon away from her.

My limbs slackened in resignation.

Teeth. Teeth. More broken teeth. I felt them ripping into me like I was nothing but a haunch of meat tossed into a pen of bloodletters. I sobbed through a mouthful of blood, opening my eyes for a moment. I watched as Dew Drops wrestled a psycho pony to the snow.

“DD!” I wailed after her, my voice hoarse. She turned to face me. I met her eyes … and I knew … and she knew … that one of us was going to die. I could see it. The horror – the anguish flashing across her face –

Just as the pony beneath her slammed her back into the snow.

I clenched my eyes shut.

It wasn’t going to be her. It wasn’t going to be her.

Not. Again.

I cried out, willing my bloody limbs to life.

The psycho ponies snarled at me.

I snarled back.

I swung my horn viciously into somepony’s eye and ripped out of her in a gory spurt of blood and vitreous fluid. I swung my head to the right, tearing it across another’s throat.

I clenched my eyes shut a second before his blood splashed across my face. Blind, I kicked out my legs and felt my hooves connect with bone.

Crack – and a pony with a broken neck flopped into the snow. Bathed in blood, I cried out weakly, and scrambled desperately across the snow to Dew Drops like an injured animal.

I reached out with a trembling hoof – and I felt my momentum come to a jarring halt. Someone yanked my tail. I screamed for my life – for Dew Drops, my hooves scrambling uselessly across the snow as they dragged me away into the darkness.

It was the pony with the bloody eye. She laughed at me, reveling in the futility of my struggle.

I heard someone scream – and then a sick crunch. Dew Drops snarled over the cratered skull of a dead pony, blood and bits of pink gore running down her face. With a dull flash, she tore a rock out of the snow.

“YOU LET HIM GO! YOU MOTHER … MOTHER FUCKERS!” Dew Drops shrieked, tears freezing against her cheeks.

She hurled it at the pony behind me – caving in her skull. With a gurgle and a gout of blood, the psycho mare let go.

Dew Drops dove for me, her hooves outstretched.

I met her tearing gray eyes for a single, fleeting moment as both our hooves touched.

Then someone bucked her in the chest.

She uttered a scream as though she had died a thousand times over … a shriek that should have ended the world. Her horn flickered as she fell back, and I felt her magic swirl around me.

But a grinning psycho pony swung a hoof into her horn. I saw it in Dew Drops’ eyes. Her despair.

Dew Drops’ magic winked out.

And I slammed my face into the snow.

A knife sank into my chest. I felt my insides tear apart as it twisted and ripped out of me. Then agony.

“Red!” she wailed, tears and blood running down her face as she rose to her trembling hooves.

I stared at her across the snow, lying in a growing pool of my blood. I could feel my door closing. But as the psychos clustered around me, I watched another door open.

It was her only chance.

“DD … I love you …” I gurgled through a mouthful of blood.

I clenched my jaw and wailed into night, “RUN! RUN! RUN AND DON’T LOOK BACK!” I screamed with all the energy I had left as the psycho ponies gutted me and laid waste to my dying flesh.

She took one last look at me and did all she could do.

She ran.

I watched as she disappeared into the night.

As I lay there dying, their hooves and their teeth tearing me apart, I stared blankly into the night sky and whispered her name through my bloody, pale lips …

“Dew Drops …”

'Dew Drops …'

“Dew Drops …” I whispered feverishly, sweat pouring down my face.

A mare stood over me as I trembled beneath the covers, writhing in nightmare. Her head was bowed and her face was expressionless, shadowed in the dim light that crept into the room from my half-opened door.

I felt her gentle hoof against my forehead and my livid flesh stilled.

Candy Cane’s horn glowed in the darkness of my room and the cool touch of a moistened towel came to rest upon my forehead. My eyes fluttered open for the briefest of moments just as she left the room.

I sighed, softly, and drifted back into a calm, dreamless sleep.

The next day, I woke up earlier than everybody else. Starting down the hall outside my door, I could hear Summer Smiles snoring.

I neared Candy Cane's door and stopped for a moment. I had woken up that morning with a wet towel on my forehead. I didn’t know how many hours ago that was, but chips of frost had flaked away from the towel as I pulled it off my face.

Strangely enough, I remembered her leaving my room with great clarity … more so than the entirety of the nightmare that was still haunting me even as I stood awake. In that dream, I was falling into the darkness of death until I felt the cool touch of reality bring me back to life. It seemed like she’d saved me from certain death more than once already.

Pressing my ear against her door, I found that her room was strangely quiet. Every now and then I'd hear someone rolling around on a bed, the mattress’ springs squeaking and her blankets ruffling. I wondered if she was awake … if she stayed awake that whole night. I wondered how long she stayed in my room, watching me.

I shivered. That was kind of creepy. But nonetheless reassuring … reassuring that I had someone to watch over me. It had been weeks since I had felt that same sense of security, from my mother, and from the mare that I loved …

Dew Drops.

I took her place in that dream. A deeper part of me wished that she escaped that night and that I stayed behind. She was a better mare. A better pony than I knew I’d ever be.

But instead of her, I was the one walking down those stairs.

Down there, for about half an hour, I waited for Summer Smiles, who I knew would be the next to wake. When I heard hoofsteps clopping down the stairs, Summer Smiles was pleasantly surprised.

"Red Dawn? You're up early,” she yawned, running a hoof through her bed-headed blonde mane.

For some strange reason, I felt more awake and ready to tackle the day than I ever was when I lived in ’91.

"You sleep well?"

"Like a baby," I replied with a lopsided smile. I watched as she trotted to the kitchen, letting out a long, drawn out yawn.

The kitchen.

I remembered the pots. The wind moaning outside. And Candy Cane …

I wondered if I wasn’t the only one.

"Summer Smiles ... did you hear anything last night?"

She paused for a moment, thinking.

"Uh … I don’t think so? Why?" she asked, puzzled.

I opened my mouth, but hesitated. I didn’t want to assume anything about someone else’s business … I was the stranger there, after all.

But I knew that she didn’t choose that time of the night or that blizzard to muffle her busywork. No. The pots and pans were just another layer of noise to drown out something else.

"Are you going to make breakfast?" I asked her first.

Summer Smiles nodded.

"Maybe I can help you … but I need to talk to you about something.” I cocked my head at the kitchen. “Maybe over … the stove?"

The mare lifted a brow at me, and waved me forward with a hoof.

In the kitchen, Summer Smiles chose to warm several cans of pre-war food. When she assigned me to pot-watching duty, I was relieved to find that watching beans boil was the easiest thing I did in weeks. But Goddesses, did it smell terrible.

Summer Smiles studied my expression curiously as she leaned against the counter. "What was it you wanted to talk about?"

I drew in a breath, and slowly exhaled. “I … heard something in here last night: Pots and pans banging together. I thought it was the blizzard shaking something outside, but …” I trailed off. I looked up from the beans, and studied her expression.

Summer Smiles’ head was cocked, and her lips were pursed. She eyed the beans as I stirred them.

I cleared my throat and continued. “Went downstairs to see what was going on, and – guess who I found in the kitchen?”

She knew the answer before I even asked it.

“Candy Cane.”

She nodded to herself as she leaned against the counter, forelegs folded across her chest.

"I was expecting she'd do that.”

"What do you mean?"

Summer Smiles sighed, lowering her eyes to the floor.

"She's been doing that for the last two days now. Up and about at two in the morning or later, just ... just doing her thing."

My brows furrowed as I gave her another lopsided half-smile.

"The ... the same thing?" I imagined her coming downstairs every night to repeat the same mindless task over and over again – like a ghost that didn’t know she was dead.

Now that was creepy.

But Summer Smiles shook her head, clenching her jaw.

"The day you two arrived, she scrubbed clean all the tables downstairs. The next night, she dusted every piece of furniture in the inn."

I chuckled, "Heh ... not so much of a dump anymore, I guess.."

She just glared at me. Another awkward stupid half-smile stretched across my lips. 'Tough crowd,' I thought.

"On that same night, she poured together all the leftover vodka into one bottle and left it on one of the racks." Summer Smiles sighed, scratching her mane as I eyed her, worriedly. "Couldn't find the damn thing the next day."

"Does she even sleep?"

Summer Smiles shrugged.

"If she does, then she must be sleeping with both eyes open."

At breakfast, we all sat around the same table and prayed. A prayer during which she said not a single word. This time, her silence was deafening. She was wearing her mask again. The same one she wore when I talked to her in the kitchen last night. She smiled briefly as I passed her a bowl of beans.

You couldn’t have been able to tell just by looking at her, but she was hiding something beneath all those smiles.

Every now and then I’d study her face, and I’d see it – like someone banging against a door and she was standing on the other side. Then she’d look the other way. She’d lock the door and try to walk away with a gentle, polite smile.

Especially around the fillies. They kept her from opening that door – distracted long enough for her to ignore the banging outside. I wondered if I’d ever know what was trying to get inside.

I barely knew her, and she barely knew me. But the more I thought about it, the more I wanted to know her. To know what was eating her up from the inside out.

She’d lived in that terrible shithole of a wasteland her entire life.

Her story must’ve been more interesting than mine.

Left to my own devices once more, I returned to my room and began furnishing it with my belongings. I figured I might as well, since it was going to be my home for as long as I was out there in the northern wastes. Leaning against the lamp on top of my bedside drawer were my photos.

On one side of the lamp was my family: my mother, Morning Dawn, and my father, Red Roan. On another side were my friends: Amber Fields, Star Glint, Lightning Twirl, Box Cutter, and Dew Drops. I stared at both for a long while. It hurt to be homesick.

I forced myself to look away, before putting what few belongings I had in the cabinets and rearranging the furniture to my liking. Within half an hour, the room looked almost like my room back at ’91.

Almost. But not really.

I let out a somewhat contented sigh, and returned to my bags, looking for Dew Drops’ scarf. I was hoping I could hide it in a safe place where it couldn’t get any dirtier. My bedside drawer was the first place I thought of. It’d be close to me even when I was asleep.

I blinked. It wasn’t there. I stared at the open saddlebag, my heart fluttering in my chest. It wasn’t there. It wasn’t …

A thin line of sweat streamed down my face. I rummaged through my bags frantically, digging my hooves through them. I emptied its innards onto the floor, and turned the bag inside out. It wasn’t there. I threw the bag across the room.

I scrambled across the floorboards, dropping to my knees and searching frantically beneath my bed. I rifled through drawers - I yanked open one of the cabinet doors and barely noticed as it crashed to the floor beneath me.

Dew Drops’ scarf was still nowhere to be found. I stifled my panicking breaths, trying to remain composed as a trembling hoof came to wipe the cold sweat off my brow.

For the next ten minutes, I barreled across my room. I tore off my bedsheets. I overturned furniture. I peered through the cracks in the floorboards.

Nothing.

As I brooded there in silence, I thought of all the places I could’ve left it. My bed? In the drawers? In my bags?

'No!'

I nearly killed someone the last time I lost it. I tapped a hoof incessantly against the floor.

I was going to lose it again if I didn’t find Dew Drops’ scarf – the only part of her that I had left. A low growl escaped my lips as my hoof scratched frantically against the floorboards.

My ears perked. And I froze. My eyes widened.

The howling wind outside my window warped and decayed like a signal dying away into static. I began to hear them again. Their psychotic laughter.

'Hahahahaha … hahahahaha!'

My eyes darted across the bloody snow.

'You lost her again.'

“WHERE IS IT!?”

Hooves knocked outside my door. The nightmares shattered around me like glass, and I found myself back in my room, the chilling floorboards creaking beneath me as I stumbled to the door and parted it open.

Candy Cane’s cool grays peeked through the crack in the darkness of my room.

“What’s going on?” she asked me, blinking.

I chewed on my lower lip as I widened the gap between us.

“I was just looking for my scarf – I can’t find my scarf,” I said frantically, my sanity trying to compose itself.

The mare tapped her hoof against the floorboards and looked away, nervously.

“I … I washed your scarf last night.” She seemed to ignore the strangeness in my stare. “I’m the one who got it dirty, after all.” Candy Cane’s horn glowed with a silvery light and the pristine blue and white fabrics of Dew Drops’ scarf levitated before my eyes.

I nearly fell to the floor and kissed her hooves.

“C-Candy Cane … y-you –” I stuttered, my eyes widening as I took the scarf into my hooves and felt its soft fabric against my cheek. “I –”

“No need to thank me,” Candy Cane said, softly. “I saw how sad you looked when you found out I used it as a tourniquet, and I couldn’t bring myself to let you wear it like that.”

I wrapped it around my neck, relieved.

I felt whole. A part of me had been returned. It couldn’t completely fill the void that Dew Drops left behind, but having it with me provided me a place to rest … a place to contemplate a past that I so very badly wanted to relive.

I sighed, the light returning to my eyes as I felt Dew Drops’ warm scarf around my neck.

“Can I come in?” I heard someone ask. I realized that my eyes were closed. They fluttered open and it was Candy Cane.

I looked over my shoulder and found that my room was a mess again. I eyed the broken cabinet in the back … Summer Smiles’ cabinet ... one of its doors hanging precariously off of one intact hinge.

'Shit.' I was going to have to fix that.

I gulped. “I was just cleaning up,”

Candy Cane held up a hoof.

“It’s fine. I just wanted to check on you.”

I frowned at her. She was wearing her mask again.

“Check on me?” I asked, curiously.

Candy Cane leaned against the door frame.

“Your horn, Red Dawn.”

“Oh … right. That thing,” I murmured, swinging the door open for her.

She trotted inside and motioned me to sit.

I took a seat at the foot of my bed as she studied the useless horn atop my head. “You never did tell me how you burned it out. I don’t remember you levitating anything heavy that day.”

“I don't know,” I sighed, scratching my head. "It just happened. But that wasn’t the first time that I've been burned out, recently.”

Candy Cane cocked her head at me. “What do you mean? When was the last time this happened to you?”

I shrugged, wincing as something throttled the grey matter inside my skull. “About four days after I left my stable, I think.”

Her muzzle scrunched up. ‘What?’ Candy Cane mouthed, narrowing her eyes at me. She wasn't sure if she heard that right. “That can’t be possible. How did you ... how did you burn out twice?"

“I’m sure a lot of unicorns burn out more than once in their lives,” I shrugged.

Candy Cane shook her head. “No, I mean, how did you burn out twice – consecutively?”

“Oh.” I scratched my mane. “Burned myself out while … digging through the snow,” I added, vaguely. I remembered digging those graves for my friends as vividly as I could recall their deaths. If Night Sky hadn’t stopped me, I would’ve joined them that night.

I sighed, closing my eyes.

“Then I burned myself out again at the Scullion two or three days later – can’t remember.”

Candy Cane’s eyes widened.

"So, within the course of a little over a week, you burned yourself out – twice?”

“One plus one is two.” I poked my tongue out of my lips and gave my skull two knocks. "Twice."

She tapped her chin, staring off into space. “How in Equestria did you recover so quickly after the first that you were able to burn out a second time?”

“I didn’t. Not really. Someone gave me this drug called ‘Sparkle’.” She frowned at me, biting her lower lip. “It’s supposed to make my magic stronger or something. He said it could bring my magic back.”

“I know what Sparkle does,” Candy Cane snapped. She looked away, muttering as she shook her head. “That explains a lot. That explains why you were out for so long. It shouldn’t take more than a day or two to sleep off a burnout.” The mare narrowed her eyes at me. “How much did you drink?”

I dug my muzzle through my bags and yanked out the empty vial that had contained the violet concoction.

She stretched out a foreleg and tapped the glass cylinder between my teeth, her eyes widening with disbelief. “Y-you drank all that?” she gasped. I just stared at her uncomfortably. “That’s not …” I heard her murmur as I gave her a blank stare. “No wonder you were out for so long …

“Do you even know the side effects of Sparkle?” Another blank stare. “That pony didn’t even tell you?” The mare glared at me as she waited for a response. “That fool … you don’t know a thing about Sparkle, do you?” she murmured.

“Not much. It tasted pretty good, though,” I said, chuckling wryly. “You tell me."

Candy Cane tapped her chin, muttering to herself. "Pyrexia, dementia, disequilibrium, degeneration of the neocortex –”

I frowned at her with empty eyes, my mouth parted slightly open.

She reiterated, this time, in Laymare’s terms. “Fever, insanity, imbalance, loss of brain cells, and …” Candy Cane paused for a moment. “And …” she craned her neck towards me. “… and shrinking of the scrotum,” she intoned, dreadfully. My muzzle scrunched up, terrified. I wasn’t quite sure if she meant the last part … 'She didn’t, did she?'

I stared down between my legs, terror skittering across my features.

“It carries with it a whole slew of bad things. You can't be loopy like this if we're going to be traveling together.” She folded her legs across her chest, scolding me, “You can get me killed. Worse, you can get yourself killed."

“Thanks for the science lesson, doc.”

“I’m a nurse, Red Dawn.”

I sighed. “Yeah, yeah …”

She reached out once more and prodded the useless thing that poked out of my mane. I groaned, shaking my head.

“Drugs only cover up the symptoms,” she said, frowning at me.

"It fixed me up for a while, though,” I insisted, scratching my mane. My magic had felt a hundred times more potent after drinking that potion. I probably could’ve hurled a table at Grifter, if I tried.

She just shook her head. “Of course it did, but not for long, obviously,” she sighed. “Sparkle was a battlefield chem made for battle mages that were drained to zero, ninety percent of the time, " she told me, as if lecturing a small child. I felt like I was in elementary school again - like a sleepy school colt sitting in a history class, listening to the teacher drone on and on about something he didn’t care too much about.

And the volume of her voice was summoning a painful throb from the depths of my beaten up cranium.

She folded her legs across her chest. "You can’t cast combat spells, can you?”

I scoffed, “Well, I can levitate things. I ... was pretty good at it."

"Red … please.” She lectured me some more, “If you want to be a unicorn again, you need sleep, not a chem fix. Battle mages were conditioned to take this drug; they were basically addicted to it – they drank it like water.”

“Well, they must’ve had balls the size of marbles.”

Candy Cane rolled her eyes at me and groaned.

“I thought you were here to check up on me,” I whined, “Not teach me about how dash is trash.”

She sighed, staring off into space in irritation.

“Sure, hugs – not drugs. They taught me that in junior high.”

Candy Cane snapped, “Then why did you take Sparkle?”

“Because I needed to get over my burnout!”

I flinched irritably as Candy Cane spoke, her voice shaking my headache from its slumber.

“A burnout is a reaction to the threat of mental exhaustion – it’s supposed to stop you from actually burning out everything you have. All Sparkle is, is an inhibitor that prevents neurotransmitters from inducing that response, tricking your brain into thinking it still has more to give. But all you end up doing is exacerbating your condition.”

“Right,” I snorted, jerking my right forehoof back and forth. “Exacerbating.” I sighed, facehoofing. “Are we done here?”

Candy Cane clenched her jaw and glared at me.

“No.”

The mare touched a hoof to my forehead and pursed her lips, muttering under her breath. I rolled my eyes and turned my gaze to the floorboards.

"Any word on the Orphanage?" I pried impatiently, trying to change the subject.

Candy Cane just sighed, "You aren't going anywhere until you can use your horn again, so you need to just sleep for now.”

“It’s hard to sleep when you’re running out of time ..." I said, gazing at her with my bloodshot eyes. I looked away and muttered, loud enough for my own ears, "And trying to keep your entire stable from dying …”

I felt her grasp my shoulders with her hooves.

"You need to know when to stop, Red Dawn.” She let go and folded her legs across her chest. "You can't just be 'digging' through the snow when you're exhausted … or the next thing you know, you'll be digging your own grave."

I blinked. I felt an icy blade go through my chest.

"DIGGING MY OWN GRAVE?" I screamed, so loud that Candy Cane backed away two steps. I stood to my four hooves.

"Since I left my home, I’ve had to dig six graves - one for each poor bastard that's stepped foot in this shit hole," I growled, sucking back in the tears that threatened to well out of my eyes. My voice trembled, "The only reason why I’m still here is because I chose to finish what they started!" I narrowed my eyes at her. "So please … Candy Cane … I know when to stop. Until then, there's an empty grave in Dusktown with my name on it.”

Candy Cane just stared at me in solemn quietude.

“Celestia fucking forbid I burnout a third time! I'd do anything to save my home … and if I need to suffer a little burnout or two, then I will.” I looked her in the eye. “I’d do it again if I had to.”

“Even if it kills you?” she scoffed. "You think pumping yourself with drugs is going to save your stable?"

I gulped a lump down my throat, and lowered my voice.

“It saved you, Candy Cane!" I hissed, jabbing a hoof at her. "I wouldn’t have been able to save you from that fucking whorehouse if I hadn’t taken Sparkle. I couldn’t get over the fence so I had to use my magic to lift up the backdoor’s latch through a hole in the wire." I leaned in, uttering in a dark tone, "If I hadn't used Sparkle, you'd still be a slave."

Candy Cane clenched her jaw and looked away, glaring into the darkness.

“Just remember …” she whispered. “When we’re out there, I can save you when you hurt … but I can’t save you from hurting yourself, Red Dawn.”

She let those words sink in as the seconds ticked by in silence. Then the mare fixed her eyes on my horn once more.

She asked in a quiet, even tone, “Have you tried levitating anything lately?”

I shook my head, broodingly. She gave me a look that told me she knew my answer before she even asked.

And yet Candy Cane pulled a bobby pin out of her peacoat, anyways. “Here, try lifting this,” she said, holding it out to me.

I gulped, and hesitated. I eyed her dubiously, but her expression didn’t change as she held her foreleg out with her bobby pin resting upon her hoof.

With a long and drawn out sigh, I focused upon the tiny little bobby pin. It took a lot out of me, but, to my feverish amazement, I managed to swirl a faint red field around it and lift it a few inches into the air.

I winced. My horn sputtered and sparked, fire slowly creeping through my veins – and I let myself go. I exhaled sharply, and my concentration abated. The pin pinged against the floorboards.

“That was … difficult,” I murmured, wiping away a bead of sweat that formed above my brow.

Her horn glowed as she plucked the pin off the floor.

“You need to rest more. Try taking a nap again. Your brain has yet to completely recover.”

“If those’re the doctor’s orders …” I muttered, sinking back onto my bed.

She opened her mouth to correct me, but decided not to.

“Just … just try get better, Red Dawn,” she said, starting towards the doorway.

I nodded, closing my eyes.

This time, I turned the tables on her just as she reached the door.

“Yeah, you too,” I shot back.

Candy Cane paused mid-step, standing there for a few heartbeats. Her haunted expression turned slowly over her shoulder, her mask darkened by a bob of her candy cane mane as the light from the hall fell upon her face.

Then she turned, swung the door open, and left without another sound.