We had dinner without her. When Summer Smiles returned, she was surprised to find me napping on the floor inside the fillies' room as they slept soundly on the bed. When I left the girls and trotted down the hall, not a single sound came from Candy Cane's room.

Summer Smiles hoped that the worst hadn’t happened. That Candy Cane hadn’t ‘opted out’.

When we came to her door, we were relieved to find that we could still hear her breaths coming through the door's wooden panel. Summer Smiles was a thousand times more relieved than I was, more than I could ever be for a mare I only met four days ago.

Dinner was quiet. But the food was fresh and delicious: boiled carrot and potato stew, but without Candy Cane, the girls were dull and inattentive, eating their stew in quietude. Not much was spoken, since the only question that ran circles in our heads already had an answer to it: she'd come downstairs when she was ready.

I hesitated, but I asked her if she was going to unlock the room and check on her. Summer Smiles had apparently tried before dinner. With no success.

Afterwards, I retired to my room and laid down on the bed, pulling the blankets up to my chin.

I wondered what Candy Cane was thinking. She had her scars – that much I knew. Candy Cane was like a piece of lustrous metal, its sheen diminished by hundreds of scratches and grooves upon its surface. But in the right light … around those fillies, she could still be as bright as the most untarnished steel.

I sighed, shifting beneath the covers. Innocent conversation had been enough to make her snap … to snap out of it and become the Candy Cane she’d been hiding away all that time.

The ‘real her’ terrified me. It terrified me because of what might happen to us both if I followed that Candy Cane outside into the merry, wintry wasteland. I needed her. I needed her lucid, capable, and sane, because without her, I'd surely drop dead outside that inn's triple-locked doors. If she ‘woke up’ and broke apart out there ... one of us was gonna die.

I closed my eyes and shook my head. A darker part of me told myself that that dead pony wasn’t going to be me. It couldn’t be me. My priorities were in the right place. If I died, my stable died. But Candy Cane … if she died …

I rolled around, unable to sleep.

All that time … she'd been worried about me lapsing from consciousness and falling to my death. But I should have been the least of her worries. I told myself that she needed to get her priorities straight. Candy Cane was a time bomb waiting to blow – and she knew it, and she was trying everything she could do … by herself … to keep everything from falling apart.

And if she finally did, I couldn’t help but think of the worst.

At my stable, I'd heard of some ponies ... killing themselves. Peach Petals called it Caged Bird Syndrome, ponies who couldn’t take being locked behind the stable doors any longer. They ‘opted out’. They ‘opted out’ of a world they thought they couldn’t live in, anymore. They wanted to be somewhere else. And ‘here’ wasn’t ‘here’.

Maybe I'd find her with her legs slit open, waiting for darkness to take her on her bloody death bed.

Maybe I'd find her in a coma, her organs failing from a Med-X overdose.

Maybe I'd just find her hanging from the ceiling.

Those were all things I'd heard of at home. And the more I thought about it, the more I feared for her life. The more I wanted to care. Not just because she could get me killed, but because somepony needed another pony as much as he needed her.

I remembered what she told me in that sinkhole.

She wanted to help save the people of a city that didn't even give a single shit about her. It didn’t make sense to me. But she cared more about the people around her than herself.

She cared … about me.

I rolled around in bed, not knowing what to do. I never had to deal with the angst my friends experienced growing up; I was too busy doing my own thing to give a single shit. I just wasn't great at dealing with those things. With other peoples' ‘feelings’.

I was an engineer, not a psychologist.

It was a problem rooted in me. I took a lot of things – and a lot of people for granted. I guess I just thought that they’d always be there, whether they cried or whined or griped all day long.

And Dew Drops. I neglected Dew Drops' fantasies and desires, simply because I didn't care enough to humor her. I took her for granted.

And now she was dead.

As I lay there, I realized that I was taking Candy Cane for granted too. Besides, I knew that if she decided to off herself, I wouldn't be able to last one more day out in the wasteland by myself. I figured that it'd be in my best interest to keep her alive as long as I could. I needed to find the Orphanage, after all, and I couldn't do it alone. Not without her.

But that still made her my responsibility.

'Goddesses damnit.'

I thought about what better ponies would do in a situation like this. I thought about what Dew Drops would've done in a situation like this. If only she was still around ... if only I'd died and a better pony had taken my place, maybe Dew Drops still would've met Candy Cane. Candy Cane would've had a shoulder to lean on, and she'd never have to work alone.

I could hear, faintly, the sound of someone sobbing through my bedroom’s chipped, plaster walls. I closed my eyes, and for a second I thought I was in Spring Song's cottage, Dew Drops' cries echoing through my ears. I left the relative warmth of my bed, and cracked open my door. My ears perked, listening for her voice.

It was quiet. I felt my way through the darkness, knowing that Candy Cane's door was just across from mine. I pressed an ear against its surface, and listened for what seemed like hours. I listened to her muffled sobs and the sounds of someone rolling around restlessly in bed.

I sat there outside her room, my back pressed against her door. Listening. Eventually, I sat up and stared at her door with weary eyes. I reached out with a hoof and tapped it warily against its surface.

"Candy Cane ... ?" I whispered.

Her strangulated cries cut to an eerie silence.

I waited, chewing on my lower lip.

"Candy Cane?" I tried again, knocking on her door once more.

Nothing.

I sighed after several minutes of waiting, lowering myself to my haunches. Eventually, her cries resumed because she thought that I was gone.

But I was still there. Waiting for her to let me in.

The next day, Summer Smiles and I thought it would be a good idea to leave Candy Cane a bowl of food outside her room. She hadn't eaten since lunch, yesterday, and she had to be starving. I figured that her hunger would eventually force her outside. She couldn't hole herself up in there forever ... unless starving herself to death was what she wanted.

But she still had a promise to keep, and so did I.

With a bowl of pre-war beans sitting on a tray slung around my neck, I knocked on her door.

"Caaaaaaandy Cane, I've got a healthy, slightly overcooked serving of pre-war beans for ya!" I said with the fakest smile and the cheeriest voice as I could muster. I lowered my head at the tray around my neck and took a big whiff of the two-hundred year old sludge and gagged.

"Blech - ahem. Mmm, delicious. What a delicious breakfast," I coughed.

She replied with more silence. Alright. That was understandable. She must've smelled the thing from a mile away.

I sighed, and just left the bowl at her door before returning downstairs. I didn't know how I was even able to stomach those beans the last time. It didn't smell so bad when it was half frozen. Didn’t taste so bad either – if you just got over the smell.

Sitting at the table with the others, we prayed, and began eating in silence. After several minutes of somber quietude, Hops' sheepish voice broke the ice.

"Is ... is Auntie Candy Cane ever going to come outside?" she asked, faintly. I looked down at my hooves. Hops sounded lost, and only Candy Cane could lead her back home.

"I wish she'd play with us ..." Doodle sighed, her ears drooping. "We can't play Oubliettes and Ogres without a game master."

Summer Smiles and I stared at each other hopelessly.

"She'll come out when she's ready, hun," Summer Smiles said softly as she watched the staircase.

I nodded, "She'll have to come out and eat sooner or later." I spooned another mouthful of beans into my mouth, ignoring the smell and swallowing the okay-tasting sludge.

After breakfast, I found myself outside Candy Cane's door once again. I pressed an ear against it and listened for a sign of life. It took a few minutes, but I heard someone sniffle. I wrinkled my nose and sniffled too. The bowl of beans was still sitting on the floor.

"Candy Cane? Can you hear me?"

I waited for almost a minute. Apparently not. That, or she was ignoring me.

"Candy Cane, I know you can hear me," I said. I rested my forehead against her door, staring at the floorboards. "I ... I would ask if you're okay, but I know you aren't." I pursed my lips, waiting for a response ... for something. "Candy Cane?"

Nothing.

"Listen ... the girls miss you. They've been asking for you ... you sort of just left us out in the water that day. And Summer Smiles is worried sick about you. She wants to help you," I told the door. "I ... I ..." I hesitated, sighing. 'Damnit.' What else could I have done? I was just about as helpless as she was. I couldn’t save her from the ghosts only she could see.

I knew more about the wasteland than I knew about Candy Cane.

What could I do? What would Dew Drops do?

I took a deep breath and exhaled, my brow furrowing. I did all I could.

I tried.

"Listen, I don't know what happened to you at the Scullion. I don't know what to say to make you open this door ... and I don't know how to help you, either." I closed my eyes, and placed a hoof against its surface. "But ... please, let us in. Let us help you. Just let us try," I begged her.

I thought I heard the floorboards creak on the other side. But the door remained closed between us.

I took a seat and waited, basking in the beany stench that permeated the hall. I waited for her and listened. Minutes passed by, and then hours. Summer Smiles' family ate at least twice a day. But at around the time I'd usually have lunch at '91, Summer Smiles called me downstairs and hoofed me two ruby red apples. One for me, and one for Candy Cane.

"Did she come outside?" Summer Smiles asked me.

I just shook my head, eyeing the floor. I was beginning to think that she wasn't ever going to come out.

"Just ... don't stop trying," she told me.

I gave her a knowing stare. I hadn’t forgotten what she had asked of me.

"I won't."

Upstairs, I knocked on her door.

"Candy Cane ... I know you're hungry," I began. I glanced at the two apples that lay upon the tray around my neck. "It's 1300 hours and you haven't even had anything to eat since yesterday." Silence. I pleaded with her, "You need to eat, or you're going to starve."

I pressed an ear against her door, and again, I thought I heard the floorboards creak on the other side. "Candy Cane, please, open this door," I begged her. "You haven't eaten in almost ... two days."

More silence. I exhaled a long-winded breath.

"We want ... to help you.” I could feel Summer Smiles’ worried eyes upon me. "We want to help you, but we can't do that unless you open this door … so please open this door." Doodle and Hops stuck their heads outside their room. But Candy Cane was still nowhere to be seen.

"Candy Cane …” I begged, banging my head against her door, “Please stop ignoring us!"

She kept ignoring us.

"Candy Cane!" She replied with another faint sniffle. "Do you want us to help you?” No answer. “Do you want us to help you!? Or do you want to starve? Is that what you want?" My forehoof rapped against her door.

"Candy Cane! You need to eat! Summer Smiles left you some food - food those fillies could've eaten - and you just left it here!" I waited in vain for a response.

Summer Smiles bit her lip and waited.

The girls inched outside, and waited, too.

But all she gave us was more silence.

I stomped a hoof into the floor. "FINE! STARVE! Starve ... you can just fuckin' starve," I muttered, setting the tray of fruit on the floor next to her bowl of cold beans.

I glared at the door. If she didn't want my help ... then ... then ... I felt Summer Smiles’ eyes upon me. I felt the girls’ eyes upon me. The two fillies hurried inside their room and shut the door. Summer Smiles just shook her head, and started down the stairs.

Me? I sighed and planted my rump into the floorboards, thumping my back against her door.

I sat there.

And I waited.

Dinner came, and Candy Cane was still nowhere to be seen. I took her meal of steamed carrots, and a few slices of bread that hadn’t risen in the oven, upstairs. I left them outside her door. I knocked, waited a few seconds, and returned downstairs.

Waiting any longer than that seemed futile.

After saying grace, we ate again in silence. The two girls didn’t look at me. They were afraid. Doodle and Hops were still shaken from earlier. Neither of them had ever had a male figure in their life. Hearing me yell must’ve been as horrifying as the first time I heard a bloodletter roar.

I watched them as they poked at their food, staring silently down at their plates. I hated myself for that.

But scaring those children was only part of it. To yell at Candy Cane ... to yell at a traumatized mare ... it made me feel so rotten on the inside.

At '91 we were taught to respect mares, and to respect our mothers, and our mothers’ mothers. They suffer the most in life. Especially out there in the wasteland … a wasteland that wasted no time in breaking in every deserving Goddesses-damned mare that so much as stumbled in the snow.

I shouldn't have raised my voice at her. Not with the girls watching. Not even at all. Candy Cane needed patience and tender loving care that I knew I wasn't capable of giving ... to anyone.

I couldn't even stomach my food because my belly was already full with writhing maggots that made my stomach churn.

"I'm sorry ..." I told them, resting my head on a hoof and hiding my face in shame.

The silence was long and brutal as the girls avoided my eyes. I deserved it.

But Summer Smiles' voice broke the air of stagnant quietude. She smiled at me, wearily, pouring me a cup of water and sliding it across the table.

"Red Dawn ... fetlocks off the table, please."

Outside Candy Cane's door I waited, her carrots, bread, and water sitting on the floor next to me. Every now and then I'd hear a sniffle, a cough, or a sigh. But not a single word came from the broken mare's lips as I remained outside her door, waiting for her to let me in.

I wouldn't give up. I was Red Dawn, the fucking fixer pony, and I fucking fixed things. Dew Drops might've understood how to take machines apart and put them back together in one shot … but I wasn’t a one-shotter. I was more of a twenty-shotter, and twenty radios later I finally understood how to disassemble them and build them back up and repair them - good as new.

I didn't give up, not on anything. Not on anyone. Otherwise I would've killed myself and been done with it a long time ago. I would've told Night Sky to fuck herself, laid down in that grave I dug for myself and just waited to die.

I wouldn’t give up on that mare. I wouldn’t ... I couldn't ... just like how I couldn't give up on my stable, or my friends, or my own mother.

I promised myself that I'd build Candy Cane back up too.

With a sigh, I pulled out my canteen from a pocket in my jumpsuit and took a swig. I shook it, listening to the icy water slosh around inside. I set it down beside me, satisfied that it was full enough to last me an entire night outside Candy Cane's door. I figured I'd be there for a while.

For however long it took.

I let my head roll against her door as I stared up at the ceiling, watching as the light bulbs turned off and the candles and lanterns blew out. I watched as Summer Smiles and the fillies trotted past me and their doors shut closed. Seconds as long as minutes, and minutes as long as hours, and hours as long as days passed by.

I waited.

And I waited.

And I waited.

As the night dragged on, I fought to keep my eyes open. But the night had already taken me. They fluttered closed, and I fell asleep and time sped past me once again.

Then the walls collapsed around me. I screamed as I fell backward and thumped my head against the floorboards. I lay there in a daze, and found myself looking up and into Candy Cane's bewildered grays. My eyes darted back and forth in confusion, chasing away my drowsiness and forcing my mind back to clarity.

"Well, well, well,” I said, finally, looking up at her as I lay at her hooves. “Look who finally decided to come out.”

A silvery magical field engulfed me and, with a hoof for extra support, she helped me back to my hooves.

We stared at each other for more heartbeats than I found comfortable.

When she finally spoke, her voice was low, gravelly, and hoarse.

"How long have you been out there?" she rasped.

I sighed, scratching my mane. On the floor, her dinner still sat. Cold.

"Too long," I told her. I fetched her meal, slinging the tray around my neck. I looked back and saw that she was eyeing the food languidly. "Can I … can I come in?"

She turned, saying nothing, and slunk back into the darkness of her room. I frowned through the shadows, and felt the wall for the light switch, flicking it on and bathing us in dull, yellow light.

I took one step forward and nearly tripped over an overturned chair. I stopped and looked around. It looked like a bomb exploded in there. Her room was a disaster. There was a table flipped over in the middle. Papers were strewn about, and scribbled on them were an assortment of aborted sketches, and … mindless chicken scratch. Her blankets were on the floor, and poking out from under their fabrics was the vodka bottle that had gone missing that one night.

It was empty.

Candy Cane reached for it, and found that there was no more left to drink.

“Fuck,” I heard her mutter before she tossed it aside. My ears perked at that. That was the second time I heard her swear since I first met her.

“Candy Cane, we’ve been worried about you for days now,” I told her, her back turned to me. I set down atop her bedside table the tray of food she neglected to eat. “Why’d you finally decide to come out?” I chuckled, adding, “Didn’t expect me there, did you?”

She sighed, her voice devoid of … anything.

“No. I didn’t.” I heard her stomach growl, but she didn’t cringe or double over. It couldn’t have been first she was starved of food. “I … needed to pee …” Candy Cane murmured, much to my disbelief.

“Sure … you did drink a lot of that vodka,” I grinned, but my cheeriness was lost on her. “You find all of that yourself? I thought Summer Smiles didn’t have anymore drinks.”

She just stood there, frozen. I rubbed my eyes with a hoof, shaking my head.

“Candy Cane … talk to me,” I said, holding out a hoof. “What happened that day when you just walked out on us?”

Candy Cane muttered something incomprehensible.

“Huh?”

She did it again, this time, somewhat louder.

“Candy Cane?”

She swung her head over her shoulder, her eyes bloodshot and welling with tears.

“Those monsters ..."

I took a step towards her, and she flinched, clenching her eyes shut.

“What monsters?” My brow furrowed. “The Palominos? There aren’t any here … we’re safe in this inn, you said it yourself.”

She shook her head.

“Safe … safe … no … nopony’s ever safe. Not when they’re inside your head, and every time you open your eyes, you see them around you, all over you … inside you,” she choked, trembling g like she was going to drill a hole through the ground. Her shoulders began to quake as she tried to suffocate her sobs.

She couldn’t. Candy Cane turned to me, her teeth bared and tears streaming down her cheeks. “I never left,” she rasped, “I never left the Scullion. I’m still there, in my head, in my dreams – every waking hour of the fucking day, I’m in the Scullion, and I can never leave.”

I reached out with a hoof, but she flinched away from me.

“Grifter’s dead. Your collar’s gone … no one can ever hurt you like that ever again.”

“NO!” she screamed, pounding her hoof into the floorboards. I took a step back. “YOU WOULDN’T UNDERSTAND!” Candy Cane shrieked. “You don’t know the things they did to me, what those monsters did!” She collapsed to her haunches, burying her face in the blankets that were strewn across the floor.

“I bled for them! They cut me open!” she cried, her hooves hanging before her eyes as if they were covered in blood. “They … took from me … more than you’ll ever know. More than you’ve ever lost,” she hissed, her words cutting into my heart like razor blades.

I approached her, my head hung low.

“Candy Cane …” I murmured as she wept into her bed sheets. I wasn’t even sure if she could hear me. I lowered a hoof to her shoulder, but she just slapped it away.

“DON’T TOUCH ME!”

I cringed, pulling it away.

“I haven’t slept for more than two hours a day in five days, Red Dawn …”

“Why?” I whispered, gently.

She covered her eyes with her hooves, shaking her head.

“Because when I dream … I see them. Because when I lie awake in bed, when I stand idle, my mind wanders to places I want to forget. I want to forget … I want to forget it all so bad,” she cried, choking on her words as sobs forced their way out of her lips. She looked up at me, her face contorted with anguish of the likes I had never seen. “I don’t want to remember, Red Dawn, I don’t want to remember anymore… and when I do … I remember every second of it. Every face, every voice … every name they’ve ever called me.”

She lowered her head between her hooves, and hid her face away from me. Candy Cane sobbed, crying softly into her blankets.

I knelt beside her and did the only thing I could do. I wrapped my legs around her and squeezed her tight. I felt her quaking hooves curl around me. I held her there as she wept into my shoulder, trembling and crying like a beaten animal.

“I’ve … I-I’ve tried to kill myself so many times, but I could never do it,” she whispered, turning her head slowly to a kitchen knife that was lying atop her desk. “What’s the point … when you’ve got nothing to lose, and nothing to gain? There’s nowhere I’m going but hell, anyways.”

“No.” I held her close. “You’re wrong, Candy Cane,” I said, softly. “Nothing to lose? What about Doodle and Hops? To them, they’d lose everything. Their mother’s dead, Candy Cane, and they love you like you’ve been with them since they were born. Do those fillies mean anything to you?”

She clenched her eyes shut, crying softly.

“Candy Cane … I barely know you, and I barely know them. But I do know that they’ve got you to lose. Any moron with a brain can see that. They love you so much; they adore you, I know they do,” I told her. “You had them worried to the bone these last two days.”

She sniffled, pitifully, “But I just closed the door and pushed them away.”

“But they never gave up on you,” I told her, “What does that say to you?”

Candy Cane’s eyes fluttered open and I felt her legs slowly wrap around me and we hugged once more. “Neither did you,” she whispered.

“I don’t give up on anyone, Candy Cane,” I said, remembering the promise I made to Dew Drops, and the words Box Cutter said to me the night we lost Amber Fields. It would never be over until all of us were six feet under.

"It'll never be over until you’re six feet under, Candy Cane.”

She pulled away and wiped her eyes vigorously.

“Why do you care, Red Dawn?”

I clenched my jaw, and curled my hooves tightly around her shoulders.

“An old pony told me once … the closest thing to being cared for, was to care for someone else,” I whispered. “And just maybe ... someone would care about me too. When my friends died, and left me out here alone, I thought that’d I’d join them. But out here, I realize that people die because they die alone. And I need you, Candy Cane ... I care about you - because if I don't ... because if Summer Smiles doesn't ... who will?"

She closed her eyes and bowed her head.

“You’re right …” she murmured. “They’re the closest thing to a family I have. And you … you’re the closest thing to a friend I have right now.”

“We’ll be traveling together soon … that is if Summer Smiles tells us where to find the Orphanage.” I scoffed, “We’re all we’ve got. We're in this together now.”

"Thanks, Red Dawn ... for that. I'm glad that you haven't given up on me yet." She smiled for the first time in three days, letting out a weak chuckle. Candy Cane exhaled, and I felt her legs slacken.

“Candy Cane?” I asked, worriedly.

The mare twitched and she looked around, confused.

“Huhn … huh? What?”

I smiled. “Thought I lost you for a second.”

“No, no … I’m just … so tired.” She bit her lower lip and cringed, her stomach begging to be put out of its misery. “And I’m a little hungry.”

I got up, lifted Candy Cane to her hooves, and propped her up on her bed. She didn’t weigh much. She sat down and leaned on one slender leg, watching me languidly as I brought to her her tray of food. I sat there next to her as she ate. Within minutes, she’d devoured all the food we’d saved for her. I thought that maybe if she ate as much as she did just, and more, maybe she wouldn’t be so skinny.

The mare sighed, hanging her head.

“I still don’t want to sleep. I’m afraid I’ll dream again.”

I thought for a moment, resting my chin on my hoof. You couldn’t drag a pony to a river and make her drink. There would be no way to make that mare go to sleep, unless she went to sleep herself.

I thought for a moment.

“I could stay awake with you, if you want?”

She shook her head, “You need to sleep your off burnout –”

“Oh come on, Candy Cane, I’ve gotten more sleep than you this whole week. If anypony needs to sleep, it's you. Besides, I can spend a few more hours awake.”

“Alright,” she sighed, too tired to argue with me. “Your loss.” She sat against her bed’s headboard.

“Heh, now I’m the one stalking your bedside,” I chuckled.

“Oh hah-hah," she drawled, a weak grin creasing her lips. She sounded like she was trying as hard as she could to stay awake. But her smile told me she was someplace else. A happier place.

We laughed it off as I laid down at the foot of her bed, and she against her headboard. She stifled a yawn, and sighed, staring up at the ceiling.

"All those nights I was watching you -"

"Stalking me, you mean?"

She chuckled and rolled her eyes.

"All those nights, I heard you whispering," she began, softly. "Sometimes I'd hear you cry in your sleep. You kept saying somepony's name ... Dew Drops. Dew Drops. Dew Drops." She tilted her head slightly. "Who is he?"

"She," I said, quietly.

I turned my eyes low, saddened. Her name was an open wound that would never close.

"Who is she, Red Dawn?"

I sighed, my eyes fluttering closed. And in the darkness of my eyelids, I saw her face. Her blue coat, and her teal mane, and her cool gray eyes, and her adorable smile. In my head, I heard her voice. I heard the last words she said to me.

'Run!' But I was tired of running. From her. From the pain. I bit my lip, hesitating.

"She was my friend."

Candy Cane's ears drooped. "Was?"

It was difficult to talk about her out loud. But Candy Cane and I both carried burdens upon our shoulders. But she had bled her heart out to me, and now I shared with her the burden she no longer had to carry alone. I was tired of carrying mine alone, too.

I relented.

"She was my friend. One of my best friends. I loved her ... no," I said, suddenly. "I still love her. She was with me when I left my stable, and so were Box Cutter, Amber Fields, Lightning Twirl, Dew Drops, and Star Glint. I watched them all die. I watched Dew Drops die."

The Candy Cane I’d seen at my bedside slowly resurfaced back to the light. "What happened?"

"Snow furies. Tortured Amber ... blew her up in our faces … skinned Star alive, and wore him like a jacket … blew Box's hooves off - dragged him away … shot Twirl out of the sky, hacked her to pieces … then … t-then her," I choked.

"They took her away from me. I wasn't strong ... or fast enough. There were too many of them." I dabbed at the bedsheets beneath me with a hoof. "I had her in my hooves. But those damned monsters tore us apart ... tore her apart. I tried pulling her away with my magic, but my magic failed me when I needed it the most," I murmured. My heart leaped inside my chest as I remembered the moment I lost her. The moment she died. “I failed her when she needed me he most.

"Dew ... Dew Drops ..." I whispered, as agony writhed inside my heart. "Dew Drops told me to run – to run and never look back. So I did … because it was all I could do, and if I died, then my stable would’ve died with me.” I shuddered, fighting back my tears. “I never even got to tell her I loved her … one last time."

Candy Cane look at me with tender eyes.

“I know what it’s like to lose somepony you love,” she said, quietly, “I’ve lost a lot of ponies I’ve loved … and I still haven’t let go. I can’t … I don’t think I ever can, because I love them so much.” She stared off into space, reminiscing of days gone by. “You know … that’s the last thing you think of them when they go. 'I love you' ... I … I believe that’s the last thing they think too.” Candy Cane hesitated, but asked, tenderly, “Did she love you?”

I clenched my eyes shut and lowered my head.

“More than I ever knew,” I whispered.

Candy Cane smiled sweetly.

“Then she thought of you too, Red Dawn.”

I shook my head slowly, murmuring, "I just wished we had more time." My eyes gravitated to the shifting shadows we casted against the walls as the lights flickered. For a moment, my eyes thought they saw a different pony's shadow against the wall where mine was supposed to be. My eyes fluttered closed.

I told her about how we had went to school together, worked together, and grew up together. I told her how I took her for granted and how she still loved me anyways. But the more I talked about her, the more I wished that she was still there. The mare of my life … I wished she was still there …

“I bet she was brilliant, this Dew Drops – a once in a life-time kind of pony,” she said, smiling at me once more.

“A once in a life-time pony ... yes … and I'll never see her again. I dream about her often. Of better days …”

Candy Cane averted her gaze and ran her hoof through the sheets. “It’s good to dream of better days when the days get darker … I know that all too well,” Candy Cane said softly, "But if you died, I never would've met you, Red Dawn.” She looked me in the eyes. “If I never met you … I'd still have a collar around my neck ... I never would've been able to see Summer, Doodle, or Hops ever again."

I fell silent, hanging my head as I let out a trembling sigh.

"You're … you’re right, Candy Cane."

I took my canteen and held it up in the air.

“To better days … to life,” I said to her, echoing the very words Night Sky had told me, the words that had kept me going through the horrors I’d endured so far.

I took a swig, and held it out to her. She stared at it for a moment, and levitated it to her lips. When she was finished, Candy Cane poured what little was left across the floorboards. “For all the ponies who aren’t here with us … and all the ponies we’ve loved …” She looked at me. “… and for all the ponies we still love.”

My smile was bittersweet as I watched the water turn to frost. But the light in Candy Cane’s eyes looked warm enough to melt away the entire wasteland.

“Thanks, Candy Cane.”

She hesitated for a moment, her brows furrowing as her voice quieted, sheepishly.

“Like you said: we’re in this together now, Red Dawn. And you can call me Cane. Please. Just call me Cane.”

For once a real smile stretched inexplicably across my lips.

“Alright, Cane,” I chuckled, softly. “Ponies call me Red, by the way.”

She yawned, "Red … you should probably sleep now ... we've been up for hours."

I rolled my eyes. "I've had enough of ... of ..." I looked up and she was slumped against her headboard, out cold. "Sleep."

In the corner of my eye, I saw Summer Smiles, peering through the doorway. We met eyes briefly, and she smiled back, thankfully, for doing what she could not.

It was early morning, 0400 hours. Summer Smiles and I sat at the bar, two shot glasses of water at our hooves.

“I’ve been thinking,” she began, sloshing around the icy water. I turned to her, curiously, the shadows playing across her face in the candlelight. “I was right about you, you know?

I cocked an eyebrow at her.

“What?”

She rested her head on her hoof, watching the dancing candlelight.

“I know you don’t agree with me. I see it in your face everytime I say this … but I think you’re a good pony, Red Dawn.”

I rolled my eyes. “You don’t know half the shit I’ve done and allowed to happen just to get here alive, Summer Smiles,” I muttered, watching the candles flicker.

“Good ponies need to win, Red Dawn. Good ponies gotta win someday … somehow.”

I sat there in silence, my eyes hidden in the shadows.

“Good ponies don’t win, Summer Smiles … they die.”

She laughed at me. “Then try not to die … Red …” Summer Smiles held my shoulder, reassuringly. “You’re a decent pony, Red, you and Cane. And I think I can trust you, too. The resistance needs ponies like you two. You might think good ponies are far in between in this city, but …”

She slid to me a map, titled the ‘Inner City’. Scrawled all over it were notes, coordinates, tunnels, supply points, and more that I couldn’t comprehend at a glance.

“… but you’ll find good ponies like you in the Orphanage.”

Footnote: Level 6
XP: 500/3450