“Sometimes, fear is the appropriate response.”

“Cotton candy?”

Peril. Never had I had any reason to consider the word ever applying to any situation I would find myself in. Yet now I found myself at the edge of death nearly every day.

I hated Canterlot. No, not Canterlot. I hated the Pink Cloud.

I had once been happy. Ignorant? Yes. Mindless? Well, I personally thought that was up for debate. Loved? …I honestly don’t know.

But I had been happy. The Goddess had united us under a common mind, in a bond closer than even a mother and child could have.

Then I came to this hated place, where I could not hear my sisters because of that Cloud, which blocked everything, and brought back memories. I still felt uncomfortable looking at my blue coat and remembering a vibrant red, seeing wings I never had, and looking at my marehood (shut up, it was to check for parasites! Canterlot has really nasty ticks for some reason…) and remembering I had… other attributes before the Goddess changed me. But then I came to Canterlot and the Pink Cloud.

The Pink Cloud. I hated it more than any of my sisters in Canterlot did, I was sure of it. I was more cautious too. Yet the threat of the Cloud always loomed. I had seen the skeletons and the ghouls, fused to anything they had worn or touched. I was always the first to flee when the Cloud came, whether or not a larger danger threatened. Perhaps that was stupid, but seeing a foal fused to its carriage can do a number on your paranoia.

I had seen horrible things in the Wasteland. Families slain by Raiders. Star spawn laying waste to towns. The horrid monstrosities created when lesser ponies were exposed to Taint. In an old hospital, I had once found myself surprised and assaulted by horrible bloated once-ponies who attempted to impregnate me with their bastard spawn. I killed them, but the three mares I had been tagging were not so lucky. Yet all of them were nothing compared to the Cloud’s horrors. I woke up at night sweating from the nightmares caused by what I had seen the previous day.

Maybe I was more tired than normal. Maybe I wasn’t paying as close attention as I normally would. Maybe, maybe, maybe… whatever the reason, the point was that I was now flying for my life. Cloud was all around me. I didn’t dare close my eyes or open my mouth. I flew blindly, the only one of my little group of 20 alicorns left. I flew… and broke the Cloud barrier. I saw the Wasteland. I felt the tendrils of the Unity creep, but it was fuzzy, like when we spoke to the lesser pony kinds. But I felt something… in my amazement, I had gasped… at the edge of the barrier. Cloud must have entered my lungs, and now I felt dizzy. I was having trouble breathing. I fell from the air and crashed.

The last thing I saw was a cruel joke. A shaft of sunlight had pierced the sky, illuminating the Pink Cloud in a display of horrible beauty, like cotton candy at a fair, or the pink Ministry Mare’s smiling face. I sneered and spat up blood. I directed my last words in a hoarse whisper at the Cloud.

“Damn you.”