I had never known a king. Or a queen, or a princess for that matter. Or a goddess, but I wasn’t raised in a stable. It was strange to realize that throughout the majority of pony history we had been ruled by princesses. I took it as proof of how much work still remained if pony society was ever going to be restored to its former glory, if such a thing was even possible. But if the ponies of the wasteland were starting to call me a king, I wondered how different our world would be from what it used to be even if we had a pony sitting on a throne. I had a good understanding of history, but I had never heard of a good king. The best male ruler was Shining Armor, and my faith in him wasn’t as strong as it used to be.

I felt cursed. The only other king that I knew of was King Sombra, who was defeated by Princess Cadence and Shining Armor, allowing them to take the throne. And he was our textbooks’ definition of a tyrant. Maybe I would be surer of myself if I had been born a mare. Maybe then it would be easier to accept this news. But as I was, I didn’t believe I possessed enough gentleness, enough wisdom, enough love to be the ruler that I believed Celestia was. I was cold, quiet, and doubting, with a talent for combat that no ruler should rightfully have. Fighting is what had landed the wasteland in its current predicament in the first place.

But I needed to stop stressing about it, so I distracted myself by wondering what I would be like if I had been born a mare. Would I still have ended up a ranger? Probably not, despite my infatuation with Littlepip. Velvet’s influence was too strong, and Littlepip wasn’t entirely feminine. I also wondered if I would have ended up a sex slave, like the ones I had freed. I wondered who would have rescued me, or if I would have freed myself. I wondered if the whole royalty thing would have been recognized sooner with more historical precedent.

My musings were cut short by my companions. Ironbright gave a pained smile and called to me. “Hey, Ebonmane? Remember what I was telling you would happen any day now?”

I realized what she meant as I recoiled. “Why are you telling me about it?”

“Oh, you too?” Cloud Chaser joined in. “I guess you synced up with Roesmary and me, huh?”

Rosemary blushed. “Cloud Chaser, not in front of him!”

“I don’t see the point of sparing his innocence. It’s not like he has to go through it,” Ironbright remarked.

Suddenly I was thankful I was born a stallion, even if it was more morally complicated to be one in the wasteland.

Once the mares were comfortable with their situations, the rest of the journey was spent listening to them complain about cramps, hot flashes, and an unquenchable lust with no pony to fulfill it, at least, according to Cloud Chaser and Ironbright. I could only blush, lay my ears down and shut up, quietly thinking that my friends were becoming a little too comfortable with me.

Now that we were heading west, the landscape shifted dramatically once we left Manehattan. Instead of seeing scrap metal litter the barren desert, I was reminded of the area outside of Stable Two. Charred carcasses of trees, dried and dead long ago, began to get more and more frequent as the road disappeared. But these were not as unnerving as the unnatural green looming ahead of us. Trees were supposed to die when burned, after all.
We hit the edge of the Everfree Forest around nightfall, and we knew it would be prudent to enter the next morning. Once again, we were eating Rosemary’s cooking, but it appeared that she had caved and spent the heinous sums to obtain food from Tenpony Tower. The warm feeling in my belly was nullified by the tall trees we ate under. The trees in Junction Town were no taller than I was, being only twenty years old at most. Sitting this close to such a big, dead plant was enough to make me nervous.
“At least it’s cover,” I thought. I couldn’t help it. What Homage had said about assassins suddenly had me looking over my shoulder a lot. Were they really looking for me? Would they follow me here? I knew I wouldn’t be sleeping well tonight. If it bothered the others, I couldn’t tell.

But there was something else that was bothering them. They hadn’t said a word about the idea of me being a king. Not all day. I didn’t know what to make of that. Were they silent because they believed it? Or because they thought I couldn’t do it?

I wanted to say something, but I wasn’t even sure if I could do it. The idea was too big for me to fathom. I knew my friends’ opinions would help my feelings settle on the issue, but their silence had only hurt me, at least a little. Were they at least worried about me?

“Do you really think there are assassins, Ironbright?” I had to ask.

She smiled at me. “Not out here. If there are, they’re not going to follow us into the Everfree Forest. With Homage’s call, they likely don’t even have a lock on where you are yet. Personally, I think she’s paranoid, but even so, we can’t be too careful.” She paused, reading me. “You’ll be alright, Ebonmane.”

“Do you think you’ll take a throne?” Cloud Chaser asked me.

I shook my head. “I don’t know. I’m nothing special. I’m not a Prince, or anything like that. But I can see what Homage meant when she said that what’s important is what other ponies think. If they believe in me, how can I just walk away because it makes me uncomfortable?” I sighed.

“You don’t think you could do a good job?” Rosemary asked.

“History isn’t exactly riddled with good kings, is it?” I retorted.

Ironbright laughed. “You really are black and white, you know that?” I didn’t laugh. Cloud Chaser did. Rosemary giggled. “It’s not about whether you’re a Prince or Princess. What matters is how much you care about your subjects. And you would care a lot about them.”

“I would just have to deal with the whole ‘subjects’ thing first,” I replied.

“You would be just fine,” Rosemary said. She was rubbing down her manticore gun with a dirty rag, cleaning it, and she spoke so casually. But I stared at her, her eyes flicking to mine nervously behind her glasses, the green showing through the reflection of the fire in her lenses. “What?”

“You think I could be king?” I asked in disbelief.

“Maybe you aren’t the perfect choice, but you’re the best I’ve seen yet. I mean, who else would be fit to rule?”

“You’d really follow my orders?” I asked, a smile growing on my face.

She frowned at my poking, “If you did something wrong, at least you’d have somepony to let you know so. And I’d have Lucy here to back me up.”

“You named it Lucy?” I asked incredulously.

“You didn’t know?” Ironbright asked. I didn’t reply. I just looked at Rosemary a little longer, more aware than ever that I didn’t know her. But we were getting tired, and conversation could wait. I fell asleep, resolving to get to talk to her one-on-one soon. After all, not only did she believe in me, out of all my friends, but she was best friends with Cloud Chaser, and I think she knew Ironbright on a personal level as well. Perhaps she could explain to me some things about my other friends. Why Ironbright had never attempted to repair the bridges at Tenpony Tower. Or why Cloud Chaser suddenly had no interest in me whatsoever.

Sleep didn’t come easily, what with all of the paranoia, doubt, and loneliness hanging over my head. But by now, I was used to not sleeping.

I was loathe to drag my carcass out of the dirt to enter the unholy abomination that was the Everfree Forest, but I didn’t have a choice. The only pony who could make any sense out of what was going on was Littlepip, and she was beyond these trees that extended their limbs toward us, beckoning us toward the dark maw that was the woods’ entrance. And I knew that if I didn’t show some kind of courage, it would only make it worse for the mares who had to follow me into those inky shadows so that I could find my answers.

A pang of fear gripped me as I stared into that foreboding forest, and I wondered if I could really ask my friends to risk their lives for me again like this. They didn’t need to see Littlepip. I did. “Perhaps I should tell them to stay back and wait for me,” I thought.

But I couldn’t. I needed them. If it weren’t for them, I would be dead on Thunderfall’s floor. As afraid as I was for them, I knew getting myself killed by going alone wasn’t what they wanted, either. We would do this together.

Rosemary wouldn’t let us leave until we had a good breakfast in us. “Just make it quick,” Ironbright told her. “We don’t know how long it’s going to take us to make it to the other side. If we get caught in there at night, I don’t think it’ll end well. The sooner we leave, the better.”

“So… what’s in the Everfree Forest, anyway?” Cloud Chaser asked.

Ironbright answered as she ate Rosemary’s stew. “No pony’s entirely sure anymore. Littlepip discovered the killing joke. We’re pretty sure the hellhounds have moved out. But the forest’s too big to know everything that lives there.”

“But I thought the Gardens of Equestria purged all the taint and stuff,” Cloud Chaser asked.

“Only the land,” Rosemary said. “Creatures created by taint are still the way they are. It’s harder to purge from living things.”

“How much worse than killing joke could it get, though?” Cloud Chaser asked. “It kills you and humiliates you.”

“There are worse things than being humiliated,” Rosemary said.

“Like what?” Cloud Chaser said. She was about to complete her own sentence before Ironbright cut her off.

“Don’t say another word unless you want to find out. Whatever you were going to say was probably something killing joke might use.”

Cloud Chaser gulped. “Right. ‘Cause that would suck.”

I sighed. “Our best bet is to avoid it in the first place.”

“What do you think it would do to you?” Cloud Chaser asked me.

“What did I just say?” Ironbright said. She huffed. “Come on. We should get going. Everypony stay close.”

Ironbright clicked on her headlamp, and before we even had the chance to see the rising sun in its full glory, we were swallowed by the forest.

My imagination had never quite been able to grasp what a forest might actually look like. I had heard of the lush ones that covered Equestria’s landscape, but the Everfree Forest had always been an exception. I imagined forests to be green, vibrant places that were springy and teeming with life.
The Everfree Forest fit that description. All around me were trees covered in moss, their canopies so thick I couldn’t see the sky in the gray twilight. Creatures sounded all around me, birds and rodents, and I could see beetles and spiders scuttle like forest spirits at the edges of my vision, maintaining the perception of sheer density that was this place.

But there was something far more sinister about this place as well. Even after an hour of walking, the blurry, dead light never brightened as the darkness only grew stronger. Ironbright’s lamp was of little use against the hazy veil of fog that wrapped out legs, like a beast waiting to swallow us from underneath. The worst part was also the most difficult to pin down. The corners of my eyes saw vines moving, glowing eyes in the distance, and I heard growls, turning to face nothing. After a while, a suspicion I had felt upon entering was confirmed for me: it didn’t feel like we were being watched. I knew we were. Not by any one predator, but by the forest itself, as it stalked us, waiting for us to stumble into the wrong area, preying upon our fears.

My heart fluttered at the deadliness of it all, but I couldn’t help but marvel at its fascinating beauty as well. As corrupted as it was, it was more alive than I felt at times.

“How are you holding up, Cloud Chaser?” Ironbright asked.

“Wait, why me?” she returned.

“You were pretty freaked out before we went in. I just want to make sure you’re doing okay.”

“I’m fine,” she spat out. “Just because I’m the youngest doesn’t mean I’m a baby.”

“I didn’t say you were.”

“You don’t have to worry about me, Ironbright. I’ve always been alright on my own.”

“Alright, alright,” Ironbright conceded. “No need to get touchy.”

Cloud Chaser wasn’t the only one with frayed nerves. My eyes were constantly scanning, and I got the persistent sense that I should check behind me. At my side, Rosemary jumped at every little noise, letting out big sighs when she realized that one of us had only stepped on a twig. Ironbright was the only one who appeared cool, but the way she marched, scanning so methodically gave her away. She responded to fear with thoroughness, and her serious demeanor told me that she was just as afraid as the rest of us.

It was obvious how terrified we were. By the second hour, our fear had gotten the better of us. When I asked to pee, they all had to go too. We just turned around because we were too scared to go out of each other’s sight. Rosemary in particular had a rough time of it. She asked Cloud Chaser to sing loudly so we couldn’t hear her. When she chose a starkly jolly Sapphire Shores tune, we all learned that she was not a gifted singer by any definition. But it did the trick.

When I was done shifting my plates back into place, we headed out again. Ironbright told Rosemary to pass out some food we could eat on the go as a lunch. “How could anypony be hungry?” I wondered. I was too nervous to eat much, but when Rosemary sorted out my ration of dry fruit, I wasn’t about to argue with my commander, much less the little unicorn. Especially not when Rosemary’s mood was so bad. I could hear the diatribe in my head at the very notion of refusing to eat.

But I could sense that the fear was affecting her differently than the rest of us. I didn’t know why, but she almost looked on the verge of tears from it all. “Are you okay?” I asked her quietly.

She just nodded. “It’s just the woods. I’ve been through worse, right?”

It clearly wasn’t the same. “Our fights happen so fast. This has been going on for hours. It’s alright if you’re feeling upset.”

“I’m fine. Just… stop worrying about me.” She motioned for me to back off with her hoof. I pulled my head up, but I knew she wiped a tear away when she thought I wouldn’t notice. In a crisis, I was often amazed at how cool of a head Rosemary kept. But this was different. Over time, the hours of stress wore on her. She was a soft pony, sensitive in a number of ways. This wasn’t good for her.

“It’s got to be past noon,” I told Ironbright. “The most dangerous stuff probably comes out at night. Maybe we should pick up the pace?” I asked.

“Can you all manage it?” she asked. Hell yes, we could. “Let’s go, then.” I heard Rosemary let out a small breath of relief. The sooner we could get out of here, the better. Not just for her, but for all of us.

As noble as my intentions may have been, I was wrong.

We heard another growl, and, as if on cue, Rosemary jumped for the hundredth time. I still turned to the source. But instead of seeing nothing, I saw glowing blue eyes. Never had something accompanied these growls, but by the time I drew my sword, they had blinked away into the shadows.

“What is it, Ebonmane?” Ironbright asked.

I shook my head. “I don’t know. A pair of eyes. It’s gone now, but…”

Ironbright nodded. “We’ll keep a look out. Just keep your weapons ready.” And we did.

Despite our heightened awareness, I was thrown off guard when a fragrance hit my nose. It was subtle at first, like flowers, but familiar and comforting, like Rosemary’s cooking. I thought it was Rosemary. When she noticed me staring at her, I turned away, but it got stronger. I had never smelled a rose before, but I was certain that I smelled one, low and sweet, and mixed in with something warm and spicy.

“Do you smell that?” I finally asked out loud.

Cloud Chaser took a whiff. “Yeah. It’s like… that smell after it rains? You know what I mean?”

What? I shook my head, but Rosemary spoke before I could. “No, it’s not. It smells like…” she didn’t finish her sentence.

“Stop,” Ironbright commanded. “Whatever’s going on, it’s not good.”

I turned too late to the growl at my back. With a cry I was tackled to the ground by a dense body. I felt something scrape against my plates, like claws, as many more tore into the exposed parts of my body. Jaws closed around my neck, the plates keeping me alive as the creature yanked up, nearly tearing my head off.

A barrage of my friends’ bullets sounded and I felt the creature collapse, like a bundle of logs on top of me. “Take my hoof,” Ironbright said. I grabbed on and she pulled me out. I struggled to catch my breath.

“Fucking Luna,” Cloud Chaser exclaimed with a gasp. My body was riddled with tiny punctures from where the beast had attacked me, and more than a few thorns were imbedded in my legs and belly, each one easily an inch long. I felt my blood draining from me. Rosemary dug out our last health potion.

I didn’t have time to take it, though, much less examine the attacker’s corpse. The smell was still in the air. More growls sounded, and we turned to face them. The blue eyes emerged from the thick undergrowth to reveal a wolf-like creature. Its body looked like something a foal would build as a toy from parts. Branches were twisted and molded into limbs, a tail, and head, crowned by the blue eyes. The dark wood that formed it was covered in long, daggerlike thorns. And as it growled, a blue mist seeped from its maw, wafting toward us, carrying the delicious scent.

But wolves were pack creatures. And two more appeared beside it, ready to pounce.

“Run,” Ironbright commanded. We did, as soon as we turned to sprint I heard the beasts tearing through the forest behind us.

Pain lanced through my belly as I ran, spreading to my pierced limbs as they seized and locked. I cried out, and my friends fired as they turned to help me. “Just keep running Ebonmane, don’t look behind you,” Ironbright ordered. I did as best as I could, but every stretch of my legs brought a tearing sensation to my hide, and I was worried my skin would just tear apart. But I didn’t look.

“You can make it Ebonmane,” Ironbright encouraged once again. “Rosemary, where’s that potion?”

Rosemary multitasked, reloading and floating the potion to me at the same time. My horn still worked, and I took it, uncorking it with as steady of a grip as I could manage while I bled and suffered. Within moments of drinking it, I was mobile, but the potion couldn’t eject the thorns from my skin. Every step still brought pain around the needles inside of me, but adrenaline dulled it enough for me to focus.

Gunshots cracked and echoed throughout the woods as Rosemary and Cloud Chaser blind fired behind them. Ironbright’s radar kept track of the wolves’ position. “We’re losing them,” she announced. “Just a little more.”

A little more. Even with the nails in my stomach and the fear still gnawing at my neck, I could make it a little more. But anything above that would kill me.

Ironbright led us to what seemed to be a clearing. The trees weren’t quite as dense in this particular area, but their boughs still stretched, and vines still wrapped around everything. She stopped here, and I could no longer smell the tantalizing scent of my death.

With a moment to breathe, I allowed myself to whimper and shed tears in pain. “Oh, shit, this hurts,” I told my friends.

“Let me see,” Rosemary said. She was so short she barely had to bend her legs to look at my belly. “We’re going to have to get those out soon,” she said. “Are we clear?”

“I think so,” Ironbright answered.

“Think again,” Cloud Chaser warned. We turned to face in her direction, but the threat was all around us. The vines that wrapped this area began to twist and slither beneath our hooves, writhing into a central mass before rising into the air, displaying their blue flowers.

“Killing joke,” Ironbright confirmed.

Then the sweet smell hit me again.

I drew my sword. It was do or die. Ironbright whipped around as her radar picked up the thornwolves. “My guns won’t do shit against those vines,” she said. “I’ll take the wolves. Can you fight Ebonmane?”

“Do I have a choice?” I retorted.

As soon as Ironbright’s guns began to blaze, the floating vines lashed at us. Rosemary was positioned behind me, her gun similarly useless against the killing joke. With every whipping strike of the vines I sliced with my sword, decapitating the flowers from their bodies. I wasn’t quite fast enough to kill every vine, but my armor was thick enough to protect me as I dodged. A direct hit would rip right through my plates. Cloud Chaser flew and weaved through the clearing, fending for herself with her mobility and knife.

Rosemary’s gun cracked as she took her shots against the wolves behind me. She didn’t see the vines swirl and swarm around Cloud Chaser, entangling her. I spread my wings to free her, but before I could take off, she was gone. Vanished into thin air.

“Cloud Chaser!” I called in panic. I flew to the spot where she had been. A mistake.

“Ah!” I heard Rosemary cry out. My blood froze. Without my body to protect her, Rosemary was a sitting duck. I turned to see her suspended in midair, vines immobilizing every limb. She looked at me. “Ebonmane!” she cried out in fear and desperation.

I was certain she was dead. The vines could have easily torn her legs off. But killing joke didn’t work like that. Instead, the plant reared and threw her at me. I caught her, but as we fell to the forest floor, her body impacted against mine, driving the thorns into my body even further.

We cried out in pain together as the vines immediately began to lash at her back, flaying her, blood spattering the grass below. I wrapped my hooves around her for protection, feeling my forelegs split open. The pain was intense, but it would keep her alive for a few more seconds while I reached for my sword. When my blade was before me, I began to hack at the tearing plants.

But it wasn’t enough. Rosemary still screamed in my arms as they tore at whatever exposed spots they could reach. It wouldn’t be much longer before she was dead in my arms.

Without a thought, I rolled over. I pinned her body beneath mine, hugging her as I felt the killing joke tear at me, denting and working to tear the plates from my back. I pressed her head against my shoulder, my other hoof wrapped around her neck. Better me than her.

Now the killing joke had a new target, and a new prank to play. For a second, I felt the vines relent. I raised my head to see what was happening, and in that instant, I felt razors tear across my forehead and temples and I screamed. Blood stained my vision as the thorny blades made a complete circle around my head.

They didn’t get the chance to finish me off. A surge of burning heat erupted over my shoulder, and the pain stopped. Rosemary was out from underneath me, and I rolled to see her launch another gout of flame. The plants shuddered and retreated, the petals of their blossoms catching as the fire spread down the vine.

The killing joke slinked back, but Ironbright stepped over me and her guns began to spin. With a torrent of concentrated fire, she shot into the heart of the killing joke plant, nestled beyond the trees, too far away to see, but the clusters of vines led Ironbright’s keen eye to their core. With an unnatural, gasping cry, the plants gave a final shudder and fell limp.

We were all left gasping. Ironbright moved around to help me up again, turning her back on the dozen or so thornwolf corpses she had cut down, and I could see even she was limping. But there was one question that we were all thinking, and the ranger voiced: “Where’s Cloud Chaser?”

I hung my head. I felt like crying. “I don’t know. The killing joke got to her and she just… disappeared.”

“She has to be around here somewhere. I’m not leaving this forest until I see a body.”

“Do you think she’s dead?” Rosemary asked fearfully.

“That depends on the joke it wanted to play on her.”

I shook my head. “We have no idea where it took her. We can’t just wander around the forest blindly.” I looked at Rosemary with a grimace. The slashes on her back were bad. “Not like this.”

“We’ll get to a safe zone, and I’ll let off some lightning,” Rosemary said. “If I do it enough, Cloud Chaser’s sure to see it, or hear it, or something.”

“And if she can’t reach us? How long should we wait for her?” Ironbright asked.

“As long as we can,” I answered. Rosemary nodded in agreement.

Ironbright hung her head. “We need to find the Sear, then. It might be our only chance.”

When Red Eye had planned to burn down the Everfree Forest way back in Littlepip’s day, the scar the wildfire had left on the land had come to be known as the Sear. But I had never met a pony who had seen it themselves. “Is it safe?” I asked.

“It’s open. That’s close enough. If Cloud Chaser’s smart, which she is, she’d fly up and out as soon as she realized she was alone. She’d see the Sear and head there. Parts of it are almost on our way to the SPP. It’s our best bet.”

There was a pit in my stomach at the thought of losing the sprightly little pegasus. It wasn’t fair. She was barely more than a filly. She couldn’t be dead. She deserved a life more than any of us. She deserved to live in a house of her very own. She deserved to see more of the world than the slums and raiders her life had been limited to. She deserved to find a love better than the pathetic kiss I had given her. I didn’t want to believe she was dead, and I told myself that we had a plan, and a good one.
I hoped it was enough. But we had more than hope on our side. I felt a drop on my nose, and I looked up to hear a pitter on the canopy above.

“It’s raining,” Rosemary pointed out. “She loves rain.”

Ironbright shook her head. “Listen.” We did. It was quiet for a rainstorm. “The rain is just above us, nowhere else. The cloud can’t be more than a few feet wide.”

“How is that possible?” I asked.

Before anypony could speculate, the pitter patter shifted ahead of us, away from the clearing, moving at a slow walking pace.

“Littlepip must know we’re here,” Ironbright concluded.

I felt like crying. Not only was this tangible proof to my hero’s presence and watchfulness, as I had always hoped, but I believed with all my heart she was taking us to Cloud Chaser.

We followed the little raincloud tapping on the canopy above us. We limped and bled against the forest floor, and Ironbright sidled up to Rosemary, sharing each other’s weight, easing the walk for one another. But no amount of pain could stop us from finding our poor little pegasus friend.

After twenty minutes, the trees stopped abruptly. Jagged, blackened stumps were entrenched on the forest’s edge. Beyond was a sea of tall, blackened trunks, ruins of the Everfree forest, every burned tree a derelict, black spire, its crown lying broken and scattered around its roots.

Our little ring of rain was more visible now, and indeed we looked up to see a small black raincloud above, weaving through the needles of trees. We stepped over the torn and charred limbs, branches and dust crunching beneath our hooves as we navigated the safest yet the most somber portion of the forest. Ironbright still remained alert, as threats could still hide amongst the charred corpses of the trees, but Rosemary and I could only focus on our point of light that was Littlepip’s raincloud.

We heard another sound. More than the patter of the rain, but still low and soft. We all froze.

It was crying.

I ran ahead, being the only pony capable of running in any degree. The wound on my head bled into my eyes as my motion aggravated it, but I didn’t care. I jumped over fallen trunks and wound through the branches as quickly as I could. “Cloud Chaser!” I called out.

“Ebonmane?” I heard her voice respond. We all let out a sigh of relief.

I saw her lying amongst a small thicket. Killing joke vines were wrapped around her limbs, pinning her to the ground, and I could see the cuts and tears the vines had inflicted under her stealth armor. Her face was stained with tears, and they started again, fresh once she saw me.

I wasted no time cutting the vines away, freeing her. She stood as soon as she was free and wrapped her hooves around my neck in a hug. “Thank Celestia,” she said. “I thought I was going to die alone.”

“We’re all here,” I told her. She looked past me to see Ironbright and Rosemary enter the thicket.

“She’s alright,” I told them.

They sighed in relief. “We’ll have to wait on the hugs. We’re all pretty beat up,” Ironbright told her.

We rejoined them. Now that everypony was more or less safe, we needed to think about what to do next. “We can’t go on like this,” Ironbright said. “We’re all wounded and we have no health potions. Plus,” she paused, speaking low, “Rosemary’s pretty bad.”

“I’m fine,” she answered softly. But I could tell she was already feeling weak from pain and blood loss. “I just need to lie down.” And she did, but we all knew she wasn’t moving from that spot anytime soon.

Now that she was firmly below us, we all got to see the extent of her wounds. Almost all of the hide had been stripped from her back, peeled away by the killing joke, her coat soaked with blood, and I could see now the few inches of white between her shoulders. Her spine. That she had walked this far was a miracle.

“If she doesn’t bleed out, she’s sure to get an infection,” Ironbright said.

“What do we do?” Cloud Chaser asked.

Ironbright was searching for answers, but she had nothing to say. Suddenly, Cloud Chaser spread her wings and darted upward. When she came back down, she said, “I can see the SPP tower from here. It’s not far. We might be able to reach it by sundown if we move quickly.”

Ironbright shook her head. “It’s a project, not a city. I doubt Littlepip has medical supplies in there. Besides…” Ironbright couldn’t finish the sentence, but she didn’t have to. I knew what she meant. Rosemary wouldn’t make it that far.

We all saw the twist of fear that passed through us in Rosemary’s eyes. She was terrified. She wasn’t ready to die. Not like this.

“I know it didn’t work last time, but…” Cloud Chaser said, tears forming in her eyes. She shook her head, but spoke anyways after a pause, her voice almost a whisper. “Can’t you heal her, Ebonmane?”

I felt the tears stinging at my eyes, too, hot and heavy. “No. Life Bloom said that only a pony with light in their hearts can do healing magic. That’s why I couldn’t heal Moondancer.”

“But you did it before!” Cloud Chaser shouted at me.

“I don’t know what I did!” I said with sorrow.

“You have to try!” Cloud Chaser said, crying freely.

I looked at Rosemary, at the flickering eyes behind her dirty lenses. I had to try.

I knelt down next to her, fighting back my own tears. The wrenching in my gut told me this wasn’t going to work. I couldn’t go through this again, believing I could save a pony when I couldn’t because I wasn’t good enough. I didn’t want to lose Rosemary like this. But I tipped my head, my horn hovering over her wounded back anyway.

“Ebonmane,” I head her weak voice whispering in my ear, soft and calmer than I felt. “It’s okay if you can’t. It’s not your fault.”

She was being strong for me. I could hear it in the faltering tone of her warm words. But if she could try, so could I.

Life Bloom had told Midnight that a pony needed light in his heart to heal. Maybe my own heart was too dark, too weak to find the virtue and strength needed to perform such magic. But Rosemary’s wasn’t. As I poured the magic through my horn, her words still swimming in my mind, I knew her heart was pure as the first snows that touched the streets of Junction Town, and as bright and warm as the hearth of her inn. Out of all of us, she deserved to live.

The magic poured out of me and over her, as it had done with Moondancer. But as my breath escaped my lips, tinged with hope and the smallest drops of faith, I felt a peace spread through me. I closed my eyes. I felt nothing, not the pain of my own wounds or the ground beneath me, save for this hope that had been instilled within me. My magic streamed forth, taking whatever was left in me with it.

When I opened my eyes, Rosemary’s wounds were but small scabs.

Cloud Chaser sobbed openly and ran to embrace Rosemary. In that hug, we all felt the fear we had caged within ourselves release us as Ironbright and I sighed.

“Ebonmane…” Ironbright said. But she didn’t have the words to express her feelings about what I had just done.

When Cloud Chaser finally let go, Rosemary hugged me, too, and I held her a little. It had been scary for all of us, but she would be alright. She opened her mouth to speak, but couldn’t find the words to thank me properly at first. “You saved my life. Again,” she said finally, with tearful gratitude.

“You saved mine with that fire,” I told her. “And with Thunderfall. We’re even. So no more keeping score.”

She nodded and released me. “You did fire, Rosemary?” Cloud Chaser said, wiping her eyes as her relief was rapidly replaced with excited awe.

Rosemary nodded. “It’s not much different than lightning. I think I got the hang of them. You just sort of have to… feel it. Pay attention to how it works.”

I nodded. I had been paying attention, too. But I couldn’t know for certain if anything would come of my careful scrutiny unless I tried again.

“Cloud Chaser, come here,” I told her. “Lay down.” She did.

“What are you doing?” she asked as I put my horn over her.

“I think I got the hang of this, too.”

“What?” But I wasn’t paying attention. I had closed my eyes, accessing that hope within me, that hope I had felt when Rosemary had reassured me so bravely. I felt it move within me. And then the peace came over me again, as I poured my hope out over the cuts on Cloud Chaser’s chest. When I opened my eyes again, they were gone completely.

“No way,” she breathed.

I smiled, feeling a subdued excitement flow through me, fighting against my peacefulness. “Take off your armor so I can get at the rest of them.”

Once Cloud Chaser was healed, we helped Ironbright remove her armor. Her bruises faded quickly, but the tricky part was her fractured leg. I could feel the break, almost sensing the throbbing pain beneath her skin, but I managed to knit the bone back together. If it had been a full break, I don’t know if I could have done anything, but Ironbright was as good as new. We were all left smiling.

“What about you?” Rosemary asked.

I had all but forgotten about the thorns that lay embedded in my hide, about my own seeping wounds. I rolled on my back to lean my horn over my legs and belly, but that feeling of hope felt trapped within me, with nowhere to go. After a while of trying, I gave up, rolling back to my side. “It’s no use,” I told them. “It’s like levitating yourself.”

They nodded understandingly. “Well, we still have to fix you up,” Rosemary said. “You’re almost as bad as I was.”

That wasn’t quite true, but I didn’t argue. I was exhausted. “This is going to hurt, isn’t it?” I asked.

“I’m afraid so. I’ll be as gentle as possible.”

After Rosemary collided with me, the thorns were driven too deep for Rosemary to pluck out with her teeth, and to be honest, I was glad for that. A lot of them were a little too low on my belly for her to do such a thing and not have the situation be completely embarrassing. However, the only other alternative was for Rosemary to wedge them out with Cloud Chaser’s knife.

The little unicorn hesitated. “Go ahead,” I told her. “I’ll be fine.”

I wasn’t. The feeling of the knife slipping into my skin, cutting and scraping with a surgeon’s precision was enough to leave me gasping and sweaty after one thorn. By the fourth I was nearly howling in pain.

“Here,” Ironbright offered me a strip of gauze that would serve as my bandages. I took them in my mouth, glad to have something to bite down on. Ironbright and Cloud Chaser moved around me, holding me down so that my thrashing wouldn’t make Rosemary’s job harder. When they were set, I nodded to Rosemary to continue.

Thirty-four thorns, in all. Each one worse than the last, but once she reached my legs, I was numbed by adrenaline. Once the last one popped out of my left thigh, I released the bandages, every inch of my body wracked in pain. They wrapped me up as quickly as they could, and once the bandages were in place, the pressure relieved some of my torment. I had gone through hell once more, but we were sure no infection would cripple me.

“Can you walk?” Ironbright asked me. I looked up at her and nodded.

“Oh, no,” Rosemary called out. “We aren’t going anywhere with him like this.”

“It’s too dangerous to stay here,” Ironbright said. “The SPP is just a few hours away. He can rest all he likes there.”

“No,” Rosemary stamped her hoof. “He isn’t moving an inch until he gets some sleep and that’s final.”

I wanted to be a stallion about this. I wanted to pretend like I had an impressive set of balls and trudge through the pain, but Rosemary’s tone silenced any argument. Even Ironbright said nothing, simply laying down where she stood. “I’ll take the first watch,” she volunteered.

“I can take the last,” I attempted to preserve some of my masculinity.

“You’ll sleep all the way through. You’re exhausted,” Rosemary countered me. And she was right. Between the extraordinarily difficult spellcasting spree and having half of my body carved up by Cloud Chaser’s knife, not to mention the toll of combat and adrenaline, I couldn’t find the energy to care. Pain or no pain, I was asleep as soon as my head hit the saddlebag Rosemary placed under my head.

Cloud Chaser had the last shift, and I had awoken sometime near the start of it, my body wracked with throbbing pain. I tried to soothe my body with sleep, but I had no such luck. After an hour of tossing, I told Cloud Chaser to wake everypony up. We were here so I could rest, and I wasn’t going to get any more of it. It was time to move out.

We didn’t start walking immediately, though. On her shift, Rosemary had started a meal simmering over the campfire, and she wouldn’t let me move until I had eaten every last boiled vegetable and straw of hay. I noticed that she gave me twice as much food as anypony else, but I didn’t say anything until she tried to give me a triple portion.

“I’m full, really,” I told her.

“You really should eat more,” she insisted. “You’re so skinny as it is, you’re going to shrivel up and die one of these days.”

“He’s not scrawny, he’s just lean,” Ironbright said, her patience with Rosemary finally running out. “Now let him up so we can get moving. We’ve spent too long out here already.”

The sun had set when we finally began to move out, throwing us once again into a gray twilight, quickly melding into a dark, moonless night. Rosemary’s protective instincts seemed to linger, as she stayed awfully close to me. But once it became clear that I was moving fine, despite my painful wounds, her eyes turned from their constant surveillance of me to her own thoughts, as she looked at her hooves. Once she did, she moved away from me by only a few inches, but it was enough to return things to how they had been before. She was distant again. Inscrutable.

What had happened? Why did it feel like we were no longer friends? Why did she care for me so deeply and obsessively one minute and shrink away from me the next? I wanted to ask, but my mere glance caused her to look away from me, and I knew there was no point in asking.

“Now that everything’s settled down, I have a question for you, Cloud Chaser,” Ironbright said.

“Shoot.”

“Why did the killing joke teleport you all the way out here?”

Cloud Chaser shuffled her wings nervously. “When Rosemary said that there were worse things than dying, I thought of a lot of different things. But I decided that it didn’t matter if I died, because dying out here would be way better than dying an orphan in New Appleloosa.”

“You wouldn’t have died in New Appleloosa,” Rosemary insisted.

“I would have,” Cloud Chaser replied quietly. “I was alone there, before I met you. And that’s why it’s better out here. Because at least I would die with ponies who cared about me. I wouldn’t die alone.”

We all understood. “What about Ebonmane?” Rosemary asked.

“That’s obvious. He was pretty adamant that he’s not a prince. Now he’s got a crown,” Ironbright pointed out. Their eyes turned to the bandage wrapped around my head. It would sit exactly where a crown would. And I was willing to bet it would scar nicely.

“What about you, Ironbright?” Cloud Chaser asked.

She shook her head. “The joke never got to me. Just you three.”

My eyes turned to Rosemary, and the others followed. “What happened to you?” Cloud Chaser asked quietly, sensing the tension.

“It threw her into Ebonmane, and he rolled on top of her to protect her,” Ironbright answered before Rosemary could speak.

“Why?” I asked.

“I don’t know,” she said. “It’s probably because I once said that you’d be the death of me or something, Ebonmane.”

“But I kept you alive when they tried to kill you,” I pointed out.

“I think it was a part of your deal, Ebonmane,” Cloud Chaser said. “You’re always all, ‘I’d rather die than let any of you mares get hurt,’” she did a stupid-sounding impersonation of me. “It knew you were going to protect her. It was probably going to kill you, then do her joke.”

“Then what about the crown?” Ironbright asked.

“Cherry on top,” Cloud Chaser said simply.

We looked at Rosemary again. But this time, I couldn’t bear to look at her. I felt guilty again. Had my stupid macho bravado been what had nearly gotten her killed in the first place?

Darkness had swallowed up this black, dead forest, and the SPP was no longer visible in the distance. But I wanted another miracle from Littlepip. Not a raincloud this time, though. I wanted her to tell me something that could fix me. Whatever was wrong with my way of thinking or whatever darkness was in my heart that had prevented me from saving Moondancer, I wanted her to tell me whatever she could tell me that could change me. But what in the world could possibly change me into a Prince?

It was too much to ask for. So I walked in silence, as usual.

We walked most of the night until the SPP’s silhouette was an amorphous black form ahead of us, a void amongst the stars of the dark night sky. The Sear opened up into these foothills, and these hills led into the mountains that nestled the most impressive machine pegasus technology could build.

“We’re really going to make it,” Cloud Chaser said with disbelief. “We’re really going to meet with Littlepip, aren’t we?”

Ironbright nodded. “It looks like it. Nervous?”

“Excited,” Cloud Chaser answered. “Who wouldn’t be?”

Excited wasn’t how I would describe my feelings. I’m not sure one word would be enough. I was excited, sure. But also nervous. Curious. Starstruck. Doubtful. Inadequate. Scared.

Was I really ready to hear whatever she had to say? But I shook my head. It didn’t matter. Homage had made it clear that this wasn’t about me. I was a pawn in the story of Equestria’s future, and somehow, that made it easier to approach the tower.

It was impossibly tall. Like the skyscrapers of Manehattan, once we reached its thick metal base, we had to crane our heads further back than they could to see the tip. Even if our necks were made of rubber, the last hundred feet or so were lost amongst a ring of clouds. This was the source of all of Equestria’s weather, the machine that laid the powers of all the heavens at the hooftips of a single pony. It was sufficiently awe-inspiring.

We circled the base, but even after our ten-minute lap around, we found no door.

“What the hell?” Cloud Chaser asked. “How do we get in?”

“Littlepip got in through the clouds,” I reminded them. “Maybe the entrance is accessible only to pegasi.”

“Makes sense,” Rosemary agreed. “That way only the pegasi could use it, like it was intended.”

“Then how does Homage get up there?” Cloud Chaser asked bluntly. “They meet up every so often to fuck, remember?”

Right. They did, didn’t they? And Homage was a unicorn. “Is there a spell that gives wings?” I asked.

“That would be so stupid,” Rosemary said. “Then what would even be the point of being a pegasus?”

“Let’s look around again,” Ironbright decided. So we did another lap, but halfway around, we found that two metal panels had been slid apart, revealing an entrance.

“Littlepip knows we’re here,” Cloud Chaser said. It appeared so.

The inside of the SPP was incredibly dark, but warmer than the outside. Everypony with a light lit theirs up, and we began to wander the path laid out between the pillars of coils and machinery, our hooves rapping against the metal floor.

We found the stairs only to find it utterly collapsed, as if some master telekinetic had ripped the first portion of the staircase right off the wall. When Ironbright cast her beam up, we could see the intact portion begin some thirty feet above us.

“At least we know bandits can’t get to her,” Ironbright concluded. “Even if they did manage to find the entrance.”

“What about pegasus bandits?” Cloud Chaser asked. We could only shrug, though.

We searched for a way up for a few more minutes. Finally, we saw tiny orange lights flickering regularly ahead. Ironbright shined her flashlight to reveal an elevator near the center of the tower. And the door was open.

Ironbright hit the button after we crowded on the cramped platform. As we rose, we could see the large coils follow us up, and new pieces of machinery affixed to the walls hummed and glowed with magical power as we ascended past them.

We rode for a long time. Rosemary begged us all to back away from her. The elevator was fairly open, only a low wall enclosing us, so she must not have been claustrophobic, but rather motion sick. Once the rest of us crammed into a corner, she seemed to calm down some, but not completely until we reached the top. This took a good ten minutes.

Then, all too quickly, we were there. The large, almost barren warehouse-like top floor of the SPP. And right next to the elevator shaft was the central console. The room that housed Littlepip.

We walked around to the door. Sure enough, there was the cloud interface, just like Littlepip had described. If it wasn’t for that, she would have never had to experience dragon fire to get inside. Luckily for us, we had Cloud Chaser. She had the door open within seconds.

As it slid open with a rush of air, we all glanced at one another. This place that we were about to enter… it was about as sacred a place as anypony had anymore. This place was our temple, our only point of hope that somepony had things under control. It felt wrong to walk into that chamber. But we had come too far to be daunted now.

The inside of the SPP was nigh heavenly. There were a lot of cloud interfaces, and monitors that showed the land of Equestria in its entirety. And it was growing. The night was warm, and grass grew up along the roads and across the rolling plains. One even showed a successful farm. I was breathless.

I stopped when my hoof nudged an object. We looked down. It was a bone, one of many.

We froze. Celestia’s bones. This was where she had died…

My thoughts raced for an instant, but a long one. This was what remained of Celestia herself. The most powerful Princess who had ever lived. Some, like Littlepip, had learned to worship her as a goddess. And I was here because ponies were comparing me to her, counting me as one of her kind, when they called me a Prince. More than ever, I was certain that I wasn’t worthy. I wasn’t even worthy to touch the bones of the one who gave light to Equestria.

“Thanks for coming,” a female voice sounded. It was young and light, unmistakably Littlepip. It was so startling that I felt like I was going to wet myself, but whether from surprise or shock of actually hearing her actual voice I couldn’t say.

I felt somepony behind me nudge my flank. “Uh… sure?” I responded. Smooth.

“It’s been a while since I’ve talked to somepony who isn’t Homage, so…” she paused. “It’s good to finally meet you, Ebonmane.”

“It’s good to meet you too,” I found my voice.

“I would come out, but it’s really not a good idea. I have to make a lot of preparations if I’m going to step out. That, and my body isn’t exactly in the best condition of its life.”

“So you’re really Littlepip?” Cloud Chaser asked.

“Well, I’m a mind in a Crusader mainframe. If you don’t count the lack of a body, then yeah. I am.”

Ironbright moved things along. “Homage sent us. She told us that Ebonmane might be a Prince.”

There was a brief pause. “The word is getting out. I can see a lot of Equestria from up here, and no pony really knows what to think about you, Ebonmane. Homage really opened up a can of worms when she said you were an alicorn over the radio.”

“Are there really assassins after me?” I asked.

“I don’t know. But I do know from experience that things like this are never as simple as they seem. This rumor would threaten any pony with any kind of power, and those ponies are going to want you dead, Ebonmane.”

“But you have a plan, right?” Rosemary asked. “You can keep him alive?”

“I think so. It’s risky, and kind of crazy, but I guess all my plans are.” She paused. “But it’s only going to work if Ebonmane is ready to take this seriously.”

“What do you mean?” I asked.

“Ebonmane, you could just go into hiding for a while. Hell, you could probably just go back to Homage and make a public statement or two that you’re not a Prince and that you don’t plan on being one anytime soon. As long as you kept your word by lying low, staying a Ranger, no pony would have any reason to doubt you.”

She knew I was a Ranger? “How much do you know about me?” I asked.

“Quite a bit. You’re pretty important. Because if you decide to work with me, we can do something with those wings and horn.” I didn’t know what to say. “Look at those screens again. Do you see how beautiful the land is becoming?” Littlepip asked.

“Yeah,” I agreed.

“But the worst part is that it’s not enough. The Gardens of Equestria was only the first step. It healed the land, but it can’t fix everything. You’ve seen some of the worst Equestria has to offer yourself. Ponies don’t even call it Equestria. It’s the wasteland.”

I exhaled in defeat. “And you want me to unify it all by claiming a throne?”

“It’s not what you think,” Littlepip said. “It wouldn’t matter if you were an earth pony. If you had risen high enough in the Ranger’s ranks, you could have had a shot to unify Equestria. We just need a pony with the guts to do it.”

“And you think that’s me?” I asked incredulously. “I’m not exactly the gutsiest pony.”

“When it comes to ponies you care about, you are. Homage and I have learned everything we can about what you did with Thunderfall. You’d give your life for this country in a heartbeat. You’d never be in it for power or greed. You’re not the kind.”

A quiet whisper in my heart disagreed. I could be very greedy. I could take all too easily to being worshipped in the way Celestia was. Having whatever I say be written as law. But I didn’t say any of that. “How could I even begin?”

“First, we find out what, or who, you’re up against. Then, you need to appear more publicly. Campaign. Tell the ponies to follow you. Promise them safety, food, a future. They have the tools. It’s right in front of them, right on those screens. They just need to organize. That’s it. You can do that, and you can do it without using them like somepony like Red Eye would.” I didn’t believe her, but she wouldn’t let up. “I know you can.”

“How? Why me? I’m not like you,” I said.

“Yes, you are,” she said firmly. “Because I didn’t go alone. If I did, I would have never made it. I had friends, and you do, too. If Spike weren’t asleep, he would have told you the same thing he told me about finding a special group of friends. You might not be Bearers, but you’re so much more.”

“But I’ll be on a throne. We can’t all be Prince,” I argued.

“Once you get everypony together, you can give up the throne for all I care. But if we’re ever going to see an Equestria even close to what Celestia knew, it has to start now. And you’re the only pony worth following. Please believe me.”

She was pleading with me. But still, I faltered. I wanted to turn my back on Littlepip’s request.

“I do hear you, by the way,” she interrupted me before I could speak. “Sometimes, at night, you talk to me. It’s like you’re praying.” I didn’t know what to say. “It was really awkward for me at first, because I knew I didn’t deserve that kind of attention. I’m just a mare. Not much more than a toaster repair pony. And you’ll always be just a colt form Junction Town. But I realized that I gave you hope, somehow. You can do that for other ponies, Ebonmane. I know you can because I’ve listened to you pray for a long time now. Basically, all of your prayers boil down to the same thing. You always tell me that you wish you were more like me, that you were brave or clever or compassionate, and that you weren’t so afraid. But you already are. All you’ve ever wanted was to make a difference, even a little one, as selflessly as possible. All you’ve ever asked for was to be a good pony.” I knew that wasn’t entirely true, but she seemed to read even this quiet thought. “Well, that and a mare to fall desperately in love with.” I blushed.

“What do you mean?” I ignored it. “What are you trying to tell me? That you understand me?”

“Yes,” she said. “Not completely. But sometimes I still ask myself why I’m in here. Why I was picked to be the Lightbringer. Why not somepony smarter or stronger? I made so many mistakes…”

And my heart went out to her. Even knowing all her mistakes, I had always rooted for Littlepip. Now, her belief in me was starting to work.

She spoke again. “I understand why you’re afraid. You’re afraid you’ll screw up. You’ll let everypony down. But that’s not the worst thing you could do, Ebonmane. You’re only a stallion. You’re going to screw up. But that’s what you have your friends for. This isn’t a mission for Ebonmane. This is for all of you. Together.”

“What do you need us to do?” Ironbright asked.

“I need you to be in agreement,” Littlepip answered. “So what do you say? Can you bring Equestria together? Could you be Prince Ebonmane?”

It was too overwhelming to hear my hero address me like that. But she saw something in me.

“He can,” Ironbright said.

“We can do it,” Cloud Chaser followed.

“We’re in this together,” Rosemary said in turn.

Littlepip saw something in me. My friends saw something in me.

I nodded. I had no words.

“Good,” Littlepip said. I could hear her smile. “This is a three-part plan. Part one is to get the bad guys off your back. Part two is to start a movement by opening the last few stables. Once everypony’s here, you can start organizing them, getting them to follow you. If you manage to gain even a few faithful followers, you can start rebuilding. It’ll be slow at first, but once the public realizes that you’re not out to use them, they’ll help. Then step three is to forge a society. To get everypony to work together. And you’ll have Homage to help you gain favor. As long as you ask yourself, ‘will this make Homage say something bad about me on the radio?’ you should have no problem keeping public favor. After that, it’s just dodging assassins for long enough.”

“Easier said than done,” Ironbright remarked.

“Which is why we’re going to expose them in part one.”

“How?” I asked.

I could sense Littlepip’s smug grin. “This might sound crazy, but just listen. Celestia told me about this place out in the Everfree Forest.” I had forgotten that Celestia’s consciousness was in there with Littlepip. I wondered why she hadn’t spoken.

“We have to go back there?” Rosemary asked.

“It’s close to Ponyville, so you can take the Sear through most of it. You should be okay.”

“What is it?” Cloud Chaser asked.

“It’s an underground pool that Pinkie Pie found one day. It’s magical. If you walk into it, you can clone yourself.”

We had no idea what to say to that. “Like, a carbon-copy clone?” Cloud Chaser asked.

“Not quite. According to Celestia, the clones don’t have the original’s memories. Just their basic personalities. Pinkie used it to clone herself so she could hang out with all her friends at once, but her clones made clones and thing got… out of hoof.” I could only imagine the understatement.

“How are we going to control our clones?” Ironbright asked.

“Well, for starters, you’re only going to clone Ebonmane. He’s pragmatic enough where the clone isn’t going to try to clone itself. And once you have the clone, you’re going to lie low, Ebonmane.”

“Then what?” I asked.

“This part seems weird, but just stay with me. You’re going to convince the Ebonmane clone to go out in public, probably Friendship City. It might be closed off, but there’s a lot of power there. If the bad guys see you there, they just might try to kill you. You’re going to let them kill the clone, but in doing so, you can keep an eye out and find out who wants you dead. From there, Homage should have no trouble sniffing out leads and info.”

“How in the world are we going to convince the clone to let himself get killed?” Rosemary asked. “Who would agree to that?”

“That’s also why it has to be Ebonmane. He’s just so damn ready to get himself killed for the good of others. And plus, I think Ebonmane’s psyche is stable enough to accept not being the original Ebonmane, and therefore he would listen to you.”

“You can’t predict that,” Ironbright said.

“But we can. Ebonmane,” she addressed me. “If you had come into here today, seen yourself standing before you, and I told you that you were his clone, would you follow this plan?”

And I had to smile. Because I would. “Yeah. If I’m not the real me, then I technically shouldn’t exist. My life would be worthless, but this plan, this death, would give me purpose. It would literally be my sole reason for being created.”

“Exactly.” Again, I could sense Littlepip’s smug smile.

“That’s kind of morbid,” Cloud Chaser remarked.

“That’s Ebonmane for you,” Littlepip said. “Now, if you link your PipBuck into my terminal, I can give you the coordinates of the Mirror Pool. From there, Homage is going to help you organize the rest. She found the locations of the closed Stables years ago.”

“This is still really dangerous,” Ironbright said.

Littlepip sighed. “I wouldn’t send you into something that I wasn’t sure you could walk out of. And I wouldn’t ask you to do something like this if I didn’t think you were the only one who could do it.”

Rosemary spoke up. “Homage said that it wasn’t a coincidence that an alicorn was born right around when the Gardens were activated. Do you… think he was meant to be a Prince?”

Littlepip seemed to think. “Ever since the Wasteland, my faith in all that kind of stuff has been a little rocky. But to be honest, yes. I do.”

Those words weighed on me more than anypony could have ever known.

“Well,” Ironbright said finally. “I guess we should head out.”

“The sun’s almost up,” Littlepip said. “Get some rest here if you need it. I don’t have supplies for you, but you’ve got a good team. You guys are unstoppable.”

“We are, aren’t we?” Cloud Chaser agreed.

But I wasn’t ready to leave. “Will we ever see you again?” I asked her.

“I hope so,” she said. “If you get things running again, maybe I can get out of this machine and…”

“Be with Homage,” I finished for her.

There was a pause. When she spoke, I heard sadness in her voice. “But you’re not doing this for me, alright? I made my choice. I’m ready to die in here, and Homage knows that, too. Do this for yourselves. Do this for Equestria.”

“We will,” I promised.

“Good luck.”

With that, we turned, the exit opening gently. As we stepped out into the barren, dark tower, I hesitated on the threshold. Behind me lay my hero, who believed in me in a way I could never have dreamed of. Before me lay my destiny. I hadn’t been prepared for what Littlepip had to say to me, but I didn’t feel any more prepared to leave.

The Lightbringer herself had told me that I was destined to be Prince. I wanted to believe her. I wanted to have my destiny before me, to finally understand my purpose, the meaning of the events that surrounded me, the things that had always surrounded me.

I left anyway.

Author's Notes:

The pre-chapter quotes stop here. I'll see if I can't find some good ones for the next few chapters.