Fallout Equestria: Homelands

By Somber

Chapter 7: Bacchanalia

Once upon a time, Scotch Tape had lived in a really lousy stable. It’d been one bad compression pump or recycling talisman failure away from complete collapse and a few hard words away from riot. The overmare in charge had been a psychotic little tyrant who’d arranged the death of Scotch’s mother, but the overmare’d just been a symptom of the greater corruption eating the stable from within. Males, including her father, had been sex slaves, brutally subjugated by the mares, who had used sexual excess as an escape from the horrible conditions. Sex was the reward for living another month in 99. The standard reward for anything, really. Hollow, meaningless, coerced sex. As bad as it had been, though, she’d been oblivious to its many faults.

Rice River, somehow, impossible as it sounded, was worse.

99’s population had been around five hundred miserable ponies. Rice River had more than twenty thousand miserable, angry zebras crammed into it. 99 at least kept the populace fed, even if you didn’t want to think about where ‘recycled’ food came from before the recycler. Rice River could barely keep half the populace alive. 99 had a sense of grudging camaraderie, even at the worst of times. Rice River was split in twain by its namesake waterway with the majority of the Carnilians living on one side and most of the business, industry, and non-Carnilians on the other. Life was simple and boring in 99. In Rice River, every day was a constant scramble to grub enough food, scrap, or money to survive the next. In 99, you knew who to hate: the overmare. In Rice River, there were a half dozen different groups to blame for the miserable conditions.

Like ponies.

Scotch Tape stepped from the shower, snagged the towel from the rail, and dried her coat off. “Are you excited?” a mare asked behind her, a pink glow infusing the cloth as it animated and briskly buffed her coat. Vicious leaned against the doorjamb as her horn did all the work, lifting the towel away and assaulting Scotch Tape with brushes and combs. She knew better than to protest. The periwinkle-coated mare would just do it anyway.

Over the course of the last year, Scotch had learned the hard way just how difficult saying no to Vicious was. She was all the worst parts of Blackjack. Crude and rude, and very good at killing. She liked sex and booze and never gave any of it a second thought. Going after a person’s family was fair game. Beating a cripple to death with his own crutch became a story she repeated ad nauseam, with the bloody crutch mounted on the wall. There was still a tooth lodged in the frame.

She’d also bought Scotch a pretty ribbon for her mane with the money taken from his pocket. Once bought her an ice cream treat with the gold tooth she’d pried from a victim’s mouth. She’d saved Scotch’s life no less than three times from the bounty hunters that still targeted her. The last time was three months ago. She’d also let Scotch stay with her for a few chores; renting a one room stall on the east side of the river was insanely expensive. So suffice to say, Scotch was more than a little conflicted when it came to her ‘guardian’.

She’d never truly understood her dad’s frustration with Blackjack until she moved in with Vicious.

“It’s just another excuse for sex,” Scotch Tape said dully. “That’s all Carnilians do.”

“Since when have you had problems with sex? You’re practically Carnilian yourself,” she teased with a grin. “Bacchanalia’s not your average ‘screw your neighbors’ festival, though. It’s three nights of food, music, drink, and screwing your neighbors, your neighbors’ neighbors, and that thing down the street because why not? Everyone comes. There’re masks. People wear crazy costumes. They light shit on fire. It’s the time of the year when the elders, Carnico, the Syndicate, and everyone else trying to show off opens up their larder and everyone goes nuts. Plus, no weapons allowed, so I’ll actually have to work or get creative if I want to kill someone,” Vicious said as she brushed Scotch’s mane out. “It only comes around once every five years.”

“Funny that they’d have a ‘festival’ when people are starving the rest of the year,” Scotch muttered with a frown.

“Hey, I never said it made sense or solved their problem. It’s just wild.” Vicious grinned as she stepped up next to Scotch Tape and brushed her own lavender mane. “Like, Carnico rolled out twenty tractors full of food to the west side this morning just so there will be enough to eat at the party. And this is just the first night. Nothing’s going to happen tomorrow, as everyone’s going to be too blasted to work. Then they do it again two more times! I love it here.” Vicious barked a laugh as she set the brush aside and levitated out a pot of blackish dye. “How do you want your stripes? Ugly, good, or sexy?”

Scotch Tape sighed. If this ‘Bacchanalia’ was all that, she might as well try to enjoy herself. “Good or sexy.” Vicious would probably draw them however she wanted, but it didn’t hurt to indicate a preference. Hopefully she’d be too spent to try and ‘fool around’ with her for a few weeks after this. Besides, if her friends were there, it’d be great to touch base with them all. It’d been weeks since she last saw them.

The brush went at its work, drawing the wide broad lines along her body. She’d grown a bit in the last year. Enough that people probably wouldn’t be calling her a kid, but she still had a year or two left before ponies back in the Hoof took her seriously. Carnilian stripes ran from the spine down along the body to the belly and all the way down to her fetlocks, which had been shaved. Ugly stripes were straight and kept zebras away. Good stripes curved with the contours of her body. Sexy ones emphasized her rump and shoulders… don’t ask her why those were so appealing. Finally, her face. Vicious smiled gently as she used a narrow brush to paint stripes around her eyes and muzzle.

“You look good, S.T.,” she said, and despite herself, Scotch blushed. She started to paint herself, definitely going for ‘sexy’, as Scotch backed out.

One might assume Vicious’s apartment would be a complete mess, but in actuality it gleamed with cleanliness, everything as neat and tidy as a two-hundred-year-old apartment could be. The small couches and chairs were arranged according to some Achu design that made every piece of furniture nice and accessible, and they were comfortable despite the old stains on the maroon upholstery. Cracks snaked across the plaster and some of the tiles on the floor had been replaced by bits of ceramic that didn’t match, but all in all it could have been the equal of someplace like Tenpony. Except for the ‘art’ on the walls.

Weapons of all sorts hung on pegs. Swords. Knives. Pistols. Rifles. They were arranged like deadly art, and, in the grip of Vicious’s magic, they were. Most were prizes from particularly satisfying kills. All were polished and cleaned till they sparkled with a life they’d never known in the wasteland. Vicious liked to talk about them, too; living with her, Scotch’d learned the difference between a Yakish saber and a Fancee foil, a Neighponese katana and a Kirin dao. Each weapon possessed a story, like the hunting rifle of the zebra she’d tracked three times across the continent to kill for selling Syndicate secrets or the gold-plated wingblades of a griffon warlord she’d beaten in a fight lasting three days in a zebra ruin, neither one willing to flee.

This wasn’t an apartment. It was a resume.

“I’m going to check in with Xarius,” Scotch Tape called out before opening the door. “He said he was going to pay me before the festival.”

“Pick up a mask or something if you can,” Vicious yelled. “Trust me. Masks are a must!”

Scotch Tape grunted and stepped into the hall, closing the door behind her. She could only take so much Vicious. The mare might have helped her out a lot, but she was still a bit of a monster. Yet… they’d been here at least a year, and nothing had changed. She’d gotten a job, had a ‘safe’ place to live. Rice River, as bad as it was, was civilization. Vicious was becoming more comfortable. At times, she even seemed to genuinely like Scotch.

So, was this home?

Somewhere around two hundred ponies lived on the east bank: Equestrian refugees, escaped slaves, or Enclave dissidents who’d foolishly thought the zebra lands were safer than the Equestrian surface. Half of those were crammed into the few apartments that rented to ponies, and she smiled and greeted the few she knew. Most were polite but distant. You just didn’t get close to a pony that shared Vicious’s bed.

Hey, it was way more comfortable than her couch. That thing annihilated Scotch’s back.

Out on the street, plenty of people were milling about. The work shift was over, and zebras were trotting out of the factories for the bridge over to the west side with more than the usual languor. On the bridge, there were booths and tables being set up. Apparently this party was so big that it would occupy the whole bridge. Scotch, though, headed towards Xarius’s shop. That meant passing through the meat market.

Some of it was literal meat. There were plenty of carnivores living on the east side. Scotch had no idea how it was made, only that it, like all the rest of the food, came from Carnico. That was nothing compared to the rest of the meat, though. Worms wiggling in trays, with eyeballs attached to their ends. Strange beetles, scarabs, and millipedes. Even stranger, chitinous things that occupied whole bubbling water tanks. These were ‘symbionts’, animals that had been bred to be fused with a host in a disturbing form of augmentation. She saw a zebra mare with one hind leg ending in a chitinous, spiny black insectoid foot. Somehow, she couldn’t stop herself from giggling when she thought of Blackjack with those instead of cybernetics.

Then she thought of how much Blackjack had changed, and her smile faded. There were zebras who got so many symbionts, they just fell over dead from shock. And the breeding process was not a stringently controlled one; some organisms were more parasitic than symbiotic and would cripple their host, or burn them out in a few short years.

As she walked, zebra vendors with eyestalks and armgrafts tried to entice her to ‘improve herself’.

“You! Pony! Your hide is soft! Have hide of dragon!” called one, pointing with a crab claw ‘arm’ to a scaly purple sheet hanging in bubbling fluid. “Become invincible!”

She had a friend already with that. Another zebra thrust a jar containing a pulsating red, egg-sized-and-shaped mass with little tentacles ending in syringe-like needles at her. “Buy this! You will never tire. Never rest! Think of all you will get done without needing sleep!”

A mare snickered. “Those stripes may entice, but affix one of my glands under your tail and you will be irresistible! All the stallions will rut you day and night!” she said, holding up a tray with milky, wet crescent-moon-shaped lumps of tissue.

Pass. Pass. Pass.

Xarius’s shop lay beyond the market. A walled-in compound, its front lot was filled with all sorts of steam equipment that Scotch Tape frequently pulled bits and pieces off of for the work she did for Xarius, which was mainly fixing whatever the Carnilians broke. The Whiskey Express sat nearby, half covered by a tarp. The workshop itself was a large rust-stained metal shell that held all the equipment to do the repairs as well as projects left abandoned till after Bacchanalia. The large front doors were always kept wide except in driving rain; the damned place got too hot otherwise.

She paused as she felt the hairs on her back rise, and her normal impulse to just trot up transformed into caution. She slipped off to the side, moving along the fence line to one of the smaller doors around the side. That tingling, sickly sensation rose as she reached one of the fire doors also kept propped open for ventilation. She spotted a large brown rat shuffling into sight, emerging from under a wreck. It rose on its hind legs and sniffed as it blinked its oily eyes at her. There were voices inside, Xarius’s ghoulish croak the most notable. She lifted a hoof to her lips, making a shushing motion at the bold rat.

To her surprise, the rat bowed its head, turned, and disappeared back into the scrapyard.

Scotch poked her head in. There was Xarius’s office, with the ghoul and four other people inside, visible through the grimy window. She moved along the edge of the interior of the building, past workbenches, to where she could see through the open door. Even empty, the building was damned hot. That uneasy feeling remained, lingering somewhere between her navel and her shoulders like a slick of oil.

“…get an Equestrian diamond in the first place,” Xarius rasped.

“Called in quite a few favors with Tenpony,” Vega’s smooth voice replied. “Getting it delivered was even more of a challenge. Thankfully, there are alicorns who long for material comforts now that they’re no longer all merged. Six greens and a purple should be delivering it soon.”

“Just keep those freaks far away from me,” Xarius said in a harsh mumble.

“Can these alicorns prepare the diamond?” a strange mare asked. Scotch leaned over but couldn’t quite see her. “Without the correct enchantments, it’s simply a very expensive piece of carbon.”

“Equestrian diamonds are more than that,” Tchernobog said evenly.

“One of the greens was apparently with the M.A.S. and said she would prepare it. She’ll likely handle the installation as well. Should be finished by the end of Bacchanalia. No one will be around to see them in the factory. Then Carnico pays her, and she and the rest of her sisters get to retire in luxury somewhere on the upper east side,” Vega said evenly. “Everyone wins. I love when everyone wins.”

“And if they can’t?” the mare asked tersely. “Can you do it yourself?”

Xarius coughed. “Well. I haven’t worked on honest to goodness talismans for a century and a half. It’d be tricky.”

“The kid might know how,” Vega said. “She grew up in one of their stables.”

“She’s a filly, and I’d just as soon keep her out of it,” Xarius snapped. “As I thought we’d agreed!” Keep her out of what? She wasn’t a foal anymore!

“Contingencies sometimes force compromises,” Vega said evenly. “She’s not your daughter, Xarius.”

“I–” the ghoul began sharply, then caught himself and finished in a more level rasp. “I said I’d take care of whatever you need done, and I’ll do it. Just need to brush up on a few little details, is all.” He coughed. “You should get going. She said she’d stop by for her pay for the week.” Scotch started to draw back behind a workbench.

That was when she felt a barrel against the back of her head. “Don’t. Move,” a boy said behind her. “We got an intruder.” She started to turn her head, only to get jabbed hard in the nape of her neck. “I said don’t move.”

It definitely wasn’t the smartest move she ever made, but she was angry. She slipped her head to the side and slammed her whole body against him, smashing him between her and another workbench. The pistol went skittering away, but she heard the clack of a larger rifle. She ducked her head and kicked, legs flailing widely. One leg connected with something, but she felt it loop around the limb and tangle it. She struggled to kick back with her free leg and missed, but she felt something on the side, between it and her trapped leg. A neck, maybe? So she closed her legs tight and… that was about the time the whole plan crashed down, along with her on her face. The boy let out a squawk and fired a round that missed her, pinging off the concrete next to her head. Her hind legs were tangled up in some cables, and she looked back.

He was probably the first griffon she’d seen this close. He didn’t look all that special. Brownish red feathers and reddish brown pelt. His eyes were a deep red that she didn’t like at all. She couldn’t see his beak because her leg grip had both entangled her legs into the battle saddle he wore and forced his beak right up under her tail. From his wide-eyed look, she guessed he hadn’t anticipated this.

The five emerged, Tchernobog first. He fixed Scotch with a bowl-loosening glare. Unlike Pythia and Scylla, Tchernobog gave her an idea of why zebras feared the Starkatteri. An aura of menace followed him like a cloak. Vicious was a monster, but she was one Scotch could understand. Tchernobog threatened her in ways she could only imagine, and her imagination was fertile ground.

Behind him was Xarius, the ghoul in his faded blue coveralls decorated with a threadbare patch that read ‘Progress for Progress’ on the chest. Then Vega, then a buff-looking zebra stallion in gray combat armor with a golden circle painted on the shoulders, and finally a zebra mare in a full black business suit, her mane pulled back in a bun. “I caught her snooping around!” the griffon said… though it was more like ‘Mu mufght mer moofin amound’ given that he was talking into her backside as he struggled to disengage himself from her, his claws getting tangled up in her saddlebags.

“Ehh…” Xarius groaned, glowering at the griffon. “She works for me,” he said simply as he trotted over and disentangled her hind legs from the cables of his battle saddle. “And I don’t recall telling you do shoot up my shop.”

Once free, he pulled away, scrubbing at his beak. “I’m gonna be tasting pony butt all night now,” he muttered, then jabbed a claw at Scotch. “You know what the Colonel always says?”

“Uh…” Scotch stared at him. “No?”

“Constant vigilance! She could have been a spy. Or had a bomb. Or who knows what!?” he said, stabbing a claw at her again. “She used some kind of fancy pony martial art to immobilize and silence me with her butt!”

“Seriously?” Scotch asked, glowering back at him as he retrieved his pistol. Two rifles on a battle saddle. A pair of pistols. A knife. Really, all he was missing was some grenades. “I was just here for my pay for this week and I didn’t want to interrupt!” She gestured at her backside. “That was just… weird luck.”

“Luck,” Tchernobog said evenly, “would not have evaded my watchers.”

Before Scotch Tape could figure that out, the suited mare said sharply, “Is this her?” She kept her distance with her head pulled back, as if catching a malodorous whiff. The stallion beside her just bore a Vicious-brand grin, the kind of grin you wore to advertise that you had no issue with hurting a foal, or anyone at all, really.

“Scotch Tape,” Vega said. “Formerly of Equestria, a guest of Rice River, and friend to the Syndicate.” ‘Friend’. That was the word that meant that Vega would exploit her if he saw reason to but would rather others not. “Thank you for your vigilance, Skylord, but you don’t have anything to worry about from Scotch. She’s harmless.” Scotch glared at the griffon, who scowled back.

At her name, the mare’s face went from disgusted to intrigued, now stepping closer and narrowing her eyes. “So you’re that pony everyone’s talking about. How interesting.” Scotch blinked. People are talking about me? Why? What are they saying? Before she could ask, the well-dressed mare suddenly frowned. “And while you were being so considerate, what did you happen to hear?”

Xarius coughed and Scotch Tape glanced at him and saw the worry in his filmy eyes. He shook his head the tiniest bit as he hacked. Then she answered, “Not much. I was just waiting for Xarius to finish whatever he was doing.”

“I see,” the mare said, pursing her lips skeptically.

“Who are you?” Scotch asked, giving the mare her own glower back.

The mare paused and considered. “I doubt you need to know that,” she said with a sniff before trotting towards the door. The stallion followed at her heels. “Keep up your end, Vega. The Syndicate will do quite well when all is done,” she said brightly, departing with her bodyguard.

Vega stared after her. “Forty-one point six percent odds she tries to kill both of us before the end of Bacchanalia,” he muttered.

“Should I take them both out?” Tchernobog asked. “I can make it quick and accidental.” The casualness made her shiver.

Vega seemed to consider it a moment. “No. She’s under a sword. That’ll have to suffice. And there’s a fifty-eight point four percent chance we solve both our problems,” he replied, then looked at Scotch. “You know about talismans, right?”

“Well, yeah,” she said slowly. “No horn, so I can’t make them, but I know standard service and maintenance. Things like adjusting the calipers and cleaning. Nothing big. Why?”

“Just good to know,” Vega said as he, Tchernobog, and Skylord walked out. As they left, Scotch barely heard Vega say, “Track her.”

“I want a drink,” Xarius muttered as he nodded to his office. “You want one?”

“Um… sure?” she said as she followed. “What’s going on?”

“Shenanigans,” he answered flatly as he walked.

“Shenanigans?” Really?

“Shenanigans,” he repeated firmly.

She could have screamed, and cut in front of him. “What kind of ‘shenanigans’?” Xarius stopped, his lips working sourly as he stared out the door. “Come on. Vega was talking about me, wasn’t he?”

He sighed and continued around her into the office, but explained tersely, “Carnico wants work done. Vega wants connections for the Syndicate. Both want money and have a real bad tendency to kill people who get in the way of that money.” Vega might not be a looming thug, but she knew what Vicious was for. Sure, Blackjack had killed ponies… quite a few, actually… but she hadn’t exactly been eager to do it.

Xarius’s office was half-occupied with papers covered with the dust of the two centuries it had taken to accumulate them. Some of the stacks reached all the way to the ceiling, piled atop file cabinets, shelves, and chairs that had all but collapsed under the weight. His desk occupied a corner, with a couch shoved between two swaying heaps and a wooden chair in front of the desk. She never trusted the couch. “Why don’t you clean this place out, boss?” she asked.

He tapped a metal plate in the floor, and a metal crate emerged and rose until it touched the ceiling. Inside the crate was a small refrigerator gurgling softly and reeking of ammonia, and beneath that was a safe. He pulled open the former and pulled out a bottle of Lucky Stripe soda. Scotch wasn’t certain, but she suspected it was the same formula as Sparkle-Cola from the carroty taste. He tugged out a chilled glass and a bottle of something that smelled like turpentine, filled the glass halfway up with Lucky Stripe and the solvent, and pushed the half-empty bottle of soda to her. He sat back in his seat behind the desk with a groan. “Here’s to another Bacchanalia. May the venereal disease you inevitably contract not be the kind that rots your nethers,” he said in a mock toast before sipping and sighing.

“They have potions for that,” she countered with a smirk.

“Ehhhh, theoretically,” he answered dryly. “Drink a few just to be safe during the celebrations.” He sighed again, shaking his head. “Hopefully it won’t be a disaster.”

“You’ve been through a lot of them?” she said, smiling just a bit.

“Every five years. Sometimes feasts. Sometimes famine,” he said with a gesture at the shop. “Gives me a chance to catch up on paperwork while my workers are plastered.”

“Paperwork? For who? You’re the boss,” she said with a grin.

“‘Cause it’s my Bacchanalia tradition. They have sex. I catch up on paperwork. It’s very Propoli to be too busy for the Carnilian orgies because you have paperwork,” the ghoul rasped.

“Seems like a waste of time to me,” Scotch said, and felt a little surprised when Xarius frowned at her. “The celebration?” she clarified, and he just gave a minimal shrug. “Don’t you think so?”

“Doesn’t matter what I think. I’m not Carnilian. But to them, it’s not just an orgy. It’s a celebration of the creation of their tribe. And yeah, there’s sex, but there’re lots of other things going on, too. It’s when enemies drop their grudges and try to make peace. It’s for casting away doubt and demons. That’s what all the burning stuff is about. It’s about a celebration of life.” He pointed out the door with his glass. “The last Caesar banned it during the war. I still remember hearing about the riots when I was a foal.”

Hard to imagine a two-century-old ghoul as a foal. “Really? Why?”

“Officially? Waste of resources. Fact was he thought it was gross, disgusting, and perverted.” Xarius shrugged. “He did it to plenty of other tribes, too. Banned the Atoli’s First Tide celebrations because he thought sailing around was silly. Or the Tappahani’s Royal Feast because he didn’t like spicy food.” He closed his filmy eyes. “Of course, the Romani Sacred March went off without a hitch, and the Propoli Technology Symposium was fully supported.” He chuckled. “Even the Eschatik were messed with by being forced to participate in the march. They don’t celebrate holidays.”

“Well, that’s hardly fair,” she said with a frown.

“That’s how the world is, Xara. We’re supposed to all be equal in the Empire, but sometimes things aren’t fair.” He paused and blinked at Scotch Tape. It wasn’t the first time he’d called her by his daughter’s name. “Sorry.”

The wall behind him was covered with dusty picture frames. At least half showed a zebra filly growing into a young mare. Others showed Xarius standing outside a brand new shop building. A license issued by the Empire. A degree from the Propoli Institute of Technology. An old wrench and a single battered gold coin kept behind glass. A tiny clipping from the Rice River Review so yellowed only the headline could be read: ‘Propoli awarded Medal of Brilliance for service to Rice River.’

“It’s okay.” She sipped her soda. “What do Vega and that mare want you to do?” And alicorns? Here? That was as crazy as wandering megaspells in Equestria.

He pursed his lips a few seconds before answering. “Plant Operations Manager Mariana has something she needs fixed. That’s the long and short of it. I’ve done work for them before. They trust me. So don’t you worry yourself about it,” Xarius said as he opened the safe. “Coins? Chits? Bullets?”

“Half and half?” Scotch asked. Bottle caps were so much easier! Xarius set out ten small plastic food tiles and ten small gold coins drilled through the middle so she could string them together. They weren’t solid gold, just electroplated zinc, but they looked golden enough. She wished Charity were here; that business filly would have this place’s currency straightened out in no time. “Thanks.”

“You’re welcome,” he replied as he closed the safe. He pressed a button, and the whole thing retracted back into the floor. “Do you have a mask?”

“You’re the second person to tell me to get one,” Scotch said sourly.

He reached into his drawer and pulled out a mask of polished metal. It had a wrench symbol across its brow and math formulas for pressure, velocity, and acceleration around the eye holes. Along the top was a fine wire mesh decorated with brass nuts and bolts. “You can use mine, if you want. Haven’t used it in centuries,” he said as he offered it to her.

And it probably failed to get him laid for even longer, she thought. Still, it was a mask. She slipped it over her face, the mesh covering her mane and helping to hold the mask in place. One band around the back secured it. “How do I look?” she asked. She thought for a moment she glimpsed something pale and shiny skitter along the side of the refrigerator, but it disappeared out of sight behind it a second later. She blinked in alarm, but Xarius didn’t react to the pale spider. What was that?

“Beautiful, Xara,” he said with a smile, and blinked again, turning away. “Ehhh…”

“It’s fine. Thank you,” Scotch said as she exited the office, walked to a steam wagon in the shop, and checked herself in its mirror. Xarius followed her, leaning against the doorjamb. The mask fit perfectly, and it obscured her face well enough. Unfortunately, green zebras weren’t exactly common, but still, she had to admit it was kind of fun to dress up a little. “When does the party start?”

“Not for another few hours. You should meet your friends before then,” he said with a nod and a tired old smile.

“It’ll be nice to see them all again,” she said, smiling.

“Stay out of trouble, Scotch.”

If only trouble could stay away from her.

The bridge connecting the two sides of the river was an enormous affair, and old. In accord with her cutie mark, Scotch couldn’t help but admire the twelve elevated piers standing firm upon their plinths. Each of the twelve buttresses soared more than a hundred feet above the water before arching out in a two-hundred-foot-long span to its neighbors. The bridge was more than a hundred feet wide as well, allowing for multiple lanes of vehicular traffic and foot traffic and even rail tracks down the middle, though she’d never seen a car upon them. Each buttress was decorated with two statues, each pair depicting one of the twelve honorable tribes. Stallions faced downriver, mares upriver, each holding things like spears, books, a tablet of numbers, a hammer and pulley, or a sheaf of wheat. The Starkatteri were not omitted, carved into the abutments like rats lurking in the dark.

Carved into the capstones along the parapets were glyphs. Majina had explained that each one held the number of a Caesar, and arrayed around them were glyphs of honorifics. Some zebras left little trinkets at the bases of certain honored capstones, like the 91st ‘Glorious’ Caesar, who had wed Princess Celestia and whose capstone always had three or four gold coins on it. He apparently hadn’t been the only one, as the 127th, 138th, 179th, and 199th all had Celestia’s sunburst carefully carved to the left of the Caesar’s mark. Others Caesars, though, had chiseled glyphs that meant ‘lewd’, ‘wastrel’, ‘weak’, or ‘mad’. The 194th ‘Celibate’ Caesar had a glyph that was covered with dozens of tiny little scratches of crudely drawn genitalia. No translation needed there.

That continued all the way to the last marked capstone almost in the middle. The 213th Caesar’s glyph had once been twice as large as the rest on the bridge. It had a constellation of eight smaller descriptions ranging from ‘Grand’ to ‘Kind’ to ‘Heroic’. There weren’t any gifts or tokens or graffiti… save one. Some zebra had taken an iron railroad spike and hammered it right through the center of the capstone.

The Last Caesar.

Even after a year, Scotch knew almost nothing about him, other than that it had been a him. Most zebras didn’t talk about him, as if afraid he somehow listened in from beyond the grave. Others said there wasn’t anything worth knowing. Plenty were just as ignorant as she. The railroad spike had rusted a bit, and streams of red stain crept across the capstone, as if the glyph bled.

“You look ridiculous,” Pythia said flatly behind Scotch. She whirled as she looked at the tiny zebra. Scotch had put on six inches in the last year. Pythia still appeared as small and grumpy as ever. “Green coat. Blue mane. Carnilian stripes and a Propoli mask. Did you roll dice or something to make it so random, or did you pick those out yourself?”

Scotch just smiled. “Nice to see you too, Pythia. How goes the future?” It’d been weeks since they’d last had a chance to talk. The tiny zebra appeared thinner and more on edge than when she’d last seen her.

“Dark and full of smoke and fire,” she replied as she trotted to the defaced capstone and stared for a moment, then shivered and shook her head. “When are we leaving?”

“Leaving? For the festival?” Scotch asked.

“For the festival,” Pythia echoed in a mutter, rolling her eyes, then swept her hoof before her. “When are we leaving here?! It’s been a year tomorrow since we arrived. I want to know when we’re going. We should be making plans. Not just jumping on a boat like last time.”

“A whole year?” Now it was her turn to echo. “Are you sure?”

Pythia rubbed the bridge of her nose. “Of course you haven’t even been keeping track,” she muttered, then threw her hooves up. “Have you been doing anything to get ready to go? Saving money for the trip? Anything?”

“Go?” Scotch blinked. “Go where?”

Pythia seemed like she might burst into flames, but contained herself. “The reason we came here in the first place?” She pulled out the folded letter and brandished it at Scotch. “Eye of the World? All that?” She hissed, “Did you actually forget?!”

Scotch backed away from the apoplectic filly. “Oh,” she said, and blinked again. “Well, I’ve been working for Xarius and stuff. I mean, I figured we’d go… eventually.”

“Eventually.” Pythia snorted, tucking the letter away. “Just when is ‘eventually’ on the calendar? I’ll be sure to mark it. We can make it a holiday like this colossal waste of time,” she said with a wave of her hoof. “Should have figured you’d forgotten.”

“What’s gotten into you?” Scotch asked, frowning.

“Smoke? Fire? Darkness? The whole future is clouding over, and I don’t know why, but it’s getting bad. We’re just sitting on our rumps here. You’re fixing engines. Precious is just lounging around being fat. Majina’s just practicing falling… falling! How do you practice that? You fall, you make sure you don’t fall again! And all the while, things are getting bad.”

Scotch’s frown deepened. “Have you told Tchernobog and Vega?”

Pythia sighed, rolling her eyes and huffing. “I’ve tried,” she admitted, “but Tchernobog’s not a seer, and unless I have something concrete and quantifiable, Vega can’t do much. It’s not like he can take out a hit on the future.” She snorted.

“Vicious would probably take it. She loves a challenge,” Scotch chuckled. The sound drew a sharp glare from the filly.

“You two a thing?” Pythia asked, then rubbed her eyes.

Scotch frowned. “Why are you asking?”

“I heard her talking about her new bedroom toy. I didn’t think she meant you,” Pythia said sharply. “What am I saying? Of course you are.”

Scotch flushed. “I’m not her toy. We’re… something.” Frenemies with benefits? The unicorn might not have been from 99, but she sure shared most of its values. Vicious called the sex a ‘bonus’ and seemed to like Scotch in her crude, mean sort of way. They weren’t exclusive. “Not that it’s your business.”

“Right. Well then, it looks like I’d better make plans for myself,” Pythia said bitterly, turning away and walking west, with Scotch hurrying to catch up. “I knew this was going to happen. We should have just kept going! Instead, we got sucked in here.”

“Wait! What are you talking about?” Scotch asked, cutting in front of her. “What’s the matter? What are you seeing?”

She paused and gritted her teeth. “It’s what I’m not seeing,” she said. “I’m not seeing any futures that are better. They only get worse.”

“So what else is new?” Scotch asked flatly.

“Exactly!” she said as she jabbed Scotch’s chest. “It was new. That Lightbringer started it. For the first time ever, I started seeing futures that weren’t complete nightmares. Oh, plenty were still lousy. Most, maybe. But…” She paused and shook her head, looking stricken a moment. “Then Blackjack did her thing and… yeah! It looked even better. Like this dark veil was pulled off Equus. Like maybe we were past the bad times. But then I read that stupid letter about that stupid eye, and since then everything’s been dimming. It wasn’t so bad while we were moving, but since we stopped here it’s like everything is drowning and I’m the only one who seems to care!”

Scotch surveyed the bridge. Dozens of booths were in the process of being erected and decorated along it, and an enticing aroma of fried foods was already rising from several. Beds of hay were being laid out, covered in hemp cloth to keep down the scratches. Electric lights, bulbs covered in red rice paper lanterns, dangled from the heads of the statues across the bridge, illuminating the normally dark spans. Small tables here and there held strange shrines, or pieces of art, or things she couldn’t even begin to identify. She might have attended a few orgies on the east side, but they’d never had this kind of elaborateness.

Hundreds of zebras and dozens of people of other races were milling about excitedly, cooking, setting up, or waiting in anticipation. Conspicuously, no one was ‘warming up’ yet, which was odd in her experience, but she saw countless people cuddling and kissing. Even gay stallions and mares; apparently Bacchanalia broke down all the tribal taboos. Anyone could do or be anyone.

And the masks! They ranged from porcelain and gold, likely handed down for generations, to crude paper or cloth affairs. Most only covered the upper face, leaving the mouths clear, but others entwined around the entire head and down the neck. Some had feathers. Some had stalks of grass. When there weren’t masks, they painted their bodies. Some coated themselves in pony colors with papier-mâché wings or horns. A few attempted to look like griffons, dragons, or even more bizarre beings. Others dyed their white stripes brilliant hues or painted their black stripes a riot of colors. The other species tended towards masks, or strange and elaborate body art that might be stripes, or tribal marks, or… who knew?

What she didn’t see were the customary distrust or short tempers. For the first time, she didn’t see a city ready to stomp someone over being a stripe or non-stripe. Carnilian or non-Carnilian. A small part of her started to look forward to this festival thing. Maybe it wouldn’t be so bad.

“Are you sure it’s that bad?” Scotch asked, her brows knitting together.

The little zebra pierced her with her golden stare. “I’ve spent a year practicing. I’ve been working on keeping my vision set in the now, the ten seconds from now, and the five minutes from now. Those are all fine. It’s the tomorrow that’s scaring the crap out of me.”

Scotch closed her eyes. She had a job. A roommate. Everything she was supposed to have. Things that had eluded her in Chapel. “I don’t think you’re wrong. I just don’t want to give up what I have here.”

“In case I am wrong,” Pythia snorted.

“Don’t you have anything you’ll miss here?” Scotch asked weakly.

“No,” the filly replied flatly. “I didn’t get attached because we were only supposed to be passing through. What’s keeping you here?”

Scotch thought about that. “Xarius is a good guy. He’s like… what are they called… an uncle or something. It’s nice having someone care about you. And Vicious is… something.” She had no idea what their relationship was. “She’s someone to hold at night.” That was something, at least. “There’re Galen, Aleta, and Osane too.” She didn’t see them as much, but they were people she cared about.

“Well, glad you’re making friends. Me, I’m trying to avoid the future running me over like a train,” Pythia hissed as she turned and started away.

“Wait!” Scotch Tape said, lunging for her, but she must have been a few seconds in the future, because she sidestepped smoothly. “Damn it. Wait!” she said as she moved in front of her. “Let’s talk to the others before we decide anything.” She drilled into Scotch with that glare. “Maybe they might have some ideas.”

Pythia glared at her, and her eyes went glassy a moment, twitching back and forth. Her sneer softened a little. Some of the tension melted away. “Okay. Fine. There’s a chance. I just wish I could see it better,” she muttered, looking to the side at the waters sweeping away beneath the bridge.

Relaxing a little herself, Scotch now made an effort to search for her friends or Galen’s red stripes. She found them outside Galen’s clinic. The Proditor wore a ‘mask’ of medical plaster with bandages wrapped in his shaggy mane, Precious wore a dragony mask of papier-mâché covering her upper face, and Majina wore her mother’s wooden mask. “Hey. Heavy metal!” Precious said as she tapped a claw against Scotch’s. “I like it.”

Then Precious inquired of Pythia, “Where’s your mask?” at the exact same time Pythia asked that of Aleta. “Jinx. Cookie,” the dragonfilly blurted. Aleta looked nice, her scars faded just a bit, softening her formerly ragged appearance.

“Only shamans should wear masks,” Aleta said primly.

“She couldn’t find one that fit,” Precious amended with a grin. “What’s your excuse?”

“I’m not a shaman,” Pythia replied.

Scotch didn’t listen to them as she looked at Majina. The filly’s body was a mass of greenish-yellowish bruises. “Are you okay? What happened to you? Do you need a healing potion?”

“No. I’m fine. I’m just learning how to fall,” she said as she rubbed her flank. “Gāng doesn’t waste healing potions on bruises,” she said flatly. “Still, I’m getting better at staying on my hooves. That’s my foundation,” she said as she made sure the bow in her tail was visible.

Then there was a soft cough from the doorway. “Galen? Majina? Who are your little friends?” a mare asked as she stepped out with Osane, the latter wearing a mask of gauze. Instantly, Scotch Tape stared at the speaker.

It wasn’t often you saw zebras with stripes of gold.

“Ah, my apologies,” he said as he rubbed the back of his head. “Scotch Tape. Pythia. This is Elder Errukine of the Mendi, and my teacher. Teacher, this is Scotch Tape, from Equestria, and Pythia of the Starkatteri.”

For a moment, the seer and the golden zebra stared into each other’s eyes. Errukine wasn’t just golden. She had a maternal beauty that radiated warmth. The yellow stripes in her mane seemed to glow like the sun as she smiled beneficently, as if in approval at the world and everything in it. “Your stripes…” Red was traitor, so what was gold? Zebra nobility?

Majina smiled and opened her mouth, but Precious blurted, “She’s Majina’s aunt. She’s a ‘sunstripe’ or some such. Apparently Princess Celestia was her great great great great grandmother or something.”

Majina let out a screech and started to beat her hooves on Precious’s shoulder. “Will someone let me do the actual storytelling for once?!” she hissed.

“What? I’m hungry, and it took like two hours or something for her to tell us.” Precious looked at the stalls being set up. “Is the food ready? I need food.”

“No, the food’s not ready,” Pythia said sharply. “We need to talk about–”

“Galen!” roared a scrawny stallion wearing a wooden rabbit mask. “Good to see you! Wonderful mask. Truly. Need you to make a house call, dear boy. Our ceremonial mare and stallion aren’t feeling well, and we need someone to help perk them up for the opening!”

Galen blinked in shock. “If you need me, certainly, Elder Maximillian.”

“Splendid. The other healers are a bit occupied with last minute arrangements. Just need you to check them over. Make sure they give a good show!” the weedy stallion said. Then he bowed, touching his brow to the pavers. “Elder. It’s an honor to have a Mendi sunstripe attend our little celebration.”

“Would you like my assistance, Elder?” the golden mare asked graciously. “I’d be more than pleased to help.”

“Oh no! I wouldn’t dream of imposing!” Maximillian said with a wave of his hoof. “Galen will be more than sufficient.” Scotch Tape looked at Pythia, and the filly shrugged, her eyes going glassy. Then she shrugged again.

Galen looked at the others a bit haplessly. “Sorry about this.”

“Need me to come with you?” Precious asked with a frown.

“I should be fine with the elder,” Galen said with a wave of his hoof, then pushed his glasses back over his eyes. “You have fun with your friends.”

“I’ll come with you,” Aleta said, her face composed. “I don’t have a mask anyway.” The pair trotted off, and Osane left as well to find her family. That left the four fillies with the magnificent mare, who seemed to regard them with some amusement.

“Well, it was nice meeting you, but we need to go talk now,” Pythia said curtly, her eye twitching.

“Food first. Then talk,” Precious contradicted, walking towards the stalls.

“I want to see if we can get a good spot for the opening ceremony,” Majina said, standing on her hind legs before pointing with a hoof. “Over there!” And then she ran towards the bridge. “Come on, auntie!”

Pythia sat, grabbed the hood of her cloak in her hooves, pulled it all the way down over her face, and gave a poorly muffled scream. Scotch looked at the amused elder, who watched them both with warm honey-colored eyes. “She’s having a bad day,” Scotch Tape explained as Pythia crumpled to the ground in a groaning lump.

But Errukine ignored the cloaked filly, focusing her attention on Scotch. “Galen’s told me quite a bit about you, and Majina as well. Your story is absolutely fascinating, Scotch Tape. I hope you find our home as interesting as I found yours.”

“You were in Equestria?” Scotch Tape asked. “Precious said something about being an aunt.”

“For a time. I was wed to the Legate Vitiosus as the Mendi representative. Majina’s mother was my bondsister. When we fled, I was separated from the others. It likely saved my life.” She looked in the direction that Majina had gone. “I was overjoyed to learn she yet lived. I thought she had died with her mother.”

Scotch stared at her a moment. “Uh-huh,” she said with a frown, though she wasn’t sure why. “So what are you doing here?”

“Galen corresponds with me. When I learned Majina was here, I came with an Iron Legion convoy. Then I learned of you.” She leaned towards her. “If half of what Majina told me about you and your friends is true, then you are fascinating.” There was nothing menacing in the odd middle aged mare’s behavior or demeanor, but Scotch felt unease creeping along her spine.

“Great. Wonderful. Now, if you can tell us what the Eye of the World is, where it is, and how to get there, then everything will be peachy keen!” Pythia said as she sat up.

“Of course. I’m well versed in the subject,” Errukine answered smoothly. “You’re referring to the actual Eye of the World, not some erroneously named landmark or the like? The spiritual eye?”

Pythia blinked as if she’d been smacked upside the head. “Seriously? You know about it?”

“It’s not common knowledge, but most shamans of any decent skill do,” Errukine answered with a casual shrug. “You’re fortunate that I made an effort to study the subject in my own wayward youth. It’s what drew me to the Ponylands decades ago.”

“Right,” Pythia said slowly. “What is it?”

Errukine started to walk in the direction Majina and Precious had gone, her steps slow. Zebras who saw them coming got out of their way, a few bowing as the elder had. “It’s the eye of the spirit of Equus itself.”

“The spirit of Equus? You mean the planet?” Pythia asked, trotting beside her.

“Of course. Does it surprise you? If cities, lakes, and oceans have spirits, certainly it should be no surprise Equus herself does as well,” Errukine said matter-of-factly as they walked, Scotch on her left and Pythia on her right. “Worlds like Equus, teeming with life, are princesses and queens of the spiritual universe, generating untold life and spiritual energy for the cosmos. They are surpassed only by the stars themselves, and some surpass even them over time.”

Scotch thought about the star spirit she’d met on the moon so many months ago. It felt like another life. “Surpass the stars?” Pythia muttered before Scotch could comment.

“I understand your skepticism. They are the spiritual foundation of the universe, but worlds such as Equus are the mothers of life itself, fostering and producing more and more varieties and numbers with every year. Their spirits are awesome and humbling, and too vast for mere shamans to interact with. It would be like an ant interacting with my hoof,” Errukine said as they walked towards the center of the bridge where an elevated stage had been set up.

“Great. So where does Equus keep her eye?” Pythia asked. Majina waved from the back of one of the stone buttresses that formed a little ledge above the rest of the crowd.

“Everywhere. Her eyes are upon all of us at all times,” Errukine said serenely as she climbed up on the ledge around the back of the statue against the buttress.

Pythia groaned and slumped on the seat. “Why don’t you just tell me it’s a metaphor? That the Eye of the World is inside all of us?”

“It is,” she answered, getting another groan. “It isn’t my fault if you don’t like the answers I give. Feel free to find a second source.” Scotch immediately thought of Granny and was about to suggest it when she went on, “Still, it’s said there was one place that drew her eye to it. A place where the shamans of the ancestors could commune with that vast power.”

Pythia frowned. “So what would it take to blind the Eye of the World?”

“Impossible,” Errukine scoffed. “The spirits of that caliber are not affected by the material. You could no more blind the spirit of Equus than you could turn gravity sideways or make light dark. It’s simply impossible.” But Scotch frowned at that simple dismissal.

“Well, a letter from the Last Caesar to the Roamani high shaman suggests it is possible, and that he ordered her to do it. So either he was stark raving mad, or he found a way to do so,” Pythia said with a scowl.

“It’s not possible. The Last Caesar was indeed mad, mad with power and hatred. Why else would he burn the world with balefire?” Errukine returned Pythia’s frown. “I assure you that whatever you have read, it cannot be so. It would be unthinkable.”

“I’m thinking it,” Pythia snapped. “And I am going to find out if the Last Caesar was just being crazy or if he really did do something.” Errukine sighed and shook her head but didn’t speak further.

By this time, a sizable crowd had gathered. The sun clung to the western horizon. The Carnilians had many festivals, at least one a month, but they were normally gatherings of a few dozen, maybe a few hundred people. By Scotch’s count there had to be at least a hundred different food stalls giving out everything from noodles to balls of rice, dumplings, flatbreads, and pastries. A few at the end, run by griffons, sold roasted meat chunks on skewers to the carnivores in the crowd, and she thought she spotted Skywhatisname from the shop getting one before disappearing into the throng.

Now Scotch was glad she wore a mask, as dozens of others did as well. Stranger were the dolls of twisted fiber and grass stalks. They too had been decorated with scraps of bright cloth and ribbons, and were waved around at the end of sticks. Some zebras battled them, swinging them into each other. The air thrummed with the beat of drums and reed flutes and strange plucked stringed boxes. Torches lined the stone bridge, and bonfires running down the middle cast a warm glow over everything.

“What is all this?” Precious asked as she gnawed on some kind of hardbread sticks slathered in honey.

“I can tell you,” Errukine began.

“No!” Majina said sharply. “Not you too, auntie! I’m the Zencori!”

“By all means,” she said graciously.

Majina narrowed her eyes and jabbed a hoof at each of them, growling. When she was sure no one was going to interject, she took a deep breath. At that moment, the sun dipped below the horizon, and all the drummers gave three loud booms with their drums. Instantly, the crowd fell silent. On the platform in the center of the bridge, the stallion with the rabbit mask ascended and removed it, brushing back his messy mane. “Mares and stallions, fillies and colts, griffons, taurines, and other assorted guests, I welcome you to the four-hundred-and-twenty-first Bacchanalia!” The crowd erupted in roars, and Majina abandoned any hope of explaining anything for the moment.

“I am Maximillian, your servant of ceremonies, so if you see me running around with my tail on fire, you’ll know why. Don’t worry, ladies, I’ll still make time for you,” he said with a grin, somehow getting a laugh from quite a few zebra mares. “And now I’d like to introduce our two esteemed guests: the shaman Desideria and the head of Carnico Incorporated, Cecilio!”

The rotund mare trotted on, maskless, as if in a rush to reach the side of the elder before the old stallion in the business suit wearing a tiny domino mask. It wasn’t much of a race, but the heavyset mare panted heavily as the thin, pinched stallion ambled up. “Easy, Desideria! The fun will start momentarily! I swear I will make time especially for you!” Maximillian said as he steadied her, getting a glare from her but a chuckle from the crowd.

“Now, you have them both on stage,” Errukine purred next to Scotch. “But which will speak first?” Scotch glanced at the sunstriped mare. She watched the proceedings with a strange mix of scrutiny and amusement.

“While dear Desi catches her breath, perhaps you’d like to say a few words, Cecilio?” Maximillian asked, getting a glare that would peel paint from the mare, who jerked away from Maximillian’s touch in disgust.

“Gladly.” The old stallion trotted to the center of the stage, and some magic or technology amplified his voice. “Carnico is glad to sponsor this Bacchanalia, and to provide food and services to the tribe. Carnico was born from the tribe in this very city, born of a promise that all would profit from our agricultural prowess and we would not be exploited like mere earth ponies. Today, we continue that promise and would like to announce that in addition to the food, we will be awarding twenty cans of Carnico Weedkiller every night to some lucky attendees, just to show how much we care!”

The crowd gave an anemic stomping that fell silent far sooner than Cecilio seemed to expect, because he was left smiling at a silent audience. Twenty cans for a crowd of more than a thousand? Maybe two? Maybe three? Yet he seemed confused as he backed off the stage. “Sweet Celestia, he thinks he’s being generous,” Scotch muttered in shock.

“Such is the result when profit and charity collide,” Errukine murmured in reply. “Worse, he is one of the kinder CEOs to run Carnico. If others had their way, they’d be selling their poison here with a fancy Bacchanal label.”

“Well, that’s certainly welcome news! Thank you, Cecilio! It’s grand to know you have enough to just give away,” Maximillian said, getting a chuckle from the crowd, then turned to face Desideria, who huffed as she glowered at the weedy stallion. He gasped and pressed a hoof to his chest. “It would seem Desideria has something to say to all of us. Imagine that!” He got another real laugh, and she stormed into the middle of the stage. He fell back with an eep, rolling onto his back and holding up a hoof. “Please be gentle! I break easily!”

Even Scotch Tape laughed at that one. Desideria inhaled deeply, then spoke. “Thank you, Elder. It is my solemn duty to remind all that this is a sacred Carnilian tradition, going back centuries to before the first Empire. It defines what our tribe means, something that few outsiders can begin to grasp. They come and gawk, partake of our repast, and indulge in baser aspects of this ceremony, the nuances of which they can’t begin to comprehend.”

Scotch struggled to listen attentively but tuned her out after five minutes of ranting. “What’s got her tail in a tangle?” she muttered.

“It’s not her, precisely. Carnilia has always struggled with issues of inferiority,” Errukine murmured. “Unlike earth ponies, they are solely farmers. They’re frequently exploited by others who don’t appreciate their skills, who gawk at their fertility rites, and who dismiss them as heavy breeders. Zebrakind would have starved long ago without their contributions. Yet zebra like Desideria believe that strength lies in purity. She should know better. Inbreeding rarely leads to health.”

Some of the crowd, the non-Carnilian part, began to murmur among themselves as she continued her diatribe. Eventually, even the Carnilians seemed to grow tired of her, and she interrupted herself to glower at them. Cecilio glanced at his watch. Immediately, the sounds of one zebra emitting a deep, chainsaw like nasal grind were heard. The source lay at her feet, with Maximillian curled up at her hooves. “Do you mind?” she blurted at him.

He jerked awake. “Oh! Oh, she’s done? Oh! Thank goodness! That was wonderful, Desideria! Wonderful! Let’s hear it!” he said as he sat up and clopped his hooves together vigorously, nodding to the crowd and mouthing ‘clop, you fools, clop!’ The crowd erupted in laughter and clopping, cheering and whistling. Desideria, who clearly hadn’t been done with her lecture, stared death at the weedy stallion as he jumped to his hooves. “Now then! With the preliminaries through, it’s time for the opening ceremony!”

But Desideria raised her nose and trotted from the stage, back east. Maximillian stared at the crowd, suddenly at a loss. “Erm… is there a shaman on the bridge? Any shaman?”

“Oh dear,” Errukine said. “Maximillian is in trouble. For want of a joke, the shaman was lost. It seems the rest of them are teaching the elder the perils of slighting their kind, too.” She tapped her lips with a hoof. “How interesting.”

“Can’t you do something?” Scotch asked. The mood was starting to sour as the crowd began to mutter.

“I have the ability, but it would be like a pegasus giving a prayer to the sky at an earth pony ceremony.”

“Well, someone has to do something,” Precious said. “There is too much good food lying around for this party to not happen because she’s got her mane in a knot.” Indeed, it seemed Desideria’s spite would undo everything.

Scotch Tape slid off the counter and rushed forward, squeezing through the crowd and stepping onto the stage. The murmuring died down at this new curiosity, and Maximillian stared at her like a bug had just crawled on stage next to him. “Hello. Little pony. What are you doing here?” he asked as sweat ran down his brow. His eyes darted to the left and right as if asking for someone to take this mad filly of the stage.

Scotch looked at him, then at the crowd, pulling off her mask and hugging it to her chest. “I’m not a Carnilian. I’m just an earth pony. I was born in the earth, and came from it, and I’m pretty sure that I’ll return to it someday.” Maximillian’s eyebrow twitched a little, as if unsure if he should push her from the stage. Scotch felt a screaming fear in her that she kept down by continuing to talk. “Earth ponies are farmers too, I’m told, and there’re plenty who don’t think we’re worth more than a pile of mud. Well, ponies have to eat, and zebras do too… And while I don’t know spirits from a hill of beans, I know they’d be glad we’re here. So any spirits of the fields and gardens, I hope you’re here. Spirits of growing and life. Hope you see how many of us there are.” She looked around at the ceremony. “Spirits of food and good cooking, I hope you see all the stuff they’re whipping up.”

Now she started to panic. Was there a spirit of masks? Or the river? Or the bridge? “Spirits of sex, I hope that everyone here has a good time, and that all the babies are healthy and stuff.” Now she was getting odd looks, and the angry murmuring resumed. She glanced over at Maximillian, who stared at her as if she was now a particularly interesting bug. He mouthed, ‘fire’ and she glanced at the bonfire. “Spirits of fire… hope you’re here to light up the night.” His hoof moved in a little circle. “And… burn away our problems and troubles? Give us all a fresh start.” Maximillian nodded once. “So all kindly spirits, welcome to this festival. Hope you have a grand old time.”

Dead silence. Then Scotch Tape heard a sound like rushing wind. Then a wave swept across the bridge from the east and the west, the gust not stirring a single hair or flame or bit of cloth, but everyone started as it passed over them. The waves met together at Scotch and fountained up around her with a strange shimmering of light that spread out. A sense of safety and belonging passed through her as she stood there in the center.

Then, from all, celebration erupted, clopping and stomping, whistling and cheering. She gaped at the applause. Majina and Precious were going nuts, laughing and clapping. Errukine gazed at her in fascination as her hooves came together in a slow clap. Plenty in the crowd didn’t seem happy about her little speech, but most were glad to get things going. She spotted Vega and Tchernobog to the east applauding as well, the latter regarding her thoughtfully.

Then Scotch saw the red bar.

She ducked, and the canvas of the stage indented as the bullet pierced it near where she stood. Either the shooter had used a silencer, or the noise of the crowd had hidden the shot; Maximillian had his back turned and missed the impact. Something swooped up at a rooftop to the east. Scotch jumped down, and the shooter didn’t take a second shot. She looked to the east, but the red bar was off her E.F.S.

“Well now! I think that was the first pony opening a Bacchanalia since Princess Celestia herself! Still, sounded good enough to me, right? Right?” he said, waving his hooves. The crowd began to whoop and cheer. Scotch reached up, grabbed her mask, and shoved it on her face. It wasn’t much of a disguise, with her being green and all, but its solid metal construction made her feel a little safer.

She managed to make it back to the ledge as the crowd cheered and pressed her back against the stone statue, trembling. She’d forgotten. Gotten complacent. There were still people trying to kill her, and she’d gotten on a stage in front of everyone! Leaving Rice River just jumped up several points in her head.

“That was a wonderful opening. And masterfully improvised. Maximillian should give a reward when the festival is through,” Errukine said, smiling at her. “You must be a bit overwhelmed. You’re shaking.”

“Yeah, overwhelmed,” she muttered. How could she explain what had really happened? “Princess Celestia opened these things too?”

“Oh, yes. What you did isn’t without precedent, though it is the first time since the war. Princess Celestia was fond of Bacchanalia and attended several. Pity it was never established in Equestria.” Yeah, as much sense as it made to her, she couldn’t see that happening. “Now we just need the Ceremony of Binding, and then the rest of the night is for fun.”

“Ceremonial what now?” Scotch said

“Auntieeeee,” Majina growled.

“By all means, you explain it, dear,” Errukine said with a wave of her hoof. A zebra stallion mounted the stage from the west, covered in elaborate armor. It didn’t look ceremonial at all. The bright red leather armor looked scaled, like dragon hide or something, and he wore a plumed helmet and cape. He also appeared, like plenty of Carnilian stallions, pleasingly fit. Even his stripes matched his armor.

“That’s Baccus. He’s the father of the tribe,” Majina said as she pointed at the stallion.

“Father? I thought the Carnilia were born from the sun and fields or some junk.”

“Sure, if you want to get all simple and mythological. That’s the story you tell foals to keep the tribes straight,” Majina said.

Then a mare rose up on the opposite side, clad in blue. She didn’t look like some ceremonial figure, either. She was fit and scarred, her stripes painted blue to match her armor. “That’s Carna. She’s the mother of the tribe.”

“Let me guess, they do it?” Precious said.

“Erm, not exactly.” And then Majina covered her eyes. The red and blue zebras advanced, each glaring straight into the eyes of their counterpart. They were close enough to kiss. Then the mare reared up and slammed her hooves into the red stallion’s face. “Actually, they were dire enemies.”

Scotch watched as the stallion and mare tried to kill… no, not kill, but definitely not pulling punches as much as they would in a mock battle. And the blue-striped mare fought far more aggressively than the stallion. She kicked. She bit. One hoof caught him upside the brow, cutting a bloody gash over his left eye. And all the while he gave ground. Then, she tripped on the edge of her cape, and he lunged, grabbing her by the neck and forcing her to the ground where they writhed together. They twisted around, limbs locked together, and then Scotch noticed something else and flushed, tilting her head a little as the wrestling became a struggle of a different type. “You can’t be serious…”

Indeed, they were.

The noises. The sounds. It was just too much. Scotch Tape clamped her hooves over her ears and waited for it to be over. If she had known about this part, she would have stayed in the shop with Xarius. It wasn’t precisely rape… at least, she hoped not… but it was similar enough to make her heart rate spike. She struggled for breath. First being shot at, now this?

She felt a hoof on her shoulder and glanced over at Pythia staring in concern. With the stage amplified, she couldn’t escape the sounds nor stop remembering the smells of blood, bilge, and semen. She’d thought that Rice River had shown her all its horrors and trauma. She’d been wrong.

And when the pair were done, the crowd erupted in cheers. She wanted to throw up. If she’d had food in her, she probably would have. People were exchanging money, and Scotch peeked out to see the painted pair now armorless and rutting in a much more amenable fashion, ignoring their injuries. “What’s going on?” she said numbly, not really wanting to know.

“Baccus conquered Carna. That means good luck for stallions born in the next five years,” Errukine said with a sigh. “And I’d wagered on Carna.”

“People bet on a rape?” Scotch Tape said in horror. If she’d known, she never would have gotten on that stage!

“Rape? Hardly,” Errukine said with a laugh. “Carna wasn’t some helpless mare taken against her will, and Baccus wasn’t some shy stallion forced into it! She was a formidable warrior, every bit Baccus’s equal. The myths are unclear as to who conquered who, so every five years they reenact their meeting on this bridge. By all accounts, the pair were of differing tribes on opposite sides of the river that loathed each other, but through sheer reproductive attraction, they overcame their drive to kill each other. Carna’s foal became the one that united the two halves of the river and started the Carnilia tribe,”

Knowing the reasons behind what she’d witnessed didn’t make her racing heart any better. Between getting shot at and what she’d seen, she was ready to leave right now. Still, the festival seemed to be getting underway, with most people getting things to eat. A few were joining ‘Baccus’ and ‘Carna’ on the stage, though.

Majina moved around, facing her. “The Bacchanalia is for new beginnings. You see those little dolls? They’re all the pain and regrets people feel. They put them all in the dolls, and on the third day, they light them on fire and throw them into the river.”

“I get it!” Scotch said, swallowing. “It’s just… Blackjack spared me from something similar. It didn’t happen to me, but I heard what they did to her. That…” She gestured at the stage without looking at it. “That was too close for me.”

“If it’s any consolation, this isn’t precisely accurate either,” Errukine said. “The two early tribes were probably united in a peace settlement, and the union consummated in a public ceremony like this one, but the fight between the two is always so dramatic.”

It wasn’t much consolation, actually. She sat trying to get her heart rate and breathing down. “I thought there were only thirteen tribes?”

“Twelve and one, officially,” Majina answered. “But once there were dozens and dozens of tribes all over.” She glanced at Pythia. “Then the Starkatteri, um…”

“Tried to take over the world with dark and evil magic. All that stuff. Almost pulled it off, too,” Pythia finished with a shrug.

“Yeah. That,” Majina said. “That got rid of a lot of smaller tribes. When the first Empire was founded after the Starkatteri blew themselves up, there were twelve and one tribes. They were the ones who could elect the first Caesar. Lots of tribes were consolidated with the twelve whose votes mattered. The ones left out were just clumped together as the Orah, which is why Orah are all over the place.”

“They only gave us the vote so they could vote against us,” Pythia muttered. “No one was joining my tribe after things blew up. And I think they thought the Orah were too dumb to know what a vote was.”

“Aren’t ponies so much simpler?” Vicious said as she stepped from the crowd, beaming.

“When you can explain how you went from that,” Pythia said, gesturing to Scotch Tape, “to that,” now pointing at Vicious’s horn, “tell me. I’d love to hear it. Or where the wings came from. I’d love that story, too.”

Vicious dismissed her with a sniff. “Griffon spotted the shooter. Guess who?”

“Krogax?” Scotch asked.

“Unless you’ve pissed off other centaurs, yup. ‘Course, he pulled back soon as you hit the crowd. Smart,” she said with a glower. “I hate smart people. Dumb ones you just kill and then get on with life.”

Errukine stared at Vicious as if she’d just soiled herself in front of her. “Yes. I suppose that would be easier. What is this?”

“There’s a certain sea captain who wants me dead,” Scotch answered. “She had a whole crew after me, but we whittled them down to a few bounty hunters. One of them nearly crushed me, and the other caught me in an alley when I wasn’t paying attention. They’ve slacked off the last two months, so I thought maybe they’d moved on.”

“Especially after I took the centaur’s arm last time,” Vicious pointed out. Then she scowled. “I hate when they get away. Unfortunately, they don’t have any family I know about. It always simplifies things when, if they piss me off, I can just start carving up their loved ones,” she said merrily, then blinked at Errukine’s aghast expression. “What? It’s therapeutic.”

“I’m sure,” Errukine murmured. “I’m going to go congratulate this year’s Baccus and Carna. It’s good luck to do so.” Scotch wasn’t sure if that was true or an excuse to get away from Vicious.

“What griffon?” Precious asked. Vicious pointed at the top of the statue above them. In the wan firelight and lingering dusk, the brown griffon from before crouched there, head low, red eyes staring dramatically down at them.

“Woooo,” Majina said, then held up her hooves. “If he just had a cape with a little wind, or some lightning flash behind him right now, he’d be perfect.”

“I know, right? Wasted,” he replied evenly. “Vega told me to keep an eye on you.”

“Hey, I know you! Weren’t you with those Iron Legion guys?” Precious asked, drawing a number of looks.

“Shhh!” Vicious hissed. “Of course he’s not Legion. Legion aren’t allowed in Rice River, right?” she asked, giving the griffon a wink.

“That’s what I’m told,” he replied.

“So what’s he doing here, then?” Precious asked with a frown.

“Probably breaking a whole ton of rules,” Pythia pointed out. “So hush.”

“You can come down here if you want,” Scotch Tape said with a half smile.

“Yeah, that’s what you’d want me to do, miss martial arts master,” Skylord sneered. Majina stared from him to Scotch and back again, face twisted in bafflement. “No offense, but I’d rather stay up here. This place is gross,” the griffon commented as he glanced to the stage.

“Right. So…” Majina asked, moving her hoof to prompt him.

He drew himself up and pressed a claw to his chest. “Call me… Skylord.”

“Oooooh…” Majina said, tilting her head. “He so needs lightning flashes to pull that introduction and name off.”

“Skylord?” Precious snorted. “Skylord. You named yourself that, didn’t you? You totally did!” She rocked back, laughing.

“Right,” Scotch said with a frown. “Wait! Didn’t you have your beak under my tail?” His eyes popped.

“Getting your Bacchanal fun done early, eh?” Vicious asked with a grin.

“This is why we’ve been stuck here for a year,” Pythia grumbled. “Anyway, great. Now can we– don’t you dare!” she snapped at Vicious.

“Don’t wha–” Scotch started to say, but Vicious grabbed her by her neck and pulled her away from her friends.

“Come on, S.T. I want to show you around!” Pythia let out another scream of frustration as Vicious hauled her into the crowd.

“I think my friend really wants to talk!” Scotch pointed out.

“Eh, she’s boring. Always pissing and moaning about the future. She needs to learn to live in the now,” Vicious said as she pulled her along into the milling mess that was Bacchanalia. As she lost sight of her friends, she kept trying to slip away, but Vicious was having none of it. She dragged Scotch Tape to food booths. To where they paraded little dolls around and engaged in mock battles with them. To where zebras and others danced to the beat of the drums. The pair of them met a zebra stallion and his little brother, and they had a little Bacchanal fun on their own. And in spite of everything she’d felt a bit ago, she had to admit it wasn’t that bad for Rice River.

When the pair finished, Scotch had a warm ball of happiness inside her. Thank goodness she had a copper implant preventing any green zonies in her future. “See,” the unicorn said as they sat, sweaty and sticky and, despite everything, happy. “This is the life. No worries about tomorrow. No regrets about yesterday. Good food, drink, sex, and music.”

They found themselves near the platform, lying out on the beds around other zebras and folks chatting and enjoying rice wine and snacks. She spotted the zebras who had been picked for the roles of Baccus and Carna sitting close by, cuddling together and smiling, their armor cast aside, their bodies sweaty, their faces covered with masks. Swollen bruises and dried blood were evidence of the severity of their struggle. Then she frowned. Her brilliant blue Carnilian stripes were smeared a little here and there.

His weren’t.

She stared at the pair, going red, and they met her eyes. Then Aleta reached down and lifted a cup with a little smile, as if toasting Scotch, and all she could do was lift her own cup in kind.

“I need to find my friends,” she told Vicious as they lay side by side.

“Your friends are boring,” Vicious repeated with a frown. “They’re going to try and talk you into going. You should stay.”

“My friends need me. You don’t,” Scotch said. She felt someone at her tail, closed her eyes with a groan, and shook her head. She needed a little breather after the last. Maybe in a few hours. Vicious, to her surprise, also declined the stallions behind them.

“No,” Vicious muttered, averting her eyes. “But I like having you around. You’re a good fr–” but she caught herself, ears flattening, “Roommate.”

Scotch gave a half smile. “Well, you’re a good Froommate too,” she said with a playful nudge. “You could come with us.”

“Can’t,” she said as she rolled onto her back, looking at the stars above them. “Tchernobog’s got me on a leash. Besides, don’t want to. Rice River is a nice place to live. Food. Work. Sex. I’ve been elsewhere. It gets worse. Lots worse.”

“I’ve seen worse,” Scotch assured her.

“No, you haven’t. Getting lost in a swamp and a whirlpool is nothing compared to some places out there. Places that make radiation look… cute. Like a plain where you can only travel in one direction… into the center… where you starve to death. Every step takes you closer to the middle. Even backwards. I managed to teleport out. You won’t be able to. Or this spot where gravity is reversed. You step in it and wooosh, up you go. Or places where the megaspells transformed things. Like zebras made of living rock, or fire, or ghosts.”

She rolled onto her side, facing Scotch. “And that’s just the freaky shit. There’s the legions, too. Like raiders, but whole armies of raiders. At least a dozen of them. Then there’s the usual flesh eating cannibal raiders. Then there’s feral ghouls… not just dozens but thousands. Whole cities of them where zebras used balefire on their own people. There’s crazy robots. Beasts. Freaks like you can’t imagine.”

“I dunno. I’ve got a great imagination,” Scotch replied.

But Vicious wasn’t smiling. “But the thing that really gets people is the size of this place. You travelled from the swamps out west to here? Multiply that by fifty. There’s a reason trains are so damned protected here. You break down, get stuck on hoof, and you’re dead. You’ll starve long before you find the next settlement. You’ll follow a road, thinking it will take you somewhere, but they’re all roads to nowhere.” She poked a hoof at Scotch. “Your ‘friend’ is going to get you all killed.”

“Is it possible to get to Roam from here? Could you do it?” Scotch asked, ignoring the accusation.

Vicious closed her eyes. “I could, sure. Take the Central Line down to Irontown. Then walk south for a week while avoiding the Blood Legion till you get to Golden Legion territory. Pay for a train ride down to the southern coast. Head west till you run into the Flame Legion. Roam’s their territory. But I’ve got the protection of the Syndicate. You’re just–”

Scotch narrowed her eyes. “Just what?” she queried.

“You’re not a fighter,” Vicious said, averting her eyes as she scrunched up her face a little.

“You were going to say ‘kid’, weren’t you?”

She snorted, rolling her eyes. “Eh… you’re somewhere between kid and not-kid. I mean, you’re mature for your age, sure. Surprised me. But…” She didn’t finish and just shrugged. “I worry about you, that’s all. And that’s just in Rice River. I don’t care about many people.”

“Stop planning to kill me,” Pythia said behind them, and Scotch looked down at the cloaked filly, then at Vicious.

“Kill you?” Vicious murmured, stroking a hoof idly against the sheet before her. “What an idea.”

“You’re going to garrote me with your tail when I walk away and dump me in the river,” Pythia challenged.

“How do you think these things up?” the periwinkle mare asked innocently, but Scotch’s attention did shift to Vicious’s tightly braided tail.

“Now you’re planning on stabbing me in the neck with a snapped off chicken bone and paying off one of the griffons to serve me to the customers to dispose of my body,” Pythia said flatly as she walked around to the front of their hay bed. Vicious glowered at her. “Now you’re planning on snapping my neck. Electrocution. Tying rocks around my neck and tossing me in the river. Fire.” Pythia narrowed her eyes. “Watching for futures were I die was my first trick.” She paused as Vicious growled. “Futures where I’m horribly mangled was second.”

“I hate seers,” Vicious muttered.

“Vicious! Stop thinking about killing my friends,” Scotch admonished.

“I’m only going to kill one of your friends,” Vicious answered, staring back at Pythia. “The one who’s going to get you all killed.”

Pythia blinked, then curled her lip. “Okay, ew. That’s gross.”

“I’d do it,” Vicious replied. “It’s worked before.”

“Doesn’t stop it from being gross,” Pythia replied. Then she sat back and took a deep breath, staring into Vicious’s eyes. “Besides, you’re also forgetting something.”

“What’s that?” Vicious asked with a grin.

“Tchernobog,” Pythia answered with a smile.

Vicious’s grin evaporated. “He wouldn’t give a shit.”

“Are you sure? We’ve been working pretty closely together. Sure, he’s not interested in me romantically, but we’ve taught each other things that you can’t imagine. Are you positive he wouldn’t want some kind of payback for gutting me?” Pythia asked, and more doubt rose in Vicious’s eyes.

“I fucking hate shamans and spirits,” she muttered.

“And killing Pythia wouldn’t keep me here. I’d probably go back to Equestria or something,” Scotch said, only half truthfully. There wasn’t much back there for her, but it was more familiar than Rice River. Besides, she’d been gone a year. Who knew what had changed? Maybe the adults would listen to a young mare? Maybe? Vicious’s ears drooped, and Scotch put a hoof on her shoulder. “Please don’t kill my friend,” she said, and gave her a pat.

“You’re going to die out there,” Vicious said, pulling back. “You’re going to die, and I can’t kill hunger and thirst, and there’s no fun in juicing the ghoul or raider that’s dumb enough to eat you.” She slowly started to trot away. “Vega was right. I shouldn’t have cared,” she said as she departed. “Sleep somewhere else, Scotch.”

Pythia waited a few seconds, then sat down, her body trembling. “Oh stars, she didn’t kill me!” she said in a rush as she rubbed herself. “That mare had a whole menu of ways she was going to take me out!”

“But… you knew what she was going to do,” Scotch said with a frown, then blinked after Vicious.

“And I’m lucky your average idiot thinks that means I could stop them.” Pythia shook her head. “At least now we don’t have to… wait…” Her eyes went glassy, and she turned her head this way and that. Then she smiled. “Okay, small chance she tries to kill me just from spite. Still, now that you don’t live with her–”

But now Scotch was scowling at the filly and silencing her with a hoof. “Wait. Are you saying you set that up to get me kicked out of where I was living? So I’d go with you?”

Pythia blinked and pushed the hoof aside. “Well, duh. Obviously. Of course, I’d have had to deal with her either way. She doesn’t like losing toys. But it was her or getting Xarius to fire you, and she was the more immediate–” Her yellow eyes went round. “No… oh come on…”

Scotch ignored her. “I can’t believe you! Vicious doesn’t have a right to kill you to keep me from going, but you don’t have a right to manipulate me into leaving either!” she said, jabbing a hoof into Pythia’s chest before she rose and trotted away. “I’m not some puppet for you to control!”

Pythia sat down hard behind her. “Oh come on! That’s not the future I was… Damn it!”

Scotch left Pythia behind, losing her in the crowd. Of course Pythia’d probably see where she’d be in five minutes and meet her there, but right now, she didn’t want to see the filly. In fact, right this moment, she was angry enough to stay just out of spite. Pythia wanted to find this Eye thing? Let her!

“Hey, Scotch!” Precious called out, and the filly spotted the dragonfilly near a stand. “One sec…” Precious turned and blasted flame at the underside of the wok being worked by Hachipa. The Tappahani stallion seemed to be working three stations at once preparing small bowls of food for a line of guests.

“You’re… playing stove?” Scotch said, blinking.

“Hey, it’s this or I have to pay for my food,” Precious replied, pausing to give another blast of green flame. “Besides, I’m not interested in sex stuff. Did Py find you?” Another jet of fire.

“Yeah, and right now, she can go buck herself,” Scotch replied, glowering back in the direction she’d come from. “She made me homeless so I’d be more willing to leave.”

“Yeah. She calls me fat now because I’ve been sitting around for a year,” Precious said with a snort. “Said that I wasn’t tough enough to go with you guys.” She let out another jet at the wok. “Maybe I am a little soft, but only a little. After all, I do have to deal with retarded Carnies every now and then.” She frowned at Scotch. “You don’t think I’m fat, do you?”

Scotch blinked. Tonight was just so… surreal. Scotch considered her and thought she did seem a little less lean and a little more round in the haunches and tummy. Still, would a smart pony call a dragonfilly fat? “Um… no?” she offered.

“Thought so,” Precious said, and gave a snort. “She thinks she’s so smart and so clever and stuff. She doesn’t need us if she’s that smart. So whatever. I’m sticking with you.”

Hachipa whacked Precious’s head with a wooden spoon, drawing not so much as a flinch from the dragonfilly. “Lesstalkytalkymoreburnyburny!” he shouted down at her.

“Fine! Burnyburnying, you hyperactive food processor!” She growled and let out another blast of green flame at the underside of the wok.

Scotch nodded, a little touched by Precious’s support. “Well, I see you’re busy. I’ll come find you when you’re not burning stuff,” she said with a smile, her mood improved greatly. So Pythia had been working on her other friends too. Scotch hadn’t seen them in a while, but still, it was annoying that Pythia was trying to make them go rather than trusting them and their judgement. Rice River had problems all over, but that was no reason to try and force them out.

Now the celebration was in full swing, and it wasn’t quite as orgy-oriented as she’d been expecting. Oh, there was sex everywhere, but most people seemed more interested in talking, eating, and drinking than just going at it like crazy. Sex was just another part of the entertainment. She passed a trio of musicians, one beating drums, the second plucking at a boxy guitar with three strings and a pick, and the third playing reed flutes. The Carnilians danced in pairs and trios while others gyrated wildly with their own strange movements.

There were so many bars in her E.F.S. now that she couldn’t see more than a solid stripe of color. So when she was grabbed from behind, it was more than a bit of a shock. The hooves pulled her into a gap between a puffed rice stall and a dumpling stall, with stallions blocking both ends. “What’s the–” she started to cry out in alarm.

She stopped because she was set down right before the shaman Desideria, forced to her haunches with hooves pressing down on her shoulders. The fleshy mare omitted any mask, and so up close Scotch could see the moles that accented her face like a constellation. “Oh horseapples,” Scotch murmured as Desideria reached down and yanked off her mask.

The rotund mare raised a hoof, wooden bead bracelets clattering as her eyes narrowed and then dropped to a large brown rat peeking around the edge of the stall. “Carrion eater. Vermin.” She hooked a hoof, and the rat let out a panicked squeal as it lifted off the ground and floated before her. “Starkatteri filth,” she declared, then brought her hooves together in a powerful blow. The rat popped like a balloon into cloud of white vapor that spread out and disappeared.

“What…” Scotch began. Had that been the same rat from the junkyard? “What’s going on?”

Desideria wiped her hooves on one of the stallions’ haunches as she sniffed disdainfully at Scotch. “Blind ponies. So blind. Blind to the world and the spirits and the harm your kind inflict simply by existing.” She narrowed her eyes at Scotch. “Did you get that Mendi whore to invoke the spirits while you trotted out on stage? You must have.”

Scotch forgot about the rat as she frowned up at the mare. “What do you want?”

“I want to know your part in this. Maximillian. Cecilio. Vega. You. That shaman. What game are they playing at? How did you, a pony, open this ceremony? It was to be cancelled. Delayed. Postponed till next year.” She curled her lip. “You’re not even a pony princess.”

“Of course I’m not,” she said as she tried to shove the hooves off her shoulders and failed miserably. “I just thought it was stupid to ruin a party because you were all ticked that you got interrupted. No one wants to hear you talk about how wrong all us non-zebras being here is!” Then she paused and asked, “Why would you want to postpone till next year?”

Desideria curled a fleshy lip. “To have a true Bacchanalia. One free of your perversions.” She waved a hoof. “Do you think this is all about rutting? You do, don’t you? You can’t appreciate the significance of this event! The meaning! It’s all just sex and debauchery to you.”

Scotch glared up at her. “No.” Okay, so she was sure that was a big part. “It’s about beginnings. New beginnings. A new chance. I know everyone needs those every now and then. It’s a chance to do things without regret. And a chance to be happy.”

Desideria gave another sniff. “A superficial and reductive summary at best, if more than I expected.” Her eyes narrowed. “This is our ceremony, pony. For our tribe. Our spirits. You pollute it with your presence.”

Scotch sighed. Blackjack probably could have fought her way out of this, but the stallion holding her refused to give her an inch to move or kick back. She glowered up at the mare and then sniffed. “You’re a coward.”

“What?” She blinked.

“You heard me. A coward. You’re afraid that outsiders are going to weaken your tribe. Well, the only thing I can see weakening it is you. You’re afraid of everything different. Everything new. Well, I’m from a stable, and one thing everypony knew and feared was inbreeding.” Desideria didn’t interrupt as Scotch talked, and her listening gave Scotch a little hope as she went on. “They knew the stable would fall if we became too pure. They were right. You’re going to push everyone away till you’re all alone, and then you’re gonna be gone. And that’s a shame, because I’ve met some nice Carnilians. I’d like to meet some more.” Desideria didn’t respond for several seconds as she stared at Scotch, to the point the filly asked, “So… are you gonna let me go?”

“No,” she answered, then looked at the stallion holding Scotch. “Take her back to your cellar, and hold her there. We’ll question her where there are fewer eyes.”

“You’re not taking her anywhere,” a voice growled from above. All eyes went up to where Skylord crouched atop the dumpling stall, a pistol clutched in each talon. “Get your hooves off the filly.”

“Who are you?” Desideria said, glaring up at him.

“I’m the one pointing a gun at your head, fatso,” the rusty brown griffon growled gruffly. “The name’s Skylord. Now let her go.” Scotch saw some strange light gathering around Skylord, but the griffon seemed oblivious to it.

“So she is valuable,” Desideria said, nodding once. “I knew it.” The light sank into the roof of the stall. “Oh! One more thing!” she said happily. “You shouldn’t have brought a gun to a peacebonded festival, Skylord.” She spoke the name with utter contempt for it.

The corner of the stall he perched on suddenly gave, the wall folding in and dumping Skylord into the alley next to Scotch. He tried to flap his wings, but they smacked into the side of the stall and knocked him sprawling. Two stallions pinned him to the ground, knocking his guns away from his outstretched talons.

“Take them both,” Desideria instructed. “Beat whatever information out of her you can and then drown her in the river, away from the festival.” She turned away.

“Why don’t you let them both go, instead?” a mare called out.

The stallions moved aside to see Errukine standing like the sunrise in the gap between the stalls. Tchernobog stood beside her, his shrouded face cold and implacably grim as the dark side of the moon. A nimbus seemed to glow just off their stripes, hers a warm gold and his a sickly green. Desideria let out a long, low snarl. “Are none of you keeping watch?” she snapped at the stallions, then turned to face the speaker. She illuminated as well, in a red corona shot through with veins as she glared at the pair haughtily. “You dare face me here?”

“I daresay we may, if you force us to,” Errukine murmured, as if amused by this. “Personally, there was a handsome pair of stallions I saw a few minutes back that I’d like to be acquainted with, but then I heard a spirit slain, and here you are threatening a filly with torture and death.”

“She is a friend of the Syndicate,” Tchernobog growled. Somehow, he said it differently than Vega did.

“This is Rice River. This is my place of power,” Desideria said, glaring at the pair.

“It is?” Errukine countered, as if surprised by this information. “As I recall, you did not invoke or invite the spirits to this festival. You are, technically, just as much a guest as we are. And while it would be horrible to deal with the censure from breaking the peacebond, I am sure that the spirits here will forgive me.”

Desideria looked from the pair of shamans to the stallions to her pair of prisoners. She licked her lips at the Mendi and Starkatteri. “I don’t need the spirits. My sons can just take them from here. Follow us if you dare.”

Then from the other end of the stalls came a cry and a stallion rumbling ‘excuse me’. Then another yelp and another ‘excuse me’. A mountain moved through the gap between the stalls as the biggest zebra Scotch’d ever seen calmly trod upon the stallions before him.

“You…” Desideria stammered, pointing a hoof at him. “How dare you fight here, Gāng!”

“Not fighting,” the huge zebra replied. “Passing through.” He wore just a red cloth strip across his eyes and brow, with eyeholes cut out. Then he took another step, and the zebra that failed to get out of his way was smashed to the ground as he muttered, “Excuse me.”

From his back appeared Majina, smiling down at them. “Better clear out of here. He’s coming through.”

“You sure you want this, Desi dear?” Errukine asked sweetly.

“Outsiders. All of you. Contaminants. Pollutants. Criminals. Traitors. Filth,” she spat, but the sanguine glow pulsing around her disappeared. A moment later, so did the auras around Errukine and Tchernobog. “Let them up!” she screeched at the stallions pinning Scotch and Skylord. “Let us out!” she hissed at the shamans, who stepped aside and let them file out of the gap. Scotch rose and tried to offer Skylord a hoof up, but the griffon just retrieved his guns and frowned.

Out in the open, Desideria wheeled and thrust a hoof at them as her masked sons moved past her. “I warn you, we shall not be intimidated or bullied by yo–”

Then Gāng swung his backside around and slammed his flank right into her face. The impact of such a massive posterior knocked her off her hooves and over the parapet with a scream of fear and outrage. Fortunately, they were near the western shore, and her sons scrambled towards the end of the bridge. “Excuse me,” Gāng muttered as Majina hopped down.

“That was a butt attack, wasn’t it?” Majina asked with a grin. “Right?”

“Knew it was a martial art,” muttered Skylord under his breath.

“No,” Gāng rumbled. “Accident. Really.”

“Of course it was an accident,” Errukine said with a smile at the huge zebra. “But what delightful consequences. Fortunately, I’m relatively sure Desideria knows how to swim.” Tchernobog just grunted as he stared at Scotch.

“Did a spirit tell you all I was in trouble?” Scotch asked as she looked around.

“Of course not. She destroyed the ward I had watching you,” Tchernobog said, then stepped aside to expose Pythia. The little filly glanced at Scotch, then averted her eyes downward. “She warned us.”

“You did?” Scotch blinked, not sure if she should be grateful or annoyed.

“Yeah, well… that shaman annoyed me,” Pythia muttered.

From out of the crowd emerged Precious with a quartet of rice boxes held in a curl of her tail. She glanced over at the gathered people and asked brightly, “Hi, girls. Did I miss anything?”

“I still can’t believe I missed seeing that sow fall into the river!” Precious wailed as they sat together near the capstone of the Last Caesar. “She’s been the one causing most of the trouble at Galen’s. Too much of a wuss to do things herself, but she’ll sic her sons on somepony if she can.” They each ate some of the dinner while Skylord brooded above. Tchernobog and Errukine talked a short distance away. Gāng had left to talk to Maximillian about the shaman’s attempt on Scotch.

Majina laughed. “I can’t believe that wasn’t an actual attack.” The bruised filly rubbed her backside. “I used to think Mom knew all about fighting, but Gāng’s scarier than any fighter I’ve seen. He doesn’t fight. He just moves and takes out anyone he runs into.”

“I could take him,” Precious sniffed, and Majina arched a brow. “But he’s teaching you stuff, so I won’t.”

“I still find it hard to hear about you learning about fighting,” Scotch said to Majina.

The filly’s smile fell a little as she kept her eyes to her rice. “Mama didn’t like me fighting. She could. My brother could. She wanted me to be a storyteller. Live someplace nice. Be nice. Tell happy tales.”

“So are you going to learn that freaky zebra fighting that lets you suplex tanks and stuff?” Precious asked with a grin.

Majina rolled her eyes. “Actually, he’s teaching me how to breathe and stand and balance and fall without getting hurt. That’s harder than you might think,” she sighed. “But I feel better than I have in a long time, even if I’m sore from head to hoof!”

“Crazy zebras,” Precious muttered, shaking her head.

Scotch looked over at where Pythia sat silently, picking at her bowl with a hoof and not eating much. “So. Do you guys want to leave Rice River tomorrow?” Pythia’s head shot up, and she stared at Scotch.

“Leave?” Precious said, blinking.

“I thought we had to stay for a year,” Majina said.

“The year’s up tomorrow,” Scotch said.

“Really?” Majina rubbed her chin. “I could have sworn it’d only been a few months.”

“Was I seriously the only one keeping track?” Pythia muttered.

Scotch looked at the three. “The fact is that we came here to find out if the Eye of the World was blinded or not. That hasn’t changed. Pythia found where we need to go next and how to get there. Next stop is Roam. Question is, do you girls want to go?”

“Do you?” Precious asked.

Scotch sighed. “I won’t lie. I have some reasons to stay. But…” She closed her eyes and made her decision, giving them a half smile. “It’s not like the city’s going anywhere. We can go to Roam, find out what we need to find out, and then come back. It’s not forever.”

The others nodded a little. “Roam’s clear on the other side of the Empire, though,” Majina said, sulking. “It’s way down on the south coast.”

“We can take a train part of the way there. To someplace called Irontown. From there it’s a walk, and then we hook up with another train to Roam,” Scotch said, and as she talked, she caught Errukine listening in with a worried frown. “We’ll have the Whiskey Express, too, so even if we can’t find a train, we can keep going.”

“We’ll need lots of supplies, though,” Majina pointed out. “I mean, the Empire’s huge. I don’t know how long it will take. I really haven’t made very much money, but I know Osane’s family will help.” She looked at Precious.

The dragonfilly reached down and hugged her saddlebag. “Don’t look at me. Nobody’s spending my shiny!”

“Precious,” Scotch admonished.

“But… eh,” she whined. “What’s the point of having gold if you’re just giving it away?”

“That gold is a thin layer over a zinc disk,” Scotch said.

“It’s still shiny! I’ll get my own supplies and keep my shiny! Just you watch!” Precious sniffed.

Scotch looked over to Pythia, and she caught the filly wearing a small smile, her yellow eyes uncharacteristically soft. Of course, she immediately tugged her cloak down to hide her face.

“I just wish I knew why they were glowing,” Scotch muttered.

“Why who was glowing?” Majina asked, then took a mouthful of rice.

“The shamans. All of them were glowing during that thing,” Scotch said. Majina blinked, her cheeks bulging. “Didn’t you see it?” Majina shook her head before swallowing.

“No, I don’t think so,” Majina replied. How could she have missed it?

Then Scotch saw Tchernobog, Errukine, and Pythia staring at her, the first grimly, the second in shock, and the third with worry. Blackjack had once said that when bad things were going to happen, her mane got itchy. Scotch Tape’s proverbial mane was going crazy right now. “What?”

The three exchanged looks and adopted almost identically inscrutable expressions. “Nothing,” Errukine said, giving a little wave of her hoof. “Go on.”

“Pythia?” Scotch asked the filly directly.

But Pythia averted her eyes, her ears drooping a little. “It’s nothing. Don’t worry about it.” Now Scotch gave her the skeptical frowny face. “Well… we can talk about it later.”

Scotch doubted that she’d get more than that out of her tonight, so she took a deep breath. “All right then. We’ve got one more night till we’re free. Let’s spend it having fun,” she said with a grin, rising to her feet and putting her mask back on. Pythia gave her a grateful little smile, but the two adults continued to gaze upon her with troubled looks.

The next hour, she got to be a kid again, like a ‘normal’ kid was supposed to be. They danced and ate and listened to music and sat around the bonfires. Though the other three abstained, she found a nice zebra colt for a bit of enjoyment as Majina distracted the others with stories. Pythia won two chits and three imperios at a shell game, correctly identifying which cup hid a bean, even when the dealer hid it in his lap and up his nose. Skylord shadowed them, moving from statue to statue and trying to look dramatic and cool.

All the while, Tchernobog and Errukine followed like a pair of parents, talking in low voices as the four enjoyed themselves.

Scotch took off her mask and wiped the sweat from her brow as the others watched the desperate zebra running the shell game trying to beat the filly.

Then she saw him.

The Dealer.

He stood in a gap between the stalls, the skeletal pony in the ragged duster and broad brimmed hat working his cards between his hooves. As she stared, he withdrew into the darkness beyond. Scotch stared at where he’d disappeared, then followed. She hadn’t seen him since the swamp, when she’d been half out of her skull with fear.

She walked between the stalls, to the western edge of the bridge. A steady trickle of zebras were coming and going across the court. Halting, her hide creeping with unease, she scanned the crowd, and then she spotted him standing in the center of the plaza. He drew a card, holding it out to her, and she advanced slowly towards him. His duster and hat moved as if plucked at by some swift wind, ghostly streamers of dust swirling past him as he gazed into her with dusty, empty eye sockets.

The face of the card showed a mare hanging from a noose from a dead and withered tree. The mare was a white unicorn with a black and red striped mane, but as she watched, he twisted the card back and forth, the light of the bonfires playing against the image. When the glare faded, it was a green earth pony with a blue mane dangling. Scotch stared at him.

“I’m not Blackjack,” she whispered.

He faded from view with a whispery laugh. Then the screaming started. The flow of zebras abruptly shifted, with a crowd racing down the street towards the bridge. She heard the gurgling hiss of steam and grinding of gears as the steam tank rolled into view. It rolled right up into the plaza, followed by three trucks. Scotch backed up till she was even with the crowd, but she couldn’t push back against the wall of legs.

Immediately, armored zebras started to spill out into the plaza, dressed in zebra combat armor that had been stained bright red and then further embellished with spikes and spurs. A brilliant red diamond standard was raised atop one of the trucks. Worse, though, was the black ichor that seemed to drip like oil off their bodies and onto the stones. The miasma that rolled from these zebras nauseated Scotch to her core. They seemed unaware of the taint that clung to them like dirty sludge, though, grinning at the onlookers like raiders who’d discovered a buffet.

Maximillian pushed himself out of the throng, shoving the mask off his face as he approached the tank with clear trepidation. “Oh! My. Well… this is unexpected.” He coughed. “The Blood Legion! I thought we paid you quite well to keep away from the city. I know we pay the Iron and White legions to do so! I could have sworn we had sentries and mines and warnings and… how did you get here so fast with no one giving warning?”

“They are here at my invitation!” Desideria cried out, stepping from the back of one truck. The mare’s water-ruined mane and smeared makeup made her appear quite deranged as she approached Maximillian, trying to step carefully to avoid the sludge that pooled under the legionnaires.

“Desideria?!” Maximillian gasped, then gave a strained smile from ear to ear. “Are you insane?”

“No. The Carnilian people have endured your appeasement and concessions long enough, Maximillian! I have endured the last humiliation against my station! I will not let our tribe become serfs to your masters at Carnico,” she declared, pointing her hoof at the factory beyond the river. “It is time for our tribe to be purged of its contaminants!” Despite her efforts, the black ichor was smeared against her hide like her runny makeup.

The crowd parted, and Cecilio emerged, looking at Desideria with clear disdain. A mare stood beside him, wearing a military uniform stained and spotted with the dark blotches. “I should have known you’d eventually snap, Desideria. Fortunately, I’ve taken precautions as well. Colonel Adolpha here has promised to protect Carnico’s assets from any who would damage our city’s precious infrastructure. You may as well dismiss these thugs back to their wastelands.”

The top hatch of the tank popped open, and a roiling black toxic fog poured out and spread across the plaza. From the interior emerged a zebra soaked black in the foul ichor. Only his brilliant red eyes gleamed out. “Adolpha!” he cried out. “So nice to see you again!”

“Major Haimon,” she answered back.

“We should catch up. I remember the last time we were together,” he said as he stood before her. “As I recall, you were all spread out, moaning around my adjutant’s cock, while I was…” He closed his eyes and gave a few pelvic thrusts with a grin. “Like that.”

“I’ll see you dead, first,” Adolpha replied, cold as steel.

“So unfriendly!” he said, pressing a hoof to his brow. Then he gestured to the tractors behind him. “And here we have intercepted an Equestrian plot against our people!”

“What plot?” Maximillian asked in bafflement. “What are you talking about?”

Then they hauled something from the back of the truck. Something large, purple, feathered, and bloody. His soldiers dragged out the body and threw it down before the crowd.

A slain purple alicorn.

“There are more!” Haimon called out, as more and more alicorn bodies were drawn out and tossed in a heap. Some of them had been dismembered or decapitated. Green after green alicorn was tossed like so much meat before the crowd. “And the piece de resistance!” Haimon cried out gaily.

This green alicorn was still alive. Her horn had been smashed off, and all that remained of her wings were broken, bloody nubs. She was carried between two zebras and dumped down between Desideria and Haimon. The former looked at the mutilated mare with an expression of some unease, as if she hadn’t expected this. The latter just grinned.

“Please! We’re just trying to get to Carnico! That’s all! Please!” the alicorn screamed in Pony. Then the green spotted the corpses before her. “Oh Goddess, no! No! Meadowsong! No!” she cried out, crawling on broken limbs to one of the slain greens. “Kill me, you bastards!” she sobbed brokenly. “Just… please… kill me…”

“Oh, no,” Desideria crowed. “We have so many qu–”

Haimon drew a large automatic pistol, pressed it to the alicorn’s temple, and pulled the trigger. The round blew half the opposite side of the alicorn’s head out, along with an oily trickle of black slime. Desideria stared at the major as if he’d slapped her. He holstered the gun and said grandly, “Why were the enemy here in the zebra lands? Why were they seeking to bring this–” he pulled from his pocket an enormous gleaming diamond “–to Carnico?” The major leered at the ill-looking Cecilio as he withdrew back into the crowd. “I can’t wait to hear their answer.”

Major Haimon then gazed at Scotch, his eyes wide and his teeth gleaming amid the oily taint that coated him. Scotch pushed her way through the crowd till she spotted golden stripes and lavender scales. “We need to go, now,” she said breathlessly.

But then a hoof touched her shoulder. “You’re not going anywhere,” Tchernobog rumbled, and Scotch felt something settle between her shoulder blades.

It felt like the point of a sword magically suspended above her.

“Come with me,” Tchernobog stated. “You’re wanted at Carnico.”

Author's Notes:

Ooopse! Forgot to save this. Sorry.

Okay. So, first bit. New chapter out. This is the start of the Carnilians problems. Notice a trend wherever Scotch Tape goes? Hope it's good. It could have been summerized "Scotch woke up, got paid, watched the festival getting set up, and then Tchernobog says 'You're needed at Carnico.' Instead I show everything. Hopefully it doesn't feel like filler.

Thanks to Hinds, Bro, and Swicked for dealing with so much drama to get this out this month. I hate missing months to get stories out. I want to get at least one out a month. The drama was strong with this one, because this month is the worst may on record.

Oh, some good news. I WILL be going to Bronycon! Huge shout out to Vendable Sheik for paying for a plane ticket, so I'll be there. Wanderer D has been kind enough to let me talk at two panels on crossovers and character so that'll be amazing too. I just need to talk to someone about a hotel and I'll be all set. If anyone would like to donate bits, I'd appreciate it. May mugged me.

Thanks to Kkat, as always, for writing FoE. Thanks to everyone that reads and super special thanks to folks who leave comments!