Five years. Countless lectures, written tests that made my brain hurt, physicals that made everything else hurt, and last-second cramming sessions that lasted until I fell asleep standing and my sister dragged me to bed, all for the little piece of paper I was rereading for the millionth time.

I’d done it. I’d finally get to see the outside for myself.

It was my destiny; it had been my destiny ever since I earned my cutie mark. I had presented a picture I’d made, my masterpiece depicting what I thought the outside had to have been like based on our Stable’s books and tapes and stories passed down through our families. When I showed it to my classmates for show-and-tell, my joy I’d felt at seeing everyone’s longing and hopeful expressions in their eyes matched only my elation at my brand new cutie mark, a sunrise as gorgeous and golden as what I saw in my dreams and doodled in my books’ margins.

My foalhood masterpiece earned me a cuteceañera party and inspired a fascination in every scrap of information Stable 32 had about the outside world, but my life’s goal was already clear to me: join the Venture Scouts and explore Equestria firsthoof.

I felt someone beside me give me a nudge, and I glanced over to see my sister Carol motioning her head toward the Overmare’s closed office door and glaring at me. Taking the hint, I tucked the summons note I’d been reading and rereading into my jumpsuit pocket with my magic and made sure I was standing properly in line with the others I knew had received similar memos.

Minutes passed, our silence only punctuated by occasional coughs or ponies clearing their throats. The command center outside the Overmare’s office was not a very interesting place in the Stable, save for the holotape projector somepony had probably placed in the center of the room before we’d arrived, so there wasn’t much I could do but wait.

I was just about to sneak a peek at my PipBuck for the time when the office door clicked, startling everypony to attention, and the Overmare stepped out of her office into the large anteroom, flanked by a couple of her advisors.

Our current Overmare was a serious mare with a serious face, and with her gray coat and hazel eyes, she looked the part she played. The only color on her was her muted blue mane that matched the muted blue of her Stable 32 jumpsuit, which only the Overmare and Venture Scouts wore. She’d held her position since I was only a foal, but some older ponies in the Stable had said she’d always been impersonal and private about herself even before the role fell to her. Still, when it came to important stuff, nopony argued she was the best leader in the Stable, and if she weren’t already Overmare, she’d be leaving with the Venture Scouts today too.

She surveyed us briefly, nodded, and said, “Good, you’re all here. Congratulations once again. You have all earned your spots on the Venture Scout teams.

“We’ve organized you into three groups of six. Much thought was put into your team’s makeup based on test scores and Venture Scout performance, and we hope our decisions will give each team the best and most resilient compositions.”

An advisor gave the Overmare a single thick sheet of paper. “Thank you, Lanai. I will read off the three teams. If each team member would kindly congregate with their Stablemates once their team is called?”

Everypony nodded. The Overmare cleared her throat. “The first team, traveling to Las Pegasus, Stalliongrad, and other areas to the south, will consist of Bella Coola, Smoking Gun, Amber Lamp, Iceberg, Spin Drift, and Apex.”

The Overmare began applauding, and everypony else followed suit as the first six ponies gathered together. I tapped my hoof against the floor in mild applause, but I was too anxious about who I’d be traveling with to do it very enthusiastically.

“The second team,” the Overmare continued, “traveling to Canterlot, Ponyville, and other areas to the east, will consist of Piedmont, Cap White, Derringer, Compass Rose, Bell Hop, and Holly.”

I took a second to register my name being called as ponies around me stomped their hooves. It took me a second more to realize a critical and saddening fact: I was not going to be traveling with my sister.

Doing my best to hide my disappointment, I moved toward where my group was gathering while clatters of hoof against steel filled the air in congratulations.

Only six ponies were left, but the Overmare would have never let them go without recognizing them. “And our third team, traveling to Sunpoint, Seaddle, and other areas to the north, will consist of Carol, Sharp Shot, Thermos, Cardinal Point, Hurly Burly, and Vista.”

I stomped in congratulations for my sister despite my pain and sadness. Now I knew for sure I wouldn’t see her for six weeks.

“Now,” the Overmare said once our applause had died down, “you have not merely been sorted based on your ability to work in the team assigned to you. You have also been grouped so your talents would allow you helpful and useful roles in performing your tasks. Never forget you are a team, and we are much stronger together than we are alone.”

Everypony nodded. While she hadn’t listed it, I and everypony else knew what we all specialized in.

“Now, there is one last thing we would like to gift you all. An important member of Stable-Tec, the builder of our home, recorded a message specifically for all of you.” The Overmare levitated out a remote and with some button presses dimmed the lights in the anteroom and activated the holotape projector. The projector whirred for a few seconds before the lens lit up, and a static rectangle aligned itself on the opposite blank wall to reveal a desk with a pony behind it.

The pony was a pegasus with an orange coat and a purple mane, and she wore a shiny black suit. I couldn’t help but think how impractical it was compared to our own Venture Scout jumpsuits, but I didn’t get any farther with my thoughts before she began to speak with an easy smile.

“Hello, future Venture Scouts of Stable 32. My name is Scootaloo, and, among other things, I’m the Vice President of Stable-Tec. If everything in your Stable has gone right, you’re watching this eighty years after it’s been recorded.”

The pegasus’ smile slipped a bit. “We at Stable-Tec don’t have any better idea than you do about what Equestria’s like out there now, but you’re the best and brightest Stable 32 has to offer, and your task is critical to Stable 32’s success, so I’d first like to say congratulations for your hard work.”

The Stable-Tec official glanced down at some papers on her desk. “Stable-Tec’s goal is to save ponies, and that means our top priorities are not only to preserve life, but also to give you the tools you need to make Equestria better than it was. Better than it is right now.”

It was so quick and so minute I almost missed it, but I saw her lip quiver for a quick moment as she adjusted herself in her seat. “What’s past is past—your past—so we have to make do with what we have. And that’s where you come in. As I’m sure you’ve been told many times as part of the Venture Scouts, your goals are to act as Stable 32’s eyes and ears, traveling to various locations in Equestria to find which is best for Stable 32 to migrate to. Some of our own Stables have opened by the time yours has, so you may find other Stable ponies out there. You might also, hopefully of course, find survivors of... whatever has happened by the time you enter Equestria, doing their own part to put the pieces back together.

“But this is more important than that. You are more than just the future of Stable 32. You are the future of Equestria. You, and everypony else in the Stables, are the last hope we have for...”

Watching Scootaloo’s face, I stopped listening to her words, too distracted by her appearance and by her odd mannerisms. Despite her eyes being bright and her suit impeccably unwrinkled, she looked tired, and while I could tell her mane was naturally spiky, it seemed messier than it should have been for somepony who was apparently important. There wasn’t anything wrong I could put a hoof on, but she seemed... haggard? Sad? Ashamed?

“...is on your shoulders.” I perked up from my preoccupations, my jolt earning a glance from my sister which I ignored. I hope I didn’t miss anything too important, I thought to myself shamefully.

The Stable-Tec pegasus paused, taking an audible breath in and out her nose. “Thank you. From me, from all of us here at Stable-Tec, and from all of us who still believe in a better Equestria. May the ponies of Stable 32 live long and well.”

The pony offered a final smile before her image faded and the projector clacked to a halt.

The Overmare began directing her advisors to release the locks on our PipBucks’ E.F.S. and S.A.T.S. systems, but the words and face of the orange pegasus pervaded my mind as I held out my right hoof for Lanai while she tinkered with my device’s settings.

“Please be careful,” my mom said. The packed anteroom of our Stable’s entrance area, which had cramped floorspace, uninspiring gray walls, and cold metal stairs ascending to the airlock, was hardly ideal for last goodbyes, but the Overmare had said everypony should have a moment to see our families and say farewells in case somepony hadn’t felt like last night’s celebration was sufficient.

“You’ve told us to be careful already mom,” Carol groaned as she and I returned our mother’s hug for the dozenth time. She hadn’t let either Carol or me out of her reach for the last several minutes.

“I know, but I’m still worried about you, Holly. You won’t be with Carol. I trust the Overmare’s decision, but what if something goes wrong?”

“Nothing will go wrong,” I assured. “I’m not alone, and I’m a grown pony now mom.” I would have been a bit more persistent in loosening my mother’s tight grip, but some other Scouts were enduring the same from their parents, and the unwieldy size of my saddlebags and other packs didn’t make me very agile.

“It’s natural for parents to worry for their children, no matter how old they are,” my dad said, joining in our family’s hug. “We want you to do the Stable proud, but take care of yourself and your fellow Scouts. Your teammates are there to help you just as you’re to help them.”

“We know, dad,” Carol said, and I nodded in agreement.

“Please, Holly,” my mom pleaded, “just stay safe. Go out there and find other ponies, and make sure you represent Stable 32 with nothing but your best! And if you ever find a nice colt you like, I expect you to be accompanied by a strong stallion when you return–”

“Mom!” I interrupted. “I’m going out there for Stable 32, not for me!”

“Dear, I only want what’s best for you! Carol and Clear Cut are so cute together, and if you wait too much longer boys will start passing you by!”

“Oh!” my sister exclaimed. “I forgot, I should, uh, say goodbye to him again!” Before my parents could respond, she extricated herself from our hug and disappeared, weaving between the room’s small crowd of family members and friends.

“I’m just saying if you ever see him, Holly, you know,” my mom continued. “I know you might not have liked any colts in the Stable, but it’s a big world out there. And you’ll be traveling with Piedmont too, right? He’s only a little older than you, right?”

I wanted to shout again, but instead I nodded.

“Please, just think of me,” my mother coaxed. “I promise, when you find the right one, he’ll make you the happiest mare in the world, and you deserve that happiness.”

I sighed. “OK mom, I’ll... do that.” Anything to get her to stop talking about it.

“I love you so much, Holly.” My mother’s embrace suddenly got a lot tighter.

“Stay safe,” my dad whispered into my ear, his own front hooves closing around me.

I relaxed and melted into the hug, knowing I wouldn’t get to see them again for a long time. “Thanks, mom. Thanks dad. I love you both too.”

“I’m so sorry to interrupt, but we will be opening the airlock door soon, and only Venture Scouts will be allowed in this area.” I looked over to see the Overmare smiling at us.

“Of course, June.” My mom let go of me, giving me some breathing room. “We’re just going to miss our children so much. They’re all we have.”

“It’s hard enough to see our two fillies all grown up,” my dad added. “It’s even harder to know that we won’t see them for the next month and a half.”

The Overmare nodded. “I can only empathize, Proctor. I know if my son were to be among the groups leaving today, it would break my heart too. You and your children are sacrificing much for us.”

I tuned them out and looked over everypony in the room to see if there was anypony else I might like to say goodbye to. I caught a glimpse of my sister’s purple mane and craned my neck to see Carol nose-nuzzling with Clear Cut. I couldn’t help but roll my eyes.

Giving the couple dozen ponies in the room another search, my mood sobered as I accepted Dream Sign had not come. She’d said she wouldn’t during our Stable’s celebration because watching me leave right after her goodbye would have been too much for her to bear, but I still wished a little selfishly that she had come anyway so I could have one last friendly moment with her before I left.

“Everypony!” the Overmare shouted above everypony’s conversations. “It’s time!”

My parents swept me into another quick hug, but my excitement at getting to see the outside overrode my sense of politeness and I wiggled out of my parents’ grip, pushing through other ponies to congregate with my Scout team. Everypony’s non-Scout family and friends were shepherded out of the room, and we all waved and shouted disparate goodbyes as the door deeper into the Stable was closing. A dozen voices shouted out a final “I love you” before the door shut, and only the Venturers, an Overmare, and a couple other staffers were left.

Turning around to face the Overmare, I took several deep breaths in futility to calm myself, taking note of the tension in the air from everypony else. I was feeling anxious about what was to come, and going by the other ponies’ vibes, they felt the same. I tugged at the collar of my jumpsuit.

The Overmare seemed to detect the mood, and her eyes crinkled as she smiled. “I was going to speak, but I suppose it would only agitate your nerves further.” She motioned for everypony to ascend the metal stairs before her, and I fell into single-file up and along a catwalk to another, open door, the Overmare following behind at the end.

We entered a room I’d been inside only a few times before: The Stable Entrance. When I was young, I had tried to get past the guards to see it, and it had taken me months of asking every single day before they eventually rolled their eyes and let me in to get close to it. I had sat right in front of it for hours, staring at it and wondering what was out there. Ponies told stories, and I always had books that told me what it looked like, but nopony was sure.

“Lanai, Blue Chip... Open the Stable door.”

I looked back to see the Overmare’s advisors nodding, and beeps echoed through the room as they keyed in instructions for the entrance’s mechanisms. I fidgeted, resisting an urge to hop in place. So many years, and I could hardly believe it was finally time!

A resounding clunk sent a tremor through the Stable floor, shaking me to my core. “Whoa,” I exhaled in surprise along with some other ponies as the walls shuddered.

A rectangular device connected to the ceiling lurched forward, hydraulics swinging the arm toward the gear-toothed blast door. A cylinder at the end entered into a circular hole perforated within the steel and hissed as air escaped from the connector with a puff of steam. Several more grating metallic rumbles boomed through the room as thick bolts retracted from the door locks, and slowly, the arm retracted, pulling the door with it. The device halted, then disconnected, allowing the door to roll to the side along several grooves in the floor.

We bunched up, trying to catch a glimpse of outside. My disappointed groan mixed with several others’ as the gaping hole only revealed another steel-gray passage with metal stairs leading up.

“This is where we leave you,” the Overmare declared. “May the best of luck and fortune guide your travels.”

Despite my tingling nerves, I maintained what solemnity I could as everypony filed through the door. I walked several feet sandwiched between two Venturers, passing another terminal which everypony had been taught was the way to re-enter the Stable, and began ascending the steps like part of a long, disjointed caterpillar.

The stairs led upward for at least a minute before leveling out, but I quickly forgot about my burning thighs when walls faded into rock and gray floor gave way to gray, rough stone. The cavernous entrance began to widen, allowing three, then five ponies to walk side-by-side. The outside, the outdoors! Everypony was soon all galloping toward the cave’s mouth, dozens of hooves pounding against the uneven ground, only staying upright from being squeezed on all sides by everypony else until we all burst into open space and the light of the outdoors shone down upon us.

I leapt out, no longer hemmed in by cavern walls or other ponies, before slipping and tumbling into a patch of wild grasses.

Free at last! The rock beneath my hooves had turned to dirt, so much softer than I’d expected. I shoved my face into the plant roots I fell in, inhaling their rich earthy scent and barely registering grass and saddlebag material bunching up underneath me, digging into my skin through my jumpsuit. I threw my forelegs out, thrusting them into the ground and turning up mulch that coated my hooves and sleeves with damp brown soil.

I felt my cheeks moisten with tears as I listened to a quiet breeze whistle past my ears and prickle my exposed coat hairs. It was so beautiful. It was all so beautiful!

I brought my hooves up close, examining the filth staining them. I heard myself start sobbing as it struck me like a hammer how real it was, that the books and holotapes and old ponies hadn’t been lying about there really being a larger world outside.

I struggled against my pack until I was able to roll onto my backside, staring up into the sky. Above me, framed by yellow leaves and green needles, was a bright expanse blanketed with gray, puffy clouds, a ceiling so much higher than I’d ever been under before. The sight made me feel dizzy, and I closed my eyes, trying to keep my head from swimming as intermittent gusts caressed wild grasses around me and occasional sounds from animals and other ponies reached my ears. The constant Stable hum was absent for the first time in my life. I could hear an airy chirp between trees far away. It must be a bird. It’s an honest-to-goodness, real life bird!

Despite it being early morning, I felt I could stay collapsed on the ground for the remainder of the day and just listen to and feel my surroundings, teardrops dripping from my face. The air was crisp, carrying sharp aromas I could never have conceived before that stung my nostrils. I turned to my side and opened my eyes again, craning my neck back toward where we’d exited the Stable. Even from only several feet away, it was difficult to see where the entrance was, embedded into the side of...

I looked up, unable to control my mouth as my jaw fell open. I lay on a hill stretching up, up, up into the distance until brown trunks standing as sentinels around my home obscured any further vision.

I couldn’t stop myself from bawling like a foal, so ecstatic I was. The outside world was more grand than I could have ever dreamed. I grabbed a hoofful of grasses I’d fallen into, identifying them as harmless needlegrass before giving into impulse and shoving them into my mouth. Joyful whines escaped my nose as the stringy taste of the fresh greens burned my taste buds, a biting contrast to any food I’d eaten in the Stable. I chewed them through my tears as best I could before swallowing them. I tore another bunch loose with my teeth and left them to sit on my tongue, laying my head back on the ground as I tried to stop myself from convulsing with every gasp.

My fur moved with the wind, chilled from the cool air’s touch. My ears pricked and swiveled, not to hear noises from animals or my Stablemates, but to take in the overpowering silence of the outdoors. No buzz from Stable lights. No muffled conversations bouncing off walls and leaking through doors. No rumbling from machinery or pipes. The only backdrop to the wilderness was sighs from trees as their leaves curled and danced with breezes. The whole of it, the void of sound and the saturation of sensation, felt like I’d traveled to another planet entirely.

After a few minutes I’d calmed myself down enough to spit the plants out my mouth and struggle back onto all fours, my body threatening to topple again with every shuddering breath I took.

“Hello world,” I whispered to the soil beneath me. I dabbed at my watery eyes as best I could while more drops fell from my cheek.

“Holly!” I looked up above me to see Piedmont, my Venture Scout group leader, hovering several feet in the sky, his white wings fanning me with cool gales. “We’re getting ready to head out. Come over here!”

I wiped away my tears and cleaned off what dirt still caked my face before trotting over to follow him back to where everypony else had gathered. Everypony from all three teams was at attention, and I lowered my head in embarrassment for delaying the proceedings.

“OK,” Piedmont said, “that’s everypony.”

“Great,” Bella Coola, from another group, replied. “We have our maps, so we’ll be seeing the rest of you in six weeks.”

Several yeahs and other affirmatives bounced off tree trunks around us. A couple conversations began among other groups as the six ponies making up ours huddled up.

“All right, so let’s check our route again before we head off,” Compass Rose began, bringing up her PipBuck and tapping in some inputs with a cream-colored hoof. “We’re first going through Tao and Ponyville, which means we’ll head due east of here. That’s heading left and downhill, parallel to the mountainside.”

“How long until we reach those places?” Bell Hop asked, shifting the enormous load on his back. Everypony was carrying packs bulging with supplies, but his was by far the biggest, carrying much more than just for himself. Of course, that was the point. Even though he wasn’t much older than me, a few years tops, he was a mountain of a stallion.

“Not sure about Ponyville,” Compass answered, “but if we start walking now then Tao is just a day away.”

“Sounds like a plan to me,” Piedmont said. “Let’s move.”

Everypony nodded, and Piedmont motioned Compass to lead the way as we began winding our way down the mountain. I looked back to try and burn the image of the underground passageway into my brain, but was unable to find the opening’s hiding place among plant life of the hillside obscuring it from view.

I let out a deep breath, turning my head back around. We have a map back here. We’ll find it again.

I shook my head to clear my thoughts. I have more important things than home to think about right now. Instead, I began keeping an eye out during our descent, identifying plants and wildlife in my head based on how well they matched my mental pictures of species from books and tapes. Each hoofstep was a joy, dirt and rocks shifting and crumbling beneath me as I trotted forward.

Everypony stayed quiet as we made our way down past an occasional fallen tree trunk and across many, many patches of grass and flowers. I didn’t know whether the silence was from awe about our surroundings or because everypony preferred to save their energy for hiking, but I was grateful I didn’t have to maintain a conversation in addition to the exertion I felt in my limbs.

After a few hours, the ground became hilly and the trees thinned, and I was able to see down to the base of the mountain we were hiking down. The land opened up into a vast expanse reaching out southward, faraway trees blurring together to form dark green forests and woodlands. The immense, clouded sky and outstretched land made me woozy, and I had to duck my head down, keeping my eyes on Derringer’s moving orange hooves in front of me as he trotted past growths of weeds and plants.

“Okay, let’s take a quick rest here,” Piedmont said as my group came to a short, rocky cliff showing a breathtaking vista of Equestria beyond.

I sat down, taking a long drink from my water straw poking out of a flap of my saddlebags. The Venture Scout teams couldn’t carry all the water needed for six weeks, but everypony had portable water purifiers, and in addition to our canteens one side of our saddlebags was made up of a huge bag of water. The paths between locations of interest took us past several lakes and water spots to refresh our stores. Even then, I tried not to gulp down too much so I could save some before my group reached the first real checkpoint. I squinted over the cliffside to see if our south-bound Venture Scout team was visible from our vantage point, but the only colors I could make out were the brown ground and the colorful spectrum of leaves decorating the trees.

“All right, that’s five minutes,” Derringer said. I groaned. Venture guidelines said breaks should last less than five minutes or more than thirty, but five-minute ones were always the worst to bear in training, and it seemed no different outside. Piedmont double-checked the area to make sure nopony had forgotten anything, and my team began moving again.

It was midday by then, and even though the sky was blanketed with clouds as far as the eye could see, I could feel sweat beginning to drip down my forehead and around my horn, slicking my mane down around my face. I snuck quick looks at the rest of my team, but they seemed just fine, even Bell despite his cumbersome pack.

I exhaled hard through my nostrils. At least my stuff’s going to get lighter over time. I had narrowly passed the physicals necessary to be a Venture Scout; those, and shooting, were the only things Carol consistently outperformed me on in tests.

Carol. I was disappointed she hadn’t even said goodbye before Stable 32’s teams split up, but then again, I hadn’t made it a priority to find her after I was outside either. Six weeks, I kept thinking to myself, keeping my pace matched to my group’s as best I could. Six weeks, not forever.

After another hour or two, my group broke for lunch underneath a pocket of the tree groves peppering the landscape. I shrugged off my saddlebags under a tree a small distance from everypony else, careful not to let my belongings tumble away from me, and took out a bulky, well-wrapped sandwich. It was going to be my last reminder of my parents I’d have in a while.

“Can I join you?”

Startled, I glanced up to see Compass Rose smiling at me. I hadn’t expected a lunch partner, especially somepony who was eight years my senior, but I couldn’t help but feel a thankful throb of relief somepony had saved me from having to eat away from my group.

“Of course,” I said, sitting down.

“Thanks.” Compass was an upbeat pony from my Stable, which was as clear in the spark of her bright blue eyes as it was in her enthusiasm in her Venture Scout work. Her extroversion had intimidated me too much to approach her before, so I was never able to call her a real friend, but she’d never been unkind to me.

Compass flopped down beside me and began digging into her own bags. I returned my attention to my sandwich, too hungry to start a conversation before I’d finished eating first.

We both ate our chosen meals in silence for a couple minutes until Compass finished hers and spoke up. “So, what do you think about Equestria? It’s been really pretty so far, huh?”

I swallowed my bite of food. “It’s better than I could have ever imagined.”

Compass Rose giggled. “I’ll bet. You’ve always been excited about what it was like out here, haven’t you?”

“I can’t wait until I meet ponies who’ve lived out here all their lives. They must have so many amazing stories to tell about Equestria.” I took another bite.

Compass nodded, looking toward at the other ponies in our group wrapping up their meals a ways away. “It’s definitely much better than what I had been expecting. I think most ponies thought Equestria was going to be, you know... there wouldn’t be anything left.”

Not wanting to prolong the line of conversation, I crammed the last bit of my sandwich into my mouth instead.

“But seeing all this makes it hard to understand why everypony had to hide from some war,” Compass continued. “It makes me feel honored to be a Venture Scout, because I get to lead everyone out here to wherever is the best place for us, you know?”

“Yeah,” I said, not sure what else I could add.

Compass fell silent, and I sat with her for a few moments until Piedmont got up and trotted over. “Hey, Compass, Holly. You two finished?”

“Yes,” I replied.

“Great. We’re all done too, and it’s been thirty minutes, so we’re preparing to head out. The maps tell us we should be coming across some larger creeks and rivers soon, and that’s where we’ll restock on water and check our progress.”

“That’s correct,” Compass said beside me. “We can follow one of them east as far as it runs in that direction, and that’ll be where we stop for the night.”

“Sounds like a plan. Let’s go.”

Compass helped me up, and we broke camp, heading toward the horizon. My break had given me a chance to cool down, and having some food in my stomach didn’t hurt either.

We traveled twenty or so minutes until we came across a decent-sized stream. Compass explained there were others further east, so everypony continued on until we came across a river flowing in a direction Compass said was right.

“Hey Holly,” Piedmont said, approaching me as I refilled my water bag.

“Um, hi,” I answered, flicking open a pocket on my belt to remove my purifier. Even if my PipBuck hadn’t detected any contamination in the water—or any contamination at all yet, come to think of it—it was still a bad idea to drink anything untreated.

“How are you holding up?”

I blinked. “Fine. I’m fine.”

Piedmont nodded. “That’s good. I was just checking up on everypony.”

“Well, thanks then.”

He smiled. I smiled back. He walked away, toward Cap White.

I feel bad for them. Their white coats are going to get dirty really quickly. I returned my attention to my pack, activating my purifier and sticking it in the refilled water bag to let it do its magic.

Piedmont was only a couple years older than me, far younger than Cap or Derringer, but despite being so young in comparison to some teammates his take-charge attitude and friendly demeanor reflected his leadership ability. I mostly knew Piedmont from him working alongside my sister as a Head Venturer. I hoped he wasn’t too disappointed he got me instead of Carol.

Piedmont’s claims to fame were that he was one of only a couple pegasi in our entire Stable and he was capable of making what he called a “wingshot,” which entailed him pulling his pistol from his holster and shooting with only his wing. He needed S.A.T.S. to help him pull it off, but everypony still said it was an impressive feat.

My mind drifted to my .38 tucked tightly in a holster on my supply belt. I hoped I’d never have to use it. At least I know some spells I could cast for defense before I’d have to consider using my gun.

Our journey followed the river as it narrowed into a wide creek with banks still close enough to jump, and it took a couple more hours east until a new landmark began to creep up over the horizon: Two tall hills, with what appeared to be ponymade structures built on top. Chirps from several of our PipBucks alerted me to where we were: Smokey Mountain Valley.

“Let’s make that valley our stopping place for supper,” Piedmont said as we walked, sunlight behind the clouds starting to dim. “We can see if anypony’s living there, and if so, get some information about the best way east for water and other inhabited areas.”

Nopony objected, and the hills grew closer and closer until my group was right in between them.

“All right, let’s think this through,” Piedmont said, wiping his brow. “Which first?”

“We could split up into two groups of three and investigate each house separately,” Bell Hop suggested.

Piedmont shook his head, sweat droplets flying from his gray mane. “We’re not supposed to split the team unless it’s absolutely necessary.”

“Still, all six of us trying to climb both peaks might be more work than is needed,” Cap White pointed out. “Perhaps some should stay down here while the others climb up, and then they can shout down whether we should come up with them?”

“Hmm...” Piedmont scratched his chin. “Maybe you’re right. Who wants to make the climb?”

Compass Rose and Derringer both raised a hoof.

“Well, that was easy. Compass, Derringer, you can come with me. Holly, Bell, Cap, you can stay down here and we’ll yell if we find something.”

Everypony nodded, and after some deliberation half our team began their climb up the southern hill, leaving their heaviest bags with us.

Cap White and Bell Hop both sat down, but something about the valley didn’t sit right with me, and I began looking around, trying to think of what was bugging me so much.

“I hope Piedmont knows what he’s doing,” Bell Hop said behind me.

A female hmph was the reply behind me as I leaned in closer to examine some small flowers of what I believed was festuca rubra; not poisonous, but from what I’d read, not tasty. “Piedmont may be somewhat presumptuous and perhaps egotistical at times, but he’s Head Venturer for a reason. If he doesn’t know what he’s doing, none of us would do any better in his place.”

“I wasn’t questioning his leadership,” Bell Hop mumbled, “but these two buildings here, on top of separate hills... I’m not quite sure what it is about this place, but it makes my fur stand on end.”

I was about to voice my agreement when a disturbed patch of the fescues I’d been looking at caught my eye. I began moving deeper into some reeds.

Cap’s weathered alto pierced the air. “Holly? Where are you going?”

“Just looking at something,” I called back, wading through broken, trampled-down reeds. “There’s some sort of, um, tamped-down section cut through the grass here. Like something big crashed through it.”

“Something big like what?”

“I don’t know.” I followed the path toward the other house and out the grass patch to find several tracks going down to and across the river. “It’s probably bigger than a pony, though. Looks like an animal.”

Cap and Bell came over to examine the scene: large paws, at least half a foot in length, had impacted the wet dirt, leaving prints heading through the river water and toward the other house on the hill.

“Is it a dog?” Bell Hop asked.

“They’re a lot larger than what the books said paw sizes from a dog should be,” I said. “I’d almost want to say it’s a Diamond Dog, but the tracks are all the same size, so I think they were left by something quadrupedal.”

Cap shook her head. “Then what made them?”

I grimaced. “I don’t know.” I knew some animals had prints that big, but they were rare and exotic, and weren’t native to Equestria. They don’t look old... and they’re deep, so whatever left them was moving pretty quickly.

It then struck me what had seemed off; despite traveling through an area with plenty of birdsong to get to the valley, the only noises around the plentiful plant life near the river were from babbling water. Feeling chills creep up my spine, I checked my PipBuck to see if my radiation detector measured anything, but it was as firmly in the green slice of the rainbow-colored dial as it always was.

“Heeeeeeey!” a cry came from the other house. I turned around and looked up to see half of our team waving down from up on the hilltop. Piedmont spread his wings and jumped, gliding down to us while the other two ponies began descending on hoof.

The Scout leader came in for a landing next to us, bouncing on his hooves as he touched down. “Whew! I don’t think I’m going to get used to the rush that gives me for a while.”

“Well?” Bell Hop asked.

Piedmont nosed his way underneath the strap of his saddlebags he’d left behind before standing and turning toward us. “The place seemed to be some kind of farmstead at one point, but it’s completely destroyed now, and anypony who might have lived there is long gone, except for a few skeletons here and there. Looked like somepony smashed the crap out of the place with a bat, honestly.”

The other two Stableponies had made it down the hill by then, and rejoined the group. Piedmont continued. “We couldn’t find much of anything other than some rotted piles of wood. The houses themselves are the only things left standing, and a feather could knock them down.”

“So, now what?” asked Compass as she breathed heavily. “The other hill?”

“Actually, Holly found something interesting concerning that,” Cap said, looking at me.

“I did?” I looked down to see the tracks I’d stumbled upon. “Oh, yes. The tracks here are from a pretty big animal, and they lead toward the other side of the valley.”

“Oh?” Piedmont bent down, examining the pawprints embedded in the dirt. “It does look pretty big. Derringer, do you mind going up there?”

“Sure, I can do it,” Derringer said, “but if feral animals are a concern, I’d rather have Cap stay here because she’s the only one of us without a decent weapon.”

“That’s fine. Derringer, you can go with Bell and Holly, if that’s okay with both of you.”

We both nodded our consent and shrugged off our packs. Left with nothing but my Stable 32 jumpsuit and supply belt, we hopped the creek and began hiking up the other steep hill that made up Smokey Mountain Valley.

“So, a big animal, yeah?” Derringer said as my team made its way upward, flanked on the valley side by rocky outcroppings. “Whatever it is, if it wants to mess with us it’ll have to take a round to the gut first.” I smiled nervously at him, knowing he was trying to reassure us, but only having a couple companions heightened my trepidation no matter how well-prepared he was. I glanced over at the other hill, and it struck me how the slope my group was climbing was utterly barren of trees—only rocks, lichen, and grasses peppered the path.

We reached the top in a minute to face a thick wooden wall. The building was almost like a fort, with trunks lined up side-to-side to form a massive bulwark standing atop the hill in a rectangle. Now I know where all the trees went. The gate had fallen down, and a quick look at the doors resting on the ground made obvious they’d been held up by metal hinges which had rusted until gravity had ripped them free.

A thick, wet stench invaded my nose, and I saw the two ponies with me bristle as it washed over us.

“Keep an eye on your E.F.S.,” Derringer muttered. It took me a moment to realize I hadn’t had it on. We’d only been allowed to use it in Venture Scout tests before, but it wasn’t a test anymore.

I tapped through some screens on my PipBuck, and my vision sparkled as yellow outlines enshrouded Bell Hop and Derringer, signifying them as friendlies. The latter pony adjusted his rifle slung across his back before creeping inside the gates, leading Bell and me through.

The courtyard was littered with rotted wood and rust, contraptions and constructs lying in various piles in seemingly random places. Their original purposes were indecipherable.

“Let’s try in there,” Derringer said, pointing toward a large dilapidated shed built into a side of the fort’s walls.

“How come no walls have fallen out yet?” I asked. “I mean, considering all the smaller structures, or whatever they are, are so rotted out.”

“It’s probably earth pony construction,” Bell Hop said. “If we want something to stay standing, it’ll stay standing. They must not have put the same care into this stuff that’s scattered around.”

Derringer waved us to be quiet, and he entered the shed, Bell and I right behind.

The pungent smell got stronger, and I fought the urge to gag. The small building appeared to be a storage room of some kind. The floor was littered with unrecognizable rust piles, but some wood in better shape lay in stacks around the cramped walls.

Bell Hop trotted over and whacked a heap of it with his hoof. “The logs on top seem pretty dry. We could carry them down and use them for firewood, and it would save us time cutting down a tree on the other hill.”

Derringer nodded. “Good idea. Let’s keep looking for anything else useful.” I nodded and began poking through the shed’s remains as Bell and Derringer staked out other areas to search in the room.

Running a hoof along the wall, I stopped near the corner when something small and yellow caught my eye. Digging into the ground, I tugged on it with a magical pull until it came free from the uneven soil.

I tilted my head. It was a tooth.

Glancing back down where I’d found it, I noticed something else smooth and off-white peeking out of some brown dirt. Hoofing around the area a bit, I eventually got my hoof’s nail under it and pried it free from the earth.

I was much less thrilled to find what looked like part of a jawbone, splintered halfway toward where the joint met the cheek.

“Um, guys?” I said, holding up the skull piece.

Both Bell and Derringer stopped to stare at it. “That’s... not very comforting,” Bell Hop said after a second.

“It looks pretty old,” Derringer mumbled. “Whoever it was, they probably died a long time ago.”

We stood around for a moment until Bell Hop’s ears perked. “Hey, do you hear that?”

A couple sharp thuds against the ground and a blazing-fast red outline were all that prepared me before an enormous creature shot into the shed and tackled Bell Hop to the ground.

Bell screamed, his forelegs flailing as the furry beast gnashed two sets of teeth at his face from two different heads. “Get it off! Get it off!” I stayed pressed against the wall, frozen in terror.

Derringer vaulted forward, kicking one of the thing’s heads sideways into the other. The creature recoiled, but didn’t roll off Bell, and shoved a head into Derringer’s chest, knocking him back as the other head continued trying to take a bite out of Bell Hop.

The sound of a firecracker rippled through the air, making my ears ring as the monstrous being flipped to the side and fell limp.

I shot out of the shed as fast as I could, with Derringer and Bell Hop hot on my tail. I slowed to a stop within the courtyard, my entire body heaving with ragged breaths.

“What... was that?” Bell choked out, looking at me.

“U-um... an Orthros, I think?” My head was spinning, numb with confusion and adrenaline. The pawprints... I should have figured it out, but they aren’t even native to Equestria, so how did it end up here?! “They’re two-headed doglike creatures. It must have been what made the tracks.”

Bell shook his head, gasping. I was too, shock from the assault still furiously dancing along my nerves.

“Well, whatever that abomination was, it’s dead now,” Derringer said as he replaced his rifle on his back, his tone smug despite his panting. “Easiest shot I’ve ever made. Bam! Right between its eyes.”

A chill went down my spine. “Between the eyes?”

“Yeah.” Derringer blinked, glancing toward me. “I didn’t go for its center of mass because I might have risked hitting Bell.”

“But Orthros have two br–”

That was all I got out before a growling, furry mass barreled into Derringer, knocking him into Bell Hop and sending them all sprawling.

I shrieked in fear, scrabbling back as the Orthros leapt to its feet, directly between me and the gaping gate. Its left head hung limply against its chest as a bloody hole gushed thick red guck down its nose and onto the ground.

“Help!” I shouted, unable to think of anything else I could do. “Piedmont! Compass! Help!”

The dog-beast ignored me, springing with its jaws open wide toward Derringer who was still struggling to stand upright. Derringer threw his hooves outward, flattening himself against the ground as it sailed over him, and scrambled away as the Orthros tumbled onto its stomach. Pivoting on its front legs and spattering a wide splash of blood across the ground, the still-living head roared and rushed forward again. Derringer had nowhere to run, raising a forelimb in defense and turning his head away.

Another gunshot sliced the air open as the animal curled up mid-flight, smacking into Derringer and rolling off him into the fort’s walls. I flinched and looked over to Bell Hop, a wisp of smoke trailing from his own gun in his mouth as he ran toward Derringer.

A deep bark resounded from the Orthros’ throat, and it propelled itself from off the bulwarks into a running charge. Bell Hop dug his heels in and stumbled, flipping forward and slamming his chin into the ground as his gun in his mouth slipped out and bounced several feet away.

The Orthros took a mighty bound toward Derringer, still stunned from a creature twice his mass slamming into him. He’s not going to react in time! My fur prickled and my blood ran cold, roaring through me in terror as it compelled me to do something. My horn flared with magic and wrenched my revolver free from my holster.

A couple loud cracks came from above me, and the dog-beast plowed into the ground, its legs crumpling beneath it. It started to writhe and thrash in the dirt, growling and barking with every jerk.

I looked up to see Piedmont, his own pistol hanging from his mouth as he hovered in the air.

Bell Hop lunged the rest of the way toward Derringer, grasping his hoof and pulling him to his feet as the Orthros continued to convulse. Derringer only took a moment to wipe blood from a large cut below his ear away from his eyes before aiming his rifle and shooting the head that was still moving.

The animal slumped, and its growling stopped. As multiple bullet wounds continued streaming from its hide, E.F.S.’s red outline around it faded away.

The courtyard was quiet for a couple moments as Piedmont flew down. Compass’s voice rang out from beyond the fort entrance. “Bell! Holly! We heard gunshots! Piedmont! Is everything alright?!”

“Yeah!” Piedmont yelled back. “There was a wild animal attacking them, but it’s dead now!”

Compass Rose and Cap White soon became visible as they crested the hilltop, and they galloped inside the fort, slowing to a halt beside me as my group surrounded the now motionless creature.

“That’s one big, smelly dog,” Cap White muttered, before looking up at Derringer. “You’re bleeding. Here, let me give you something for it.”

Derringer tried to wave her away from his wound, but acquiesced as she pulled disinfectant from her supply belt. Bell Hop’s eyes were darting everywhere, no doubt making sure any possible friends of what we’d just put down didn’t get the jump on him. I myself kept checking my PipBuck every ten or so seconds to be certain I hadn’t accidentally shut my E.F.S. off.

“You were taking a while, and when we heard the second gunshot we got up here as fast as we could,” Piedmont explained. “Thank goodness nopony was hurt too badly.”

“Yeah, it really caught us by surprise,” Derringer said, grunting at Cap’s ministrations. “If you hadn’t gotten here when you did, it might have been a lot worse.”

For a split second, his eyes flicked to me. My face burned with shame. I’m so sorry…

“Honestly, you’re lucky you were able to handle it at all,” Cap said as she applied a bandage to the side of Derringer’s head. “A hundred years of Venture Scout training wouldn’t have prepared you for this kind of encounter. You are very fortunate.”

Looking closer at the Orthros, I grimaced as I realized why it had been so vicious in attacking us. Its ribs were threatening to split its torso open, and its fur was patchy and thin all over. I shuddered to imagine how much worse it could have been if it had succeeded in taking a bite out of us.

“We could probably set up camp right outside the walls here,” Piedmont said after a few uncomfortably quiet moments. “It’s elevated ground, and we can use the wood scattered around here for a fire without having to cut anything down.”

“And if something else attacks us?” Bell Hop asked, still looking all around him.

Piedmont sighed. “If there’s something else out there, it’s better to have a wall at our backs than be caught in an open field, and if they’re really dedicated to singling us out, then there’s no place nearby we can go where we’d be any better off defending ourselves.”

Bell let out a quiet whimper before nodding. I could empathize. Even though what Piedmont was saying made sense, part of me was still screaming to run away from the fort as fast as I could and not look back until it was no longer visible.

Derringer cleared his throat. “We... We found some decent wood in the shed over there. It would be good for a warm fire.” It took a second for me to register it was growing dark and the air chilled me a bit more than it had been whenever it stirred.

Compass Rose nodded. “Let’s carry it outside the walls then.”

Feeling grateful I wouldn’t have to share our camp with the terrible stench of blood and death permeating the courtyard, I returned to the shed with Bell Hop and grabbed several logs—he with his hooves, I with my magic—and we toted them outside the fort. Soon a small fire was burning some distance away from the open entrance, and Bell Hop was passing out the first round of several dozen 6-in-1 food parcels he had in his pack. My team all had MREs in their own supplies, as did I, but our strategy was to unburden Bell Hop first so he’d be able to carry more without becoming too encumbered in case somepony came across anything we needed.

Compass sat down next to me against the outside bulwarks as I opened the bag I’d received from Bell saying it contained components of a rice and bean burrito with some fruit as a side. I glanced over at my new dinner companion before returning my attention to my meal.

“Hey, Holly.”

“...Hi.” I took my ration heater and slid my package of burrito filling inside. “I’m sorry.”

I heard Compass Rose sigh beside me. “Nopony could have expected such a huge and strange animal to appear, much less have been ready to fight it. Nopony can blame you for being scared.”

I stayed silent as I poured water into the heater from my canteen, flipping the top of the bag down and inserting it back into the cardboard box to keep the heater closed off while it reacted with the water to heat up my food inside. I propped it up on a nearby rock, and let it sit.

“Your skills are in knowing what animals and plants are out there, not fighting them,” she continued.

I couldn’t help but huff in disagreement. “I should have been faster. Most of the time I was frozen in fear watching as the Orthros attacked them... I could have at least tried to shoot at it, or cast a flare spell or something. I didn’t even think to call for help at first...”

“Hey...” a gentle hoof wrapped around my shoulders. I turned to look in Compass’ blue eyes. “It’s OK. All that matters is everypony’s safe, and in the future we shouldn’t split the team up the way we did.”

“But...” I trailed off, breaking eye contact to check my ration heater’s progress even though I knew it wouldn’t be done for several more minutes.

“Holly, sometimes ponies make mistakes.”

And I made a pretty big one, I thought to myself. I could only hope Derringer and Bell Hop, and Piedmont, wouldn’t hold a grudge against me after a night’s sleep.

We sat in silence, Compass’s hoof still around my shoulder, as I listened to the fire’s crackle and the conversation around it between the stallions in the group. Derringer’s gruff voice cut through the deepening evening, giving Piedmont a detailed account of our experience occasionally interrupted by sentences from Bell Hop.

I opened up my fruit pouch, thanking harmony in my head for magical preservation. As far as I knew, the Scootaloo pony was right about Stable 32 being closed for eighty years, so what I was eating was almost four times older than I was. Lifting my kit’s plastic fork with telekinesis, I picked out all the small red cherries, starting on them first.

Compass Rose giggled beside me, but I didn’t take offense. The temptation to taste the difference between apples grown in Stable 32 and the fruits in my packaged meal overrode my patience. So far, the tiny red spheres were so much sweeter and more sugary than anything I’d ever eaten before.

“You know, I’m glad I’m traveling with you.”

I blinked in surprise, swallowing. “Really?”

“Yes,” Compass said as she ripped open a peanut butter tube with her own blue magical aura. “I was worried I’d have to travel with Apex. He might know a lot about Equestrian flora and fauna, but his ego is far too large for even his big head to contain.” Compass squeezed her peanut butter tube with her magic and lapped up a dollop.

I privately agreed with her on Apex, but offered no comment.

“I like you because you want to learn, Holly,” Compass explained. “You’ve always soaked up information about Equestria like a sponge. You never had to read textbooks in class because you’d already memorized them all as a filly. You have a special kind of love for Equestria, and I can identify with it, you know?”

I nodded in understanding, surprised she had given me more than a glance in the Scouts. I’d always assumed ponies paid more attention to my sister than they did to me since she was older and harder-working.

Compass bit her lip, staring down at her makeshift appetizer. “I know they didn’t give us much explanation why some were chosen and others weren’t, but I’m sure I only barely made it on the teams. I had to struggle through a lot of tests and I scraped by with a lot of narrow passes. But being in the Venture Scouts means I get to do what I’ve wanted to do since I was a filly: Explore Equestria.” Compass looked back at me, and grinned. “You remind me why I joined the Scouts in the first place. You’re an inspiration, Holly, even if you don’t think you are.”

An embarrassed smile came over my own face. “Thank you...” I returned to my meal, my spirits lifted.

I let out a yawn, staring at the flickering flames several feet away as tendrils of warmth brushed against me. At the fringe of my vision, I saw Derringer gesticulate as he narrated how the Orthros had barreled down on him outside the shed. I almost laughed, my shame and fear I’d felt roiling inside me minutes ago now only a whisper. Of course they’d forgive me. Ponies make mistakes, and the wild animal that happened to attack us was a freak occurrence. After a good night’s rest, we’d set off tomorrow as if it had never happened, with the added benefit of being a little wiser about not dividing the group.

Tomorrow. I blinked, glancing toward the fire again before removing my main course from my ration heater, the package’s surface hot in my hooves. Tomorrow, we’ll reach the first place in our journey.

Tomorrow, we’ll reach Tao.

Let me know if this is at all interesting. It's been so long since I've read through this I've forgotten how badly it's written.

Someone left a like, so I guess at least one person in the world is interested in reading it. Here's another chapter!

It was late afternoon when the houses and buildings of our destination became visible, and before we even entered the village I felt something was wrong.

As we’d traveled farther out from the valley, the plants and wildlife that had populated the countryside had steadily grown sparser and hardier, until only and occasional tree and shocks of grass or lichen populated the rocks and hills on our path. Only the tallest of the Smokey Mountains were still visible behind us, where the cloud cover severed their peaks from view. Our PipBucks buzzed, and I brought my right hoof up to read the name of where I already knew we were:

Tao

Despite it being the first stop in our tour of Equestria, there was a very subdued atmosphere among us as, even from a couple of miles away, we saw the decrepit state of the place. Approaching closer, we came to a broken stone road that meandered between several dozen homes, each leaning one way or another, some only supported by another house. Most roofs had caved in at some time in the past and had left swollen and exposed wooden struts sticking out from crumbling walls, rubble spilling out onto the ground below them. Only a few buildings appeared stable enough to enter or explore safely.

But that wasn’t what we were somber about. Now that we were in the village proper, we could see many skeletons sprawled out around Tao. On the road, on porches, in the dirt—they were everywhere. Inside nearly every single one of them there seemed to be tan mushrooms growing from within, crowding around ribcages, pelvis bones, and what I realized were wing bones. Other patches of the same fungus peppered the ground throughout the village.

“What happened here...?” Piedmont mumbled as my team walked down the road, passing silent homestead after silent homestead.

“Hey, Holly,” Compass Rose said, “do you know what this stuff is that’s growing from all these bodies?”

My group stopped so I could examine one of the skeletons. I had to take a moment to quell my unease, but the mushrooms, flat-topped, smooth, and light golden brown, didn’t look familiar to any species I’d read about. I sniffed one. It was a mild and sweet aroma, but it didn’t help me identify it any.

I scooped a bit of the soil away from the base of one of the larger shoots with my magic to see if it had a cup before shaking my head and standing upright again. “I can’t tell what it is just from looking at it. Still, it’s probably best not to wander through them.”

We continued to the center of the place, but there were no signs that anypony else was here.

Disappointment twinged in my chest. Even though we’d known Tao was a very small settlement, it still hurt to discover the entire place abandoned. We’d have to continue on to Ponyville to have another chance at finding ponies who’d lived aboveground.

“Hey, what’s that place supposed to be?” Bell Hop asked, pointing off to the side.

Everypony looked over to see a very out-of-place building. It stood two stories tall, was built from concrete, and while it provided support for several leaning homesteads, seemed to stand on its own. Faded but discernable splashes of yellow and pink adorned the outer walls behind a coat of dust and age. More mushrooms crowded around it.

“Let’s go inside,” Cap White suggested. “It looks deliberately constructed to stand out, so if anypony left an idea of whether or not there were survivors, it would most likely be there.”

“All right, but keep your weapons ready,” Derringer said, his own hoof reaching for the rifle strapped to his back. “If another nasty animal is living in there, it’s going to know the layout far better than we do.”

Warning in mind, I hung back a bit as everypony approached the building’s dark, yawning entrance. Like the fort we’d been at yesterday, its door lay on the ground, hinges dissolved away by time and oxygen. Piedmont activated the lamp function on his PipBuck, and everypony else followed suit, bathing the ground in front of us in light. Taking a deep breath, I fell in line behind Cap and in front of Compass as we entered single-file.

The doorway opened up into a small, empty room. The area was barren of decor aside from a counter and door across from us, a threadbare carpet that was more hard surface than fabric, and walls bloated and warped from what must have been some sort of structural damage. The windows were so caked with dust that they let no more light into the building than the walls did. Two dark ceiling lights dangled from screws that looked like they were made more of rust than metal; the only light other than from our PipBucks came from the door to the outside.

“There’s a terminal behind the counter there,” I said as I pointed to a small computer box beside the desk.

Piedmont hopped over the counter, tapping some keys on the keyboard before shaking his head. “It’s password-protected.”

“Should we head through the door?” Bell Hop asked, gesturing at the door beside the counter.

Piedmont nodded, walking around and opening it from his side, and we began scouting the corridor, sweeping our PipBuck lamps over room after room of peeling wallpaper and decaying, empty cabinets. Not a single one of the rooms contained anything in them that wasn’t built into the walls; everywhere we looked was devoid of furnishings. Upon closer examination, there were marks on the tile or carpet where some things had likely once been placed, but were now gone.

The fur on the back of my neck stiffened. I hope we find what we’re looking for soon and get out of here. This place gives me the creeps.

“Wonder what this place was built for...” Piedmont muttered ahead of me. “It looks to me like somepony came through and took everything that wasn’t nailed down.”

“It does,” Cap White said.

We eventually came to a stairwell at the end of the hallway leading down into the darkness. “Should we go down?” Piedmont asked.

“Do we have a choice, if we want to find out what happened to this place?” Derringer answered.

That’s assuming we want to find out what happened to this place anymore, I thought, but I didn’t say anything. We descended into the building’s lower levels, and soon the only light we had to see by came from our PipBucks.

The bottom of the stairwell featured a door reading “SUPPLIES” standing ajar. Piedmont pushed it all the way open and gestured us inside.

We trotted in and realized where everything in the building had disappeared to.

Mountains of various objects had been piled to the ceiling, boxes and clothes and chairs and cots and metallic surfaces and mechanical parts and more that formed a makeshift barrier between us and whatever lay deeper inside the storeroom. I didn’t even know where I would start if I were to try to look through any of it.

“I think I see a glow from something further in,” Piedmont said, stretching himself up to survey the room. “Let’s investigate.”

Making our way between the precarious towers of metal and cloth was slow going, since Bell Hop’s saddlebags were too bulky to allow him to squeeze past certain piles of junk. I glanced through the contents of the trash as my group crawled along, levitating up a yellowed notepad. Tao Clinic was spelled out at the top, and an insignia of three butterflies decorated the upper-right corner.

Further examining the contents of the makeshift hill I’d found myself next to, I caught sight of a box labeled “FIREWORKS” trapped in the middle of the stack. I stood up on my hindlegs to look inside, and smiled, grabbing a few small cylindrical objects wrapped in bright, colorful packaging with fuses sticking out of them.

“What are you doing, Holly?” Compass Rose asked, trotting up beside me.

Clopping back to the ground, I grinned, flashing my discovery. “They’re fireworks.”

Compass’s eyes shone. “Ooh, like the ones the Overmare set off at the Venture Scout celebration!”

I nodded, putting one in a clear space on the floor before lighting it with a spark of magic. It was tiny, so I expected it to be unimpressive in comparison to the Overmare’s, but the idea was too tantalizing to resist. It ignited, fizzling with red and green specks of fire that generated a dazzling fountain of light and heat.

The other Venture Scouts turned to it, and one or two of them said something, but I didn’t listen too closely, entranced as I was at the points of light dancing and then drifting to the floor.

A deafening shriek pierced my eardrums, and everypony yelped in surprise and pain, covering our ears and staggering back. The guilty firework sprayed out a few more spurts of flame before sputtering out and dying.

“OK,” Piedmont admonished, “no more fireworks, at least not in here.” Face burning, I nodded, quickly slipping the others I’d taken into my saddlebags.

We made a couple more improvised routes through the junk to find what had been glowing: A massive mechanical construction with various fixtures that radiated light. In the center of the machine was a large bowl, with a broken screen built into the metal behind it.

Beyond it was a terminal placed in what looked like the center of the room. Piedmont made a beeline for it, tapping a few keys and pumping a hoof. “It’s unlocked! Maybe it’ll have some information on what this building’s for, at least.”

“Great,” Derringer said, scanning the piles, his rifle at the ready. “What’s on it?”

“I found some sort of log left here by someone,” Piedmont replied. “It looks like they could have been an employee or something.”

I moved so I could better see the screen as everypony bunched up around Piedmont. It glowed a cool green, and the letters MoP were displayed in the upper-right corner. He clicked through a few options, and a paragraph typed itself up on the screen:

[21/11/41]

I’ve had to relocate down here. I can’t allow the village ponies to wander around in the clinic, else they might discover the magical contaminant detector and what it does. Erlen went with the group that decided to travel to Sunpoint a week ago and they never returned, so I’m the only clinic employee left here. I’m probably going to go mad before long without anyone to confide in.

Even though it’s been a month since all those bright flashes from what must have been megaspells lighting up the horizon stopped, I’m even more scared now than I was then. At least death by balefire would be quick. If the village ponies find out I’m really not some kind of guru who can tell them what food is edible... I’m afraid they might kill me. I really don’t know too much about these Tao ponies. When I signed up for this, I thought it would be easy... shows how much of a fool I was.

“Well,” Bell Hop mused, “at least now we know ponies lived here once.”

“That must be the contaminant detector, then,” Piedmont said, looking behind us at the large glowing contraption we’d climbed around to reach the terminal. “I’m surprised it’s still running. I’d have expected that kind of machinery to go kaput somewhere along the line.”

“It looks like it’s dated eighty years ago,” Compass added. “Those ponies outside must have been the villagers...” She trailed off.

After a second of silence, Piedmont brought his hooves back up to the terminal’s keyboard and cycled through the machine’s messages. He skimmed a few short entries before stopping at another informative one:

[09/12/41]

Finished moving everything I could from the ground floor down here. The tables, the medical stuff stocking the cabinets, everything. I can’t even let the village ponies use the cots for beds. I’ve come up with excuses, but I know that if I slip up even a moment, they’ll realize how I’ve been fooling them. Anything that keeps them away from the clinic.

Thankfully, for the moment, it seems like they trust me enough as a leader. I’m actually sort of proud of how well I’ve been doing. Everypony who has stayed in the village is still healthy, although we’re running out of safe food.

I can’t tell them anything. I can’t tell anypony. The only one I can tell is this terminal...

Piedmont scanned through the next several messages, but after reading sentence after sentence of whoever this pony was gradually growing dependent upon the terminal for companionship, I chose to look away.

A flash of movement entered the periphery of my vision, and I turned to lock eyes with a pair of green irises that immediately and noiselessly vanished among the piles of clinic materials.

I blinked as my heart skipped a beat. I checked my PipBuck, and with a bloodcurdling feeling of fear realized I hadn’t had my E.F.S. on, so I didn’t know whether it had been a friendly or dangerous presence... or whether or not it was a pony. It could have even been a trick of the light. Trying to swallow the lump of negligence in my throat, I turned E.F.S. on, looking out among the storeroom to catch a glimpse of a red or yellow outline.

“Oh, goodness,” Compass Rose breathed beside me. Returning my attention to the terminal, I saw that even Derringer was looking at the screen, his mouth open. Craning my neck, I read the entry that Piedmont had pulled up:

[15/5/42]

Hey Mopsy. A group of pegasi calling themselves Dashites came to Tao today, wearing some tattered combat outfits and carrying weaponry. They claimed they had defected from the pegasi traitors hiding above the clouds, and are trying to find survivors on the surface. They say there’s a settlement up north past Sunpoint called Cascade where they’re directing everypony, and that they have food and water enough to make everyone happy...

They’re not to be trusted. Even if they weren’t pegasi, who have already proven unworthy of any loyalty whatsoever, they’re trying to usurp and undermine my authority. These featherbrains took food that the contaminant detector found tainted and declared it was clean on their magical scans.

They don’t know what they’re talking about. There’s more than just magical radiation, and I’m pretty sure the detector showed that food as having a foreign organism within it. They’re tempting the villagers with contaminated food!

I will not let these invaders take Tao away from me Mopsy, can’t you see? The villagers don’t know any better. They need somepony like me to guide them. My only choice is to make them leave, or if they won’t...

“If any of you make any sudden moves I’ll blow your fucking heads off.”

I began to turn with everyone else, only to hear the thunder of a gunshot combined with an explosion of glass as the terminal screen shattered, sparks shooting from the machine as the display went dark.

“I said not to make any sudden moves!”

I froze, watching as everypony I could see did the same. Compass was right next to me, and we exchanged terrified glances as we stood stock-still.

“If I see one of the unicorns’ horns light up, you’ll have a bullet through your head faster than you can cast a spell.” A moment passed as the pony grunted quietly, paired with a small mechanical click. “Now turn around, all of you. Slowly. So I know you’re not trying any funny business.”

We rotated in place to face the pony who had a gun trained on us.

She was a brown earth pony, ablaze with E.F.S.’s red outline, and I immediately recognized her piercing green eyes I’d seen hidden amongst the piles of junk. She had her back to the contaminant detector we’d climbed over, and was bracing her rifle against her chest, trained on Piedmont. Her filthy black mane—I couldn’t tell whether it was darker than mine due to natural pigment or because it was so slick with grime—was cropped close to her head, and it didn’t look in much better condition than her blotchy fur coat. Her muzzle sat crookedly on her face, twisted from some unknown trauma. She wasn’t carrying or wearing anything except her rifle.

“Who’s got the food?” she asked, her eyes flicking between each of us.

Nopony spoke.

Another gunshot ricocheted off the ground, whipping past Piedmont’s head and burying itself into a tower of junk. “Who’s got the fucking food?!”

“Bell Hop!” I squeaked. “Bell Hop does!”

The mare pointed her rifle at me. “Who the fuck’s Bell Hop, greenhorn?”

I brought my hoof up to point but only got halfway there when the earth pony tensed, raising her rifle to shoot. Freezing in place and trying to keep myself from shaking, I stuttered out, “Th-the big one.”

The gun’s muzzle snapped over to point at Bell. “C’mere.”

Bell hesitated for a moment, then took a few steps forward.

“Stop. Dump all your shit.”

The only sound in the supplies room was everypony breathing and the steady hum of the scanning machine. Bell shifted the bulky packs on his back, then slid them off. After another jerk of the head from the mare robbing us, Bell turned his saddlebags upside-down, letting all his supplies drop out to the floor.

Looking closer at the earth pony, I noticed that, like the Orthros we’d fought yesterday, she seemed near-emaciated, her individual ribs visible beneath a coat that seemed more ragged and patchy the longer I looked at it. Even though I was terrified, I couldn’t help but feel sorry for this pony that looked so hungry she had to steal food to survive. Do all ponies who live out here have to live like this? Is there really... nothing left?

I bit my lip. If we lose Bell Hop’s food, then we’d have no choice but to return to Stable 32! We don’t have enough supplies on our own to survive six weeks!

The robber waved the gun back at the group, and Bell Hop shuffled back toward us. The earth pony began poking a hindleg through Bell’s belongings, still keeping an eye on us.

I turned my head, slowly, to look at Compass, who had her head down and her eyes locked on her front hooves. I glanced at Piedmont, who was staring down the thief, not even blinking. The only movement came from his wings, shifting as they drooped against his sides. My breath caught in my throat as I realized one of them was right beside his holster, semi-obscured by his saddlebags.

He’s going to try a wingshot!

Trying not to whimper aloud, I turned to face front, only to see our robber staring right at me, her eyebrows furrowed.

The next sequence of events happened very quickly.

The mare robbing us looked over at Piedmont, who had pinched his pistol’s mouthgrip in his wing joint and was drawing it from his holster. The earth pony threw herself sideways as Piedmont rotated his shoulder and squeezed off a shot, which went wide and drilled into the side of the contaminant detector. The detector’s lights flickered for a split second before bursting in showers of glass and sparks as its sides ruptured and blew out, knocking everypony to the ground.

A crackling roar met my ears as I clambered to my hooves, and I looked toward where the thief had once stood to see that the detector machine had caught on fire. The blaze leapt onto the various piles of refuse in the basement, forming acrid black plumes of smoke that billowed out and obscured the ceiling.

“Everypony out!” Derringer bellowed from beside me a moment before the noise of fireworks pierced through the flames with a million shrill screeches.

I clenched my ears shut as best I could and bolted away from the terminal into the maze of junk, trying to get away from the flames. I heard Compass yell “Holly!” behind me, but I ignored her. Have to get out, have to get out!

The fire grew larger and hotter, and a horrible, powerful stench of fried electronics and melting plastic reached my nose, making me cough and dip my neck as close to the ground as I could. Powering up my horn, I cast the best protection spell I knew against heat, but I didn’t know any spells to help me breathe. I lurched blindly forward, trying to navigate my way through the thickening air as I circled around where I thought the blaze was so I could get back to the entrance.

I stopped, taking a sip of air with my cheek against the floor before raising my head to look around me. A cloud of roiling gray fumes had obscured the fire, but I could see its flickering glow from within. Smoke blanketed the ceiling, curling down to the ground as wisps danced around each other in chaotic fervor.

I pressed on, pushing myself over and around towers of metal and plastic as the tepid air grew hot. Looking up again, I glimpsed the stairs upward peeking out between two last mounds of refuse. Heaving myself over a table broken in half, I fumbled my way outside the door and over to the steps, putting a hoof on the first one and lifting myself up and out of the basement. I just had to hope that everypony else had gotten out safely-

“Help! Help!”

I stopped and looked back at the door frame as smoke streamed out of it, tainting the fresher air in the stairwell with the pungent smell of ash. Was that...?

“Please!”

I couldn’t recognize who was yelling, but she sounded close, and her voice sounded high enough to be from one of the mares. My heart clenched.

“Help! Someon-!” The voice fell silent.

I took a deep breath, filling my lungs with the cleanest air I could, before dashing back into the room and forcing my way through toward where I’d heard the voice last. My PipBuck’s lamp light reflected off of thousands of smoke particles in front of me, scattering any light and doing more to blind me than help me see, so I slapped it off.

Even close to the ground the air had become a dark smog of ash so dense that I could barely see my own hooves, but the fire had grown bright enough that a flickering orange glow pierced through the murky clouds and infused them with an unpleasant, threatening warmth. I heard something crash to the floor from deeper within the room as I squeezed around a large shelf.

My protection spell faltered, struggling to stay active, but even with its shielding influence my fur felt like it was withering from the heat. My eyes burned and watered, forcing me to squint and blink away tears. My head spun, and I stumbled to my knees.

I can’t do it, I thought. If I go any deeper, I won’t be able to get out, with or without her. I braced myself against the ground, struggling to get back on all fours as my protection spell against the heat began slipping away from me.

I glimpsed a shadowy shape twitch within the smoke, aglow in E.F.S. yellow.

Throwing myself forward, I tripped and fell to the floor in front of a pony lying prone, pinned underneath a mass of containers that had shifted and collapsed on top of her. My spell gave out, and the temperature of the room soared. The flames tinted the room orange, adding menacing light to what was now an oppressive heat.

Reaching down with my forelegs, I grabbed a pair of brown hooves and realized she was the earth pony thief, unconscious.

Despite feeling my flame-resistant barding trying to cook me from the outside inward as the fire whipped me with powerful, hot lashes, I froze. Should I save her? She tried to rob us!

My train of thought didn’t last long. I couldn’t let anypony burn alive when I could save them, when they’d cried for help. Nopony deserved to die that way.

Not even a thief.

Grasping her hooves firmly, I tugged as hard as my body could muster. My senses had deadened; my skin no longer burned with pain, instead registering as a dull ache that made every movement hurt. My ears rang from the deafening rumble of flame. My vision swam and my lungs burned from holding my breath. I closed my eyes, putting everything I could into yanking the mare free, squeaking out a whimper of desperation and hope.

After spending a timeless second fighting an immovable object, I felt the boxes shift. The thief’s body come free, plowing into me and shoving me on my back as she knocked some precious air out of me. An orange glow crept through the smoky darkness, growing brighter as it marched closer and closer in blinding flashes and flares.

As it stalked toward us, I turned myself over from underneath the thief pony’s body, forcing myself to stand. I checked to make sure she was draped over the back of my saddlebags, then looked in the direction I’d come from.

The fire had engulfed enough kindling to obscure the door with smoke, but an alien calm had settled within me. I looked down at my shaking legs, keeping my head low, and focused only on putting one hoof in front of another. Moving over and around scattered items and furniture, I made my way back toward where I knew the stairs upward had been.

My vision had been reduced to a small, graying circle in front of me, inky blackness crawling in from the edges of my eyes in jagged shoots, and only a dull hum was audible to me. My entire face was numb; I didn’t even know if I had accidentally begun to breathe again. Left front, right back. Right front, left back. Left front, right back...

One foreleg bumped into the wall, and I shuffled along it, scraping my head against the hot surface and faintly feeling the body of the mare on my back shift with every step I took. I kept walking along the wall for several seconds, minutes, hours.

My head suddenly flew sideways, unsupported by the wall that was no longer there, and I sprawled onto the floor through the open “SUPPLIES” door. Crawling to my knees, I began ascending the smoke-filled staircase, lumbering up the steps and doing my best to keep the mare on my back from slipping off from my fading coordination.

A dull ache grew in my chest as I reached the top of the stairs, the tunnel vision I’d gotten graying out my sight completely. I leaned against the clinic’s rough hallway wall, thrusting myself forward through the smoke that had collected in the corridor, until I fell through the door to the reception room, the thief on my back knocking her head against mine.

Only able to keep my eyelids open halfway, I looked up to see the open door of the building, illuminated like a halo as smoke streamed out. I lay where I had fallen and coughed, pawing at the floor underneath me but unable to find enough strength to right myself. I tried to inhale a breath, but it left me just as quickly as I choked on smoke and coughed it back out.

No...

The blackened soles of my rear hooves twitched, but would not obey me. It felt like the fire had accompanied me upstairs and was now raging inside my chest, beating on me from inside as it demanded oxygen. The exit was within reach, but I was too spent to move the last few feet.

No!

My horn ignited with a weak yellow blaze, forcing out my heat protection spell again, and an ice-cold grip squeezed me like a vice, paralyzing me for a moment of clarity before my exhausted magic reserves sputtered out.

But it was enough. The chill, cool feeling of my own magic shocked me from my daze, and I flexed my legs with energy from a source I could not identify, scrambling and falling forward all the way out the building and onto the ground several feet in front of the entrance. This time, I didn’t try to get up again, closing my eyes as my sight behind my eyelids erupted into hazy gold waves.

The pain in my chest grew harsher, spiderwebbing out through my body as I coughed out and gulped in clean air. My ears rang, lethargically perking as a moan of twisting metal behind me broke through my tinnitus. My brain felt like it had been pumped so much air it was threatening to burst out of my skull, and I focused on my breathing, clenching and unclenching my teeth as I fought not to cry out while my sense of feeling—angry, throbbing feeling—crept back into my skin and pulsed in agony with every heartbeat.

The unpleasant sound of steel on steel swelled into a screech, and I opened my eyes, squinting as my eyes watered from the crisp air. Strongarming my neck to look back at the building and fighting to keep from falling unconscious as I coughed, I saw that it had sunk half a story into the ground on one side, leaning precariously to the left. Dancing flames spilled out from the collapsed half of the building, spreading to a nearby house that had already been leaning against the clinic’s wall.

Struggling to keep my eyes open with pain reverberating through me, I squeezed my hooves under myself and hobbled over to where the thief had fallen off my back after I’d gotten out. She was dusky with ash and a few bruises showed through her coat, but she was breathing. I hooked my forelegs in hers and began dragging her away, through the village houses and past dead skeletons with fungi clinging to their bones.

My legs gave out a couple dozen feet beyond the last line of homes. I let the thief flop back onto the ground and fell on my side next to her, feeling the bulk of my scorched saddlebags jab into my abdomen. I closed my eyes, trying to let my frazzled nerves and aching, burning body soothe themselves with some rest and shutting everything out but both of our breaths and the crackle of the blaze.

I opened my eyes to find my surroundings dark with nightfall, tempered by an eerie red glow. Checking my PipBuck, I realized I’d fallen unconscious for a couple hours.

I breathed out through my nose, clutching at my chest as my sore throat and lungs prompted me to cradle up in the fetal position. The air was laden with a sharp, heady aroma of things burnt that should never have caught fire.

I fumbled for my water straw, patting around the bag of water on my right side—it felt much lighter than it should have, probably because some of it had evaporated—before grabbing it and sticking it into my mouth. The next several minutes consisted of mouthfuls of warm water mixed with gasps of air, occasionally spitting out some water on my hooves to rub my face and mane clean of ash and soot.

I could have emptied the entire water pouch, but I couldn’t without first giving some water to the mare I’d saved. Staggering my way over to her prone form, I reached out to prod at her before recoiling; now that I examined her, she’d sustained a burn from the fire that stretched across her entire right side. I touched my hoof to her shoulder and shook her lightly to check if she was conscious.

She shifted, and I heard her groan as her mouth opened. Letting out a weak cough, she fluttered her eyelids, staring up into the dark sky. “Mmmh...?”

“Hey,” I croaked, before clearing my throat and trying again. “Hey. Would you like some water?”

The brown pony tweaked her neck toward me, blinking, before trying to get up. “What happened...? I remember some boxes falling on me, and then...” The earth pony coughed again, falling limp. “Fuck, I’m thirsty.”

I grabbed my water straw with a hoof, offering it to her. “Here, have some water.”

She brought up a hoof and nudged my straw to the side. “No...”

I tilted my head in confusion. What do you mean, “no”? Why would you turn down water right after asking for some?

I wordlessly offered it to her again, and this time she didn’t move to push it away, so I brought it to her lips. She began to drink, cupping her hooves around the straw as she gulped down water from the pouch until she sucked it dry. She leaned back again, exhaling as she stared up into the sky. I followed her gaze, but the only things above us were murky clouds and a thin puff of smoke rising up from inside the village. I shivered as a breeze brushed by me.

“Did you save me?” she asked.

I looked back at her to see that she had fixated her green eyes on me, propping herself up on her foreleg. After a moment, I nodded.

“Why the fuck did you do that?”

I flinched at her harsh language. “Because... you were in danger, and I was able to save you. So I did.”

She narrowed her eyes at me. “I’d just tried to steal your food.”

Not knowing what else to say, I shrugged. “You were in danger.”

“That’s bullshit. I tried to steal your shit, and you’re telling me you saved me because, what, out of the goodness of your heart?”

I quailed away, stepping back. “I... It doesn’t matter. If it had been anypony from Stable 32, I would have saved them too no matter who they were. You cried out for help, so... I saved you.”

She stared at me for a second before sighing and lying back down. “All you Stable ponies are mental. How long have you been out here?”

Not sure where the question was going, I answered, “A couple days.”

She barked a ragged laugh. “Yeah, that would explain it.”

A cold pit settled in my stomach. Licking my lips, not knowing what to say, I looked over at Tao, trying to assess the damage.

The fire had consumed the clinic and several houses around it, but most of the village seemed like it had survived. The homes around the clinic had collapsed into scorched rubble, leaving only a few splinters of wood and stone still standing. Several scorched-black skeletons were still visible, crusty remains of fungi giving their skulls and ribcages a rough, alien appearance. A warm mirage of heat emanated from the village’s interior, red-hot embers shimmering from within. Wisps of smoke rose from them, uniting into a large stream escaping upward into the inky sky.

I shivered again. “I, um, need to find my team, make sure they’re alright... I hope I won’t offend you if I leave to search for them...?”

I turned back to see that her eyes were closed, her chest moving up and down with slow breaths of slumber.

I stared at her for a moment before retreating into the night to find my partners.

I hugged the border of Tao, keeping several houses between me and the village’s warm innards. Circling around the fringes, I scanned the horizon until I glimpsed a patch of white fur against the gray and brown ground, lit by a small but controlled fire.

Picking up my pace, I trotted to the group loosely gathered around the fire, turning to Piedmont. “I’m so sorry, I’m here now, I passed out-”

“What the hell did you think you were doing?” Piedmont interrupted, whirling around to face me.

My ears drooped, and I bowed my head. “I’m sorry, I was-”

“Why did you run off?”

“I-”

“Didn’t we just learn yesterday that we don’t separate the group?!” Piedmont interrupted again. “Look at me!”

I slowly brought my gaze up to his. Everypony’s eyes were on me.

“We assumed we had lost you,” Piedmont said, his tone low and dangerous. “You broke with the group and tried to get out yourself, Holly. Compass Rose chased after you. We didn’t know where either of you had gone, and we didn’t have time to find out. We just had to get out and hope you were able to find your way out, too.” Piedmont paused, his eyes still locked on mine. “Your breaking with the group threatened the safety of the entire team. Never do that again. Do you understand?”

“Yes,” I whispered.

After a moment, Piedmont nodded. “Where’s Compass?”

I looked around the group and realized there was still one member missing. ...She’s... She chased after me...

“Holly,” Piedmont said, his mouth a tight line, “what happened to Compass?”

“I don’t know,” I said, trying to keep my voice from cracking. “I didn’t even know she followed me.”

“Don’t try to tell me Compass couldn’t have caught up to you. From what I’ve seen, she’s a hundred times more competent than you could ever be.”

“Piedmont,” Cap White interrupted, rising from where she was sitting, “that’s uncalled for-”

“Shut up, Cap!” Piedmont said, whipping his head around to glare at her.

Cap’s mouth twitched, but after a moment she sat back down. Piedmont returned his icy-blue stare to me. “You obviously didn’t get out before we did. What. Happened.”

“I’m telling the truth, Piedmont!” I shouted, unable to keep my voice under control as desperation welled in me. “I didn’t know! I heard a pony cry out when I was leaving, but she was-” I snapped my mouth shut.

Piedmont’s ears pricked. “You heard a pony? Did you leave Compass behind?”

“I...” Could it have been Compass who cried for help? “I don’t know if it was her...”

“Don’t give me that!” Piedmont stepped closer to me as I shrank back. “What are you hiding?!”

“I’m not hiding anything...!” I squeaked. I tried to take a step backward, but my legs had locked up. “The only pony I found was the earth pony that tried to rob us, but she was unconscious!”

“You’d better have left her in there to burn, then,” Piedmont spat. “That pony cost us Bell Hop’s supplies, including most of our food, and she still could have cost us Compass.”

My heart thumped wildly in my chest. I gulped.

After a moment, Piedmont’s eyes narrowed. “You didn’t...”

My throat had tied itself in knots. I couldn’t speak.

When Piedmont next spoke, it was in little more than a whisper, barely audible over the crackle of the fire, but each syllable struck me like a steel bar:

“You saved a pony that cost us most of our food, and now Compass could be dead because of it.”

I said nothing. Nopony did. The crushing shame of their silence was a worse punishment than any rebuke. I lowered my head to the ground, quiet sobs wracking my body.

“Leave, Holly. If you ever come across Compass, and she’s alive, then maybe we’ll let you return to the team.” I watched at the upper edge of my vision as Piedmont turned back to the group, saying nothing more. Cap and Bell shot sympathetic looks my way, but remained silent, averting their eyes soon after.

I wanted to die. I wanted to crawl under a rock and die. My head still low, I retreated a few steps, then turned and hobbled back toward Tao. Blinking away tears, I shuffled my way around the village’s outskirts again, this time haunted with my thoughts.

There’s no way Compass could be missing. She must have just gotten away and passed out, like I did. She’s a unicorn, she could have gotten out of there easily. She was right there with us. How could she have possibly failed to get out?

The alternative made no sense. I looked up to see I was approaching the earth pony I’d saved, who was still softly breathing where she’d fallen asleep.

I stopped a few steps away from her, staring at her. Part of me wanted to feel angry at her. I wanted to blame her for trying to rob us, for making Piedmont attempt to shoot her and start the fire. Part of me wanted to hate her for being so awful and saying such terrible things to the others, and even to me once I’d saved her.

But seeing somepony so emaciated with hunger and caked with dirt and grime, with half her coat singed a glistening black by the fire, I could only pity her. She refused to believe I’d saved her life. What kind of horrid things have to happen to a pony before she finds that hard to believe?

...How much worse could it get? Are friendship and harmony just... gone from Equestria?

My thoughts turned inward. I failed. I didn’t learn my lesson, and now I’m responsible for Compass... going missing. I closed my eyes, shaking my head limply. I will find her tomorrow. I have to. She can’t have gotten far.

For the time being, however, I had nowhere else to go, and the couple of hours I’d had to sleep were catching up to me and demanding I sleep a proper amount of time. My body and my mind agreed. I was hungry, but my stomach didn’t feel like it mattered right now.

I lay down next to the thief, unable to find any strength or motivation to make the ground more comfortable or move another step anywhere else. Closing my eyes, I thought one last question before unconsciousness took me:

How did all of this go so wrong?