If I’d known the food on the surface was this good, I would’ve come down sooner.

Hotcakes, hash browns, green eggs, and some kind of juicy meat, topped off with a refreshing glass of fruit juices. I drowned my plate in a sweet syrup and some spices, and basically shoveled the whole thing down my gullet in a few sweeps of telekinesis. When I was done, I ran my tongue over the surface of the plate a few times, only setting it aside when it was absolutely spotless. The entire glass of juice followed it, and, belching, I slapped the glass down on the table and leaned back with a sigh.

Of course, I wasn’t alone. Barley and Chaff both stared at me, along with Chaff’s mother, Hazel, who quietly chuckled. She was a milky-brown mare with long, streaked bangs that nearly veiled her face, ending in swooping lengths of hair draping across her shoulders. She had a sort of quiet, dignified beauty that I’d never be able to reach (largely because I was too loud and obnoxious), and she moved about her house with grace and tenderness. As far as mothers went, she was a long call from the sarcastic mare I called my own.

I decided I liked her. Even as my horrific table manners caused me to commit first impression suicide.

Which apparently was not lost on Chaff. Incredulous, the colt looked first at his mom, then at his grandfather. “How come she gets to lick the plates?!”

Instead of an answer, though, the colt only got an elbow from his grandfather. While Chaff rubbed his shoulder, Barley carefully worked his way through his own food. “Glad that you enjoy it,” he said between mouthfuls. Swallowing a morsel, he nodded to his daughter. “Hazel makes some of the best food in Northlight. Ponies are always coming to her for her recipes.”

“And I see them for theirs, too,” Hazel said in a calm, relaxed tone. “We’re all friends here, and we all rely on each other to survive.”

“Don’t we all,” I said, this time deciding to at least stifle another belch. “Blackwash was a tight bunch. I mean, we had to be, seeing as how if we weren’t, we died. Living on a mountain is hard.”

Hazel’s eyes lit in quiet curiosity. “You’re from the Lights, then?”

I nodded. “Your son mentioned that before. Yeah, Blackwash and the Lights are kind of the same thing. We used to be a military station for Equestria before the Silence, so we had these huge satellite dishes that we used to listen to messages from space, from places lightyears away. They had these blinking red lights on them, I guess so aircraft and pegasi wouldn’t fly into them late at night.” Shrugging, I added, “That’s probably what you see from down here. Not sure if they’re still going to be up there, though. The Crimson…”

I trailed off and went back to staring at my plate. Hazel and Barley shared some concerned looks, while Chaff continued to pout. All was quiet save for the clicking of silverware on plates until I spoke up again. “The Crimson took my friends. I’m going to get them back.”

Hazel smiled and reached across the table, touching my hoof. “That’s a very loyal thing you’re doing,” she said, smiling at me. “Your friends are lucky to have somepony like you.”

Chaff’s ears perked. “You’re gonna go fight the Crimson?” Gasping, the colt sat up straight and clopped his hooves together. “I wanna come too!”

“Chaff,” warned the colt’s grandfather, and the little brown colt stopped slapping his hooves together. “You’re not going anywhere,” Barley said, shaking his head.

“But Pop-Pop!” the colt whined. It wasn’t exactly a fun sound to listen to, honestly.

“No ‘buts’,” Barley insisted. “Now finish eating your food, or you can get an early start on your chores.”

Chaff stuck his tongue out but nevertheless finished the rest of his food like the growing colt he was (which is to say, quickly and violently, although I still think I outdid him). In the meanwhile, Barley and Hazel turned to me. “I guess the first thing I should ask is if you have a plan.”

“Heh… a plan… you overestimate me,” I said, snickering, although judging by the looks on their faces, that was probably the wrong thing to say. Sighing, I shook my head. “The only thing I knew about the lay of the land until two days ago was that one mountain. I don’t even know where to begin.”

“If you’re looking to find Crimson, your best bet is the Fort,” Barley said. He hesitated, then asked, “You have a map, right?”

“If it can be called that,” I said, shrugging. “It’s with my sh—stuff, wherever you put it.”

Hazel scooted away from the table and stood up. “I took care of your things,” she said, trotting over to a counter around the corner from the table and returning a moment later with my pilfered Crimson sack. She set it on the table and I immediately seized it in my magic, making sure that I wasn’t missing any of my (meagre) possessions. “We wanted to put it somewhere out of sight in case a Crimson patrol came by.”

I froze. “They just barge into your homes?”

Hazel nodded. “Regularly. They check our homes every once in a while to make sure that we don’t have weapons, or are hiding any refugees… like you.” I wilted, but she smiled tenderly at me. “But that doesn’t stop us from doing the right thing. Occasionally, a refugee will wander into town, and all of Northlight works together to help them out. There’s no love lost on the Crimson around here.”

“Which is why if you somehow do hurt them, then we’re behind you,” Barley said, nodding. “But even then, you aren’t going to get into the Fort without any help. Maybe you can reach the Sentinels; convince them to knock down the door for you and start helping the rest of us blighted towns out.”

“You mentioned those guys before,” I said, cocking my head to the side. “Who are they?”

“Protectors,” Hazel said. “They used to roam the valley until the Crimson pushed them out about ten years ago.”

So the Crimson were a recent thing. Interesting. “Protectors?” I asked. “From the Crimson?”

“Not originally,” Barley said, shaking his head. “Mostly the wildlife. Tolans occasionally wander into the valley, and most ponies down here don’t have anything that can shoot through their armor. The Sentinels sit on a big depot of Equestrian war supplies, and they used it to protect the towns here. They also used to keep the valley free of small groups of raiders and bandits, but that was before the Crimson got organized.”

I think I was seeing a pattern here. “And that was about ten years ago.”

The old stallion nodded. “We don’t know what happened, but all the bandits and slavers in the valley all unified with the Crimson. The Crimson must have found a hidden military base, because that’s when we saw their first ringbirds.”

“Ringbird?”

“Big Equestrian aircraft that looks like a triangle hanging from a ring,” he said. “Armed to the teeth and has enough cargo space to carry a small army. The Sentinels might have had a lot of advanced technology, but nothing in their arsenal to stop a ringbird.”

Well that certainly seemed familiar. I thought back to the strange aircraft that’d landed at Blackwash and that Carrion had come out of. “That must’ve been the thing they used to take all of their new slaves away,” I muttered, nearly choking on the words. “Yeah, I can see how that’d be just a little hard to take down with guns.”

Barley nodded. “With their ringbirds, the Crimson pushed the Sentinels out of the valley, and we haven’t seen hide nor hair of them since. With them gone, our towns were easy pickings.”

To think that there’d been battles, a war in the valley in my lifetime and I’d never once known about it. While Blackwash struggled to live in isolation, there were ponies down here fighting and dying every day to protect their way of life. Now, that war had come to Blackwash—to me—and I was planning on charging right into the thick of it.

But Barley and Hazel were right. I was going to die if I didn’t have a plan.

“Where can I find the Sentinels?” I asked, rummaging through my bag and pulling out my map. I spread it on the table and smoothed it down with my hooves. “The bandit I pulled this off of didn’t make the best labels.”

Barley stood up and approached the map while Chaff tried to peer at it from his seat and Hazel began to clean up the table. The old stallion pursed his lips and pointed at the map. “The Sentinels were held up in a box canyon a bit to the northeast of here. I assume that’s what all these exclamation marks are,” he said, poking at the red X on the map. “From what I hear, the place is a death trap. Even with their numbers and their ringbirds, the Crimson can’t stomp them out. If you can make it there, you’ll be safe.”

I nodded, and Barley frowned at the map some more. “There’s a Crimson fort right here,” he said, pointing to a large ‘F’ on the map. “It’s about a two days’ walk to the southeast, built right along the river. You can’t miss it. Your friends might be held there, but until you talk to the Sentinels, I’d steer clear. It’s likely to be teeming with patrols.”

“Good to know,” I said. Hesitating, I added, “And if my friends aren’t there?”

Barley shrugged. “Then they’re either dead, sold, or at the Crimson’s home base,” he said, tapping the ‘HOME’ written on the map. “I’ve never been there, and nopony I know has either. But I don’t think you need much imagination to know how you’re going to end up if you go there. If your friends ended up there, then they might as well be dead.”

His dismissiveness to the fate of my friends was starting to get under my coat just a little bit. “I’m going to free them,” I said through gritted teeth. “No matter the cost.”

“Even at the cost of your own life?”

I looked at him, and he simply stared back at me with a knowing, but sad and tired stare. “Take it from me when I say that we can’t always win. I didn’t have the luxury of growing up on a hidden mountaintop where the world didn’t bother me. I’ve lost my fair share of friends. Family too,” he added. Shrugging, he looked away and leaned back as Hazel reached for his plate to carry into the kitchen. When she left, he shook his head. “Life isn’t fair. Auris isn’t fair. And sometimes, bad things happen to good ponies, and there’s nothing we can do but give up and move on.”

What? I blinked, stunned. “So if the Crimson came and took your family and friends, you’d just give up?”

Barley’s level stare didn’t falter. “Filly, I have lost more than I can remember. But I have a daughter and a grandson depending on me. I wouldn’t be doing them any good if I got myself killed.”

“But wouldn’t the bandits kill you if they knew you were hiding me?” I asked. Judging by the way Barley’s hooves ground into the table, or the way Chaff worriedly looked at his Pop-Pop, it wasn’t a particularly good question to ask.

Finally, Barley muttered under his breath, “I’m not going to let the Crimson change who I am as a pony. I’m not going to let my fear make me leave a dying mare on the side of the pass.”

His eyes hardened, and I backed down. After a moment’s consideration, he looked at Chaff and patted the colt on the shoulder. “Why don’t you start feeding the cowigs. I need to get our guest ready for her trip.”

Chaff wordlessly hopped off his chair and trudged to the door, shouldering it open. He looked back for a moment, eyes hopeful that somehow I’d save him from his chores, but all he got was another wave of Barley’s hoof that sent him sighing through the door. It closed behind him, and I couldn’t help but chuckle. “I guess even on the surface, kids hate chores.”

“It’s good to know some things never change,” Barley said. Then, standing up, he nodded to the back. “Come on. Let’s get you all set.” I bowed my head and likewise began to stand up, and Barley looked over his shoulder to where Hazel was washing the dishes. “Put some food and water in her bags while I take her back.”

Hazel hummed her acknowledgement, and Barley led me to the back of the house. He took me into what must’ve been his bedroom, because the few sparse items decorating it all had a dusty roughness to them that seemed fitting for the stallion. Old, worn hats, some sculptures made out of scrap metal, a creased and torn sepia photo of a family. I picked up the last one in my magic and looked it over. There were five ponies in the picture, including a noticeably younger Barley standing off to the side of a young couple. I recognized the mare as Hazel, but not the stallion standing next to her. Even the colt by her side or the foal held against her chest were unfamiliar, at least in the faded color of the photo. Presumably one was Chaff, but the other?

I heard Barley drop something heavy on the table behind me, so I put the picture back down and turned around. The stallion pulled a cloth off of my stolen submachine gun and quickly wiped away a spot before tossing the cloth aside. I took a tentative sniff of the air and nearly began drooling at the smell of fresh gun oil. Forgetting all about the picture, I immediately trotted over to Barley’s side and basked in the scratchy glow of the not-as-shitty-but-still-pretty-shitty automatic. “You cleaned my gun for me?”

“The barrel and rifling was caked with dried blood and some gray bits,” Barley said, raising an eyebrow at me.

“I had a run in with a shrike,” I said, shrugging, although perhaps a little unreasonably proud by the look of shock on the old pony’s face.

“And you lived?”

“They’ve got soft eyes and soft brains,” I said, pointing to the end of the gun to clarify what exactly I meant by it. The little nod I got in return let me know he understood. Tossing my mane over my shoulder, I frowned at the noticeably thin swath down the center about halfway down. “Though they do like to bite. But I think my mane will grow back easier than my throat would.”

Barley shook his head. “Then perhaps I’ve been underestimating you,” he said, to which I smiled. “Still,” he added, sighing, “the Crimson will shoot back. I wouldn’t test my luck with them. Not yet.”

I couldn’t help but roll my eyes. “That’s what you’ve been saying all day.”

“Forgive me for wanting to keep you alive,” Barley grumbled. “I’m making a significant investment in a stranger I don’t know all that much about.”

The piece of hay between his lips twirled (where did that come from?) and he slid the weapon to the side along with the two magazines I had for it. “You had fifty rounds in one clip, and I filled the other up for you. The Crimson likes to barter with their .45s when they don’t feel like outright extorting us for our crops or supplies, so I had plenty left over.”

I picked up the gun and the ammo, and Barley chucked a small leather pouch at me which I barely caught in my magic before it hit me in the muzzle. Confused, I shook the pouch, hearing metal clicking together, and promptly dumped the contents on the table. A hoofful of large caliber bullets rolled across the table, mixed with a bunch of smaller rounds, none of which would fit my submachine gun. “Uh… I don’t have anything that can shoot these.”

“They’re not for shooting. They’re for trading.”

I blinked. “Eh?”

Barley sighed again. “I take it you didn’t have any money in this ‘Blackwash’ of yours?”

I shook my head. “Nope. We just did our jobs, and everypony got what they needed.”

“Sadly, Auris isn’t such a cooperative place,” he said. He nudged the bullets back towards me, and I collected them in my magic and dumped them back into the pouch. “But, at the very least, everypony recognizes cartridges as money. It’s what the traders use, and everypony else has just adopted the system.”

“Yeah, but…” I moved my hoof in empty circular motions. “Why bullets?”

Barley smiled at me… or at least, I think he did through his beard. “There’s one thing that a pony on Auris truly wants, only one thing. We all just want to live a full life. But to do that, we have to protect ourselves, we have to protect our family, and we have to protect our friends.” He tapped the pouch I held in my magic and nodded to the gun on the table. “A bullet does all those things. The more bullets you have, the better your chances of doing them. That’s why ponies trade in bullets. They’re trading protection for goods and services, and a bullet’s protection is worth more than any paper money or metal stand-in.”

“Huh,” I said, picking everything up again and levitating it by my side. So that was why the Crimson plundered our armory and scavenged our weapons so thoroughly. “I guess that makes sense.”

“One of the few things down here that does,” Barley mused. I raised my eyebrow, and he slowly shook his head. “I’m sure you’ll find out soon enough. Auris is a big place, and I’ve heard stories from some of the traders.”

We began to walk back to the kitchen. “What kind of stories?” I asked.

“Ghost stories about old, abandoned bases,” Barley said, shrugging. “Secret military installations filled with the horrors Equestria created before the Silence. Even stories of an enormous, glistening metropolis in the heart of the continent itself.” He scoffed at the last one. “Like ponies could actually band together to make something like that. Bandits like the Crimson would have looted it and burned the whole thing to the ground.”

“But what if it was real?” I asked.

“How do you mean?”

“Like, what if there is someplace on Auris where ponies are living in a peaceful, strong community? Maybe they haven’t been ravaged by the Silence. Maybe they still have working tech from before the Silence. What if they can get us off of this planet?”

I’ll admit that a little of my foalhood wonder had crept back into my mind. Even though I had every reason to think otherwise, some part of me wanted to believe that there was someplace on Auris free from the ravages of the Silence. Admittedly, I used to believe that Blackwash was such a place, but the arrival of the Crimson changed that. Was it foalish? Probably. But it at least gave me a better tomorrow to believe in.

If only things could’ve been that simple.

Barley shook his head. “Wishful thinking at best. A fool’s errand at worst. I prefer to concern myself with looking after my family.”

We returned to the kitchen, where I found Hazel finishing up stuffing some apples (yes we had them) and other fruits and foodstuffs into my saddlebag. I also noticed that she’d found another worn and frayed one somewhere to hold some water and some other supplies, which was good, because I’d lost most of my saddlebags and supplies when me and the shrike decided to experiment with gravity. There was also a dusty poncho underneath the bags, and I shifted them aside to unfold it with my magic and get a good look at it.

“To cover your brand,” she said, nodding to my flank. “You don’t want anypony to see that around here.”

“I figured as much,” I said as I threw the thing over my shoulders. It was a little stiff and scratchy from generations of use, but it would do. Fidgeting, I draped the saddlebags across my back and looked between both ponies. “Thank you,” I said, feeling a conscientious blush building under my cheeks. “I didn’t think I’d meet such kind ponies on the surface. I was afraid I’d have to find my friends on my own, and you guys have given so much to a stranger…”

“Don’t worry about it,” Barley said, the straw in his mouth twitching as he spoke. “We just wanted to do right by a mare who has suffered some of the same injustices we have.” He nodded to me, then looked at Hazel. “I’ll go fetch Chaff. He’ll want to say goodbye.”

Hazel quietly nodded, and the door opened and shut behind me as Barley went outside. I began to turn to follow him, until Hazel spoke up. “Ember,” she said, and to my surprise, she reached forward and wrapped her hooves around my shoulders, pulling me into a comforting, motherly hug.

Confused, I gingerly returned the hug. “Yeah?”

We separated, and I saw a glint in Hazel’s eyes—the beginnings of tears. “If you go to the fort,” she said, her voice wavering, “If you find a stallion named Wheat… please don’t hurt him.”

I leaned back a little bit. “Wheat? Why?”

Hazel sniffled, and she rubbed her muzzle with a hoof. “Because he’s my son,” she said.

Wait, what? “Your son?” I echoed, cocking my head to the side. Then I remembered the picture Barley had in his room. “Wait, was he… he was the other colt in the picture, wasn’t he?”

The mare nodded and wiped some tears from her eyes. “The Crimson… t-they took him when they conquered us. His father died in the fighting, and they took all the colts and fillies that could walk on their own when they left. Chaff was too young to remember him, and my father doesn’t want us to talk about him…” She swallowed hard, and I squeezed her shoulder with a hoof to try to comfort her. “They’ve probably made him a soldier by now… He has a pale yellow coat, and he looks like his brother. He’ll be sixteen winters. If you find him, please…” She sniffled, and looked at me with pleading eyes. “Please tell him to come home. His family misses him.”

Well, fuck. I didn’t really know what to say to that. And that made my initial plan of ‘shoot my way through every pony between me and my friends’ a little more complicated. Just how many other ponies had been stolen from their families and pressed into service like Wheat? Was he even still alive? He wasn’t a pegasus, so I knew for sure he didn’t participate in the attack on Blackwash…

“I will,” I blurted. Cringing at the spark of hope that appeared in Hazel’s face, I hastily added, “I’ll try to find him, but he could be anywhere. He might not even want to—” I clamped my muzzle shut. Wrong thing to say. “I can’t promise anything, but I’ll see what I can do.”

At the very least, Hazel didn’t fling her forelegs around me, or break down crying or anything like that. She seemed to understand exactly what I meant, and instead only gave me a quiet but appreciative “Thank you” and pressed her neck against mine. We separated after a few moments, and the mare recollected herself with a slow breath. “I packed you enough food to last you a week if you ration it,” she said. “The river is pretty clean, so you can refill your canteen as you need to. I wasn’t sure if you wanted a blanket because they’re pretty bulky, but it is the middle of summer, and the valley air stays warm at night, so I’m sure you’d be fine.”

I nodded and tugged on the straps of my saddlebags, making sure they were tight. “I can’t thank you guys enough for all of this.”

Hazel smiled. “Don’t thank me. Thank my father. He was the one who saved you in the first place.”

“And for that, I’m really grateful,” I said. Turning around, I opened the door and stepped onto their porch, with Hazel right behind me. Both Barley and Chaff were already out there, and as the four of us congregated on the porch, I smiled at them. “I… don’t know if I’ll see you guys again,” I said, nodding to the three of them. “But I’ll never forget you. You saved my life, and I’m going to do everything I can to repay you.”

Barley dipped his head and placed a hoof on my shoulder. “You can repay us by staying alive. Don’t go throwing your life away on something foolish. Whatever it is, Celestia has a greater plan for all of us. We’ll never find out what it is if we get ourselves killed.”

“I’ll try to keep that in mind,” I said, smirking. “I’ve got a knack for survival. I’m pretty lucky, after all.”

“Everypony’s luck runs out eventually,” Barley warned, shaking his head. But, shrugging, he patted me on the shoulder. “Take care of yourself out there.”

“I will.” Then, bending over, I tousled Chaff’s mane, making the colt squirm and frown. “It was awesome meeting you,” I said. “You stay out of trouble, and in a few years, you’ll be big and strong. Truly a force to be reckoned with.” He didn’t say anything, instead choosing to glare at his hooves, and I smiled and shook my head. Poor colt. Hazel gave me an apologetic smile on his behalf, and I nodded to her. Unspoken words and promises lingered in the air, but I brushed them aside for now.

I had some Sentinels to find.