I think I slipped in and out of consciousness several times over the next few hours. I kind of remember seeing the mountains moving around me and feeling myself draped over something. Cowbells and hoofsteps. The twilight screeching of shrikes returning to their nests. The wet taste of water on my muzzle. Little flashes of awareness that came and went like fireflies in the night.

When I finally came to, I immediately noticed several things. For one, I was lying on something soft. Two, I was warm, and didn’t feel too dehydrated. Three, it looked like I was inside some large wooden structure. And of course, four, my supplies were nowhere to be seen.

Well, shit. I had no idea where I was or where any of my shit was. I rolled out of the cot I’d woken up in… and immediately fell on the ground as my legs gave out beneath me. A dried piece of red hay landed on my nose, and I glared at it for a moment before blowing it off. After a second to collect my composure, I finally managed to stand up—and find myself staring face to face with a young colt.

The little shriek I made as I jumped back really made a great first impression.

If anything, though, the colt didn’t seem to notice. “Hey! You’re awake!” he exclaimed in a squeaky little voice. A bright, beaming smile stretched across his muzzle, and his tail wagged back and forth like an excited dog’s. “I was wondering if you were ever going to wake up! I thought you were dead, but Pop-Pop said you just needed your sleep, so I stayed here all night to make sure nopony bothered you!” Beaming, the colt darted back into my personal space, nearly bowling me over. “Is it true that you’re from the Lights?”

“I… I, uh… what?” I asked, trying to take in everything this little ball of energy was saying. The Lights?

“Pop-Pop always says that there are ponies who live under the Lights,” the colt continued, apparently already losing interest in my response, or my confused babbling. “He said that long ago, when the Silence started, a whole bunch of ponies made their way up the mountains to hide under the lights and keep the bad ponies away!”

“Woah, woah, hold on,” I said, literally pressing my hoof against the colt’s muzzle to keep him quiet. “What lights? What do you mean?”

The colt just cocked his head at me like I’d said the sun is yellow. “The Lights? You know, the ones on the big mountain? They’re red and blinky and you can see them at night?”

Red, blinking lights… I tapped my hoof against my chin. Did he mean…? No, that’d be stupid. But then again… “These… lights,” I said, “there are three of them, right? Three red ones in a line?”

The colt gasped and nodded (or maybe he was trying to shake his head off; I wasn’t really sure, but he was bobbing his head really fast). “Yeah! So you have seen them! They’re cool, right?!”

Of course. Now I knew exactly what he was talking about. Each of the three big radio dishes on Blackwash had a red beacon tied to an emergency generator somewhere inside of the outpost. If you looked up at the dishes from the south, you could see the lights slowly pulsing, turning on and off, on and off. It never occurred to me before now that other ponies might have seen those lights as well, unaware of what they were, or how many ponies were living right underneath them.

It’s a small world, isn’t it?

“Yeah, well, I…” my voice trailed off as I considered my options. I had no idea where I was, who saved me, or who this colt was. Did I tell him the truth? How much did he know about Blackwash? Maybe a half-lie would suffice. “Yeah, I’ve been there before,” I said, rubbing a hoof behind my neck and donning a nonchalant smile. “It’s a pretty neat place.”

“Oooh! Oh! Oh! Oh!” The colt began to bounce around on his hooves; I was getting a little concerned that I might need to find his off button soon. “You’ve been there?! What’s it like?! Are the ponies there all pegasi since they live on a mountain? Do they have super-duper advanced awesome machines and things? How do they even grow enough food to eat?”

I stuck my hoof out again and chuckled. “Woah, slow down, kiddo. They’re just ponies like you and me. We—they don’t have anything too spectacular up there. It seemed pretty boring if you ask me.” That seemed to deflate the kid a bit, but I had a feeling I only had a few seconds before he rebounded and launched himself down some other tangent. So, looking around, I asked him, “So, this place… does it belong to your Pop-Pop?”

The colt nodded again. “Mmhmm! This is Pop-Pop’s farm! Me and him and Mama live together, and one day, Pop-Pop is going to give me the farm too! Isn’t that exciting?” He bounced around a little more, but surprisingly came to a sudden halt and frowned at his hooves. “But it’s boring here. There aren’t a lot of other colts in Northlight. Most of them go to the fort when they turn ten.”

Huh, I guess I did make it to Northlight after all. I must’ve had that stallion to thank for that; I really don’t think I had it in me to sleepwalk all the way through the mountain pass and into some random barn in town. Maybe he was this ‘Pop-Pop’ this colt was referring to? “Huh, that’s pretty neat,” I said, lightly tousling the colt’s mane. Then I gave him a friendly smile and lowered my head to his level. “Is your Pop-Pop around? I should probably talk to him.”

“Yeah! He’s probably in the field,” the colt said. He whirled in place, inadvertently hitting my muzzle with his tail, and more or less bounced to the shut door of the barn. “C’mon! I’ll show you!”

I spat out a few of the brown colt’s short tail hairs and trotted after him. The little guy bit down on a knotted rope tied to the handle of the big barn doors and struggled to pull it open. I watched the little earth pony grunt and heave for a moment before giving the thing a tug with my telekinesis. The hinges made an awful, rusty squeal as the door opened, sending a stab of agony into my skull (and my little machinist heart—those things hadn’t been oiled in years!). The colt gave me a frown, like he didn’t want me to help him, but huffed and pulled the door open (screech!) the rest of the way. While I shielded my eyes, he bounded into the sunlight, shouting, “Pop-Pop! She’s awake!”

Wincing, I opened my eyes—and closed my jaw. The barn opened up to a modest field covering at least three or four acres, holding all sorts of twisted purple plants clinging onto meaty red fruit. On the other side of the field, I could see a few more farmhouses paired with their own barns and their own fields stretching in different directions, each surrounded by simple wooden picket fences. Small equine figures dotted the fields surrounding me, and to the east a smaller collection of wooden houses made something resembling a town, surrounding the husk of what once might have been a radio station. To the north, the twisting, jagged teeth of the mountains loomed, swatting down low-flying clouds that dashed themselves to pieces against their spires.

My eyes wandered to the tallest of those stony monoliths, to where I could see the faintest trace of a white circle, almost entirely obscured by the surrounding rock faces. I felt my heart reach out to that circle, to all I could see of Blackwash from here. The tiny town I’d called my entire world now seemed so far away, but still so close that I could see it. It’s amazing that I spent my entire life not knowing that there were other ponies within eyesight of Blackwash, although to be fair, you’d have to be balancing on the very highest point of Dish One to even see the barn where I was standing, which from what I could tell marked the western limits of Northlight. And not even the pegasi wanted to leave the windbreak the mountains offered to fly high enough to catch a glimpse of the land below.

But I put those thoughts away for later, because a familiar grizzled stallion was looking at me. Clearing my throat, I carefully threaded my way through the crops in the field, until I was standing next to him. “Hey,” I said, trying to smile. “I, uh… I guess I have you to thank for saving my life.”

At his side, the colt bounced. “Yeah! See, Pop-Pop? She’s feeling better!”

So I was right. The colt’s grandfather looked me over, his tired brown eyes picking me apart from horn to hoof. I saw his eyes dart to my left flank, and I coughed nervously and turned my body just enough to take the brand out of sight. When he did speak, his voice was gravelly and tired. “Glad to see that you’re feeling better.”

“Glad to be feeling better myself, mostly,” I said, fussing with my mane. I could already tell it was a knotted mess; what I wouldn’t give for a comb and a brush! My stomach decided to growl at that moment, and I sheepishly grinned at him. “Eh heh… you wouldn’t happen to have anything to eat, would you? I haven’t really eaten anything much in two days.”

The stallion slowly nodded, then nudged the colt at his side. “Why don’t you tell Mama to get some lunch ready, hm?” The colt whipped his head back and forth between me and his grandfather, and I could tell he didn’t want to miss a word of our conversation, but another gentle nudge sent him reluctantly stomping away. The old stallion watched him go before shaking his head. “I trust Chaff let you rest?”

“Yeah,” I said, placing a hoof against my abdomen. It felt like my stomach was trying to eat its way out. “He didn’t say anything until after I’d already fallen out of the cot. Thanks for that,” I added, sheepishly smiling at him. “I, uh, haven’t had a good past few nights. It was nice to wake up in something soft for once.”

The stallion chuckled. “I’d hardly call that old, worn thing soft.”

“It certainly beats the dirt.”

“I can imagine.” Sighing, he looked me over again, and I had a feeling he was trying to see the mark on my flank again. Even though the brand was two days old, I could feel it burning against my flesh. Eventually, he cocked his head at me. “So, what’s a Crimson sex slave doing in the middle of the Dragonsteeth Mountains?”

I winced, and I couldn’t help but look at the angry red brand that had burnt away one of my precious cutie marks. “You… know about the Crimson?”

"Know about them?” the stallion sadly shook his head. “Filly, Northlight is owned by them.” He must’ve seen my eyes widen in fear, because he held a hoof out to me. “Believe me, there’s no love lost for them here. They came in and conquered this town about five winters ago. We didn’t put up much of a fight. We were just a few dozen able-bodied stallions against a bandit horde. And now…” I saw his jaw tremble and the hay stalk between his teeth twitch as he chomped down on it. “They took all of our fighting age stallions and pressed them into service or slavery, and they take our colts when they’re old enough for indoctrination. They’re stripping us bare of our most precious resource: our families.”

Brown eyes realigned on me, and I felt a surge of hatred project from them. “So yes, filly, I know about the Crimson. I know what they’ve done, what they do, and what they will keep doing so long as they’re still around. That’s why I decided to take in a scared, dying runaway while I was moving the livestock between pastures.”

I fidgeted in place, biting my lip. So Blackwash wasn’t the only town to have fallen to the Crimson. “At least your town is still alive,” I murmured, staring at my hooves. “Your grandson… Chaff?” At the stallion’s small nod, I shrugged and continued. “Well anyway, he told me about the Lights on the mountain. I… There used to be a town up there. Blackwash. That’s where I’m from.” I saw his eyes widen just a bit, but other than that, he remained silent, still. Sighing, I sat down on my rump and looked in the direction of my home. “Two nights ago, the Crimson attacked it. They… they took everypony who could work. Killed all the rest. I barely escaped with my life… but not without getting this.” I pointed to the brand on my flank. “I’m lucky to still be alive, and not some stallion’s fuck toy. But my friends…”

Oh, sun and stars, my friends. It’d been two days since I’d last seen them; who knew if they were still alive? Who knew what horrors the Crimson were doing to them right now? Nova and Gauge, Brass and Stardust…

I hung my head. “I need to find them,” I said. “Whatever it takes. I’m going to find them and set them free.”

The stallion narrowed his eyes at me. All was silent save for the chattering of distant birds, at least until he coughed and looked to the east. “You’re a dreamer, I’ll give you that. One mare versus an army?” He shook his head. “Not a chance in Tartarus. Most ponies would’ve given up and moved on… or put a bullet through their skull.”

For some reason, that made me crack a smile. “I think whatever common sense I had left got knocked out of me over the last few days.”

His nostrils flared, and I saw the hairy corners of his muzzle turn upwards. “Probably for the best. Common sense would tell you to quit while you’re ahead.” Sighing, he held a hoof out to me. “Barley.”

Smiling, I timidly took it in my own. I hesitated for a moment, wondering if I should use my real name, but really, I was a nopony. Literally nopony down here had ever heard of me before; what was the harm in the truth? “Ember,” I said, nodding to him. “Machinist, marksmare, and really fucking hungry.”

Hey, I at least got a chuckle from Barley for that. At least until, sighing, he said, “Watch your tongue around my grandson.” The smile on my lips gradually fell away, but Barley nodded towards a farmhouse next to the barn before things could get too awkward. “We’ll see if my daughter has anything for you to eat; we wouldn’t want you to die of hunger after all this, right?”

“That’d be unbelievably tragic,” I said, snickering.

We began to cross the field to the house, giving me ample time to look around the hilltops and note all the buildings and ponies I saw. Sure enough, most ponies were mares or older stallions, or young colts and fillies helping their elders with the crops. Even as they toiled, though, they had something that Blackwash didn’t: they were alive, if nothing else. Though I had to wonder…

“Hey, Barley?” I asked. “Are there any other settlements nearby?” If the map I’d plucked off that bandit was correct, then there should be a few towns within a few days’ walk from Northlight.

“Of course there are,” Barley said, nodding to the east. “There’s a few more villages deeper in the valley. Green Valley, Holder’s Boulder, Reserve, to name a few.” He sighed and shook his head. “All part of the Crimson’s territory, just like Northlight. Once, we thought the Sentinels could stop them, but they haven’t left their hole in years.”

“Wait, hold up,” I said, literally stopping and holding a hoof up. “Sentinels? Who are they?”

Barley fixed me with a sort of half-incredulous, half-curious stare. “You don’t know who the Sentinels are?”

“Mountain home, remember?” I said. “We didn’t have a lot of visitors. I think the Crimson were the first to come knocking since the Silence.”

“You’ve really been isolated that long?”

I shrugged. “I never knew anypony in my lifetime who wasn’t born on the mountain like me.”

Barley slowly dipped his head. “Interesting.” He coughed into his hoof and wiped it against his chest before climbing the stairs to his homestead on aging joints. “If you’re really so bent on finding your friends, we can discuss it over lunch. If not, then I’m willing to let you stay here. Celestia knows we need all the help we can get around the farm.” He eyed me again, adding, “And, sex slave or not, anypony trying to stay on the Crimson’s good side is going to turn in a mare wandering around by herself with a heart branded on her flank. You’d be safer here with somepony who’s not going to use and sell you.”

That put a pause in my step. As much as I hated to admit it, Barley was right. A mare with a heart on her flank wasn’t going to get very far, especially if I was in the middle of Crimson territory like he said. Plus, I had no idea where to go to find Nova and Gauge. The map I had just said ‘HOME’, and I had no idea what that meant. Maybe that fort Chaff had mentioned? And on the other hoof, Northlight seemed like a nice enough town. Barley and his family would take me in, and give me somewhere to live out the rest of my days in peace…

If I wanted to live in terror of the Crimson…

If I wanted to give up on my friends…

If I wanted Mom to have died for nothing…

I shook my head. “I can’t. I’m really sorry, but I can’t,” I said, staring at my hooves. “I have to do this. Even if it kills me. Even if the Crimson just capture me again. At least I’ll die knowing I tried, because I don’t think I could live with myself if I didn’t.”

Barley seemed to mull that over for a minute as he stood there, one hoof on the door. Eventually, his brown eyes narrowed at me, and he nodded. “You’re not going to survive out there long without some proper supplies. Once you wander too far from Northlight, you’ll have to travel by night if you don’t want the Crimson to catch you. Even then, they have slaving parties that wander the roads between settlements that round up stray ponies on a nightly basis.”

I stood there, eyes wide, for several long seconds. “You’re… going to help me?”

Barley raised an eyebrow at me. “You seem surprised.”

Well, he wasn’t too far from the truth. “I just… wasn’t expecting to have any help when I left the mountain,” I said, fidgeting. “It’s nice to meet ponies who want to help. The Crimson didn’t make a good impression for outsiders.”

“I can imagine.” He raised his muzzle and sniffed the air, and I did the same. The smell of warm, baked food assaulted my nostrils, and my stomach immediately began to riot. Barley must have heard it, because he smiled softly at me. “Let’s eat before we talk more. We’ll have plenty of time after.”

He opened the door and stepped inside, and I eagerly followed him, already salivating at the smell. “I couldn’t agree more.”