I awoke in an unfamiliar place, spurred to my hooves by the distinct absence of the musty old mattress I'd collapsed on when I'd gone to sleep. Scrambling to get my bearings, I discovered that I was in the middle of a nondescript paved street, and to my dawning horror, very much alone. Horror quickly gave way to panic as I looked around the uncannily clean crossroads of an unknown city. The cleanliness, calming at first, soon began to fill me with dread. Gone was the rubble, trash, and debris that I’d come to expect in a wasteland town. All had been repaved with smooth, pristine setts. And I could hear music playing!

Swivelling my ears around, I struggled to find the origin of the thin, almost... happy rhyme. It was unlike anything I had heard before, with lots of bright notes that made you want to smile. Well… it made me want to. I resisted the urge and instead warily made my way down the street toward the sound.

Poking my head around the corner, I took in the strangest sight the wasteland had given me yet. A pair of red-and-white striped tents lay ahead of me like two impossibly huge old-world confections, with multi-hued streamers run between them. A pair of smiling unicorn mares wearing red and white pinstripe aprons barred the small gated entry of the red and white-striped structure. Facing them, a lively line of pegasi, unicorns, and earth ponies waited to be let in.

I couldn’t feel the energy coming from the group, but they looked ecstatic. Maybe I was a bit too far away, maybe I’d burned myself out talking with Blackjack earlier, but even with dulled senses, there was no mistaking the mood of the ponies before me. The fillies and colts along with their parents were positively beaming. Their excitement only added to my confusion as I watched them slowly pass off shiny papers to the pair of mares and be admitted beyond the the entrance to… whatever that was.

I couldn’t help but frown at the sight and turned back the way I came. As… intriguing as the spectacle was, I needed to know where my friends were. What was this city? Why was I here alone? Unless… the tents? No, they couldn’t be in there. They wouldn’t have gone in without me.

Would they?

I glanced around the corner yet again and saw that the line was gone. The pair of unicorns were the last ones outside.

Yet again I was spectating; as I was most often in life, it seemed. Other ponies did fun things. Other ponies had normal lives, without fear of being hurt. Other ponies didn’t feel like they had to hold themselves back. Other ponies acted... None spent their entire existence on the outskirts of life looking in, never really engaging.

But I wasn't those other ponies.

“Why is that, exactly, Threnody?”

The sudden voice in my ear startled me to the top of a nearby streetlamp. The top of it was just as unsettlingly clean as the rest of this place. I looked down and instantly tightened my jaw as I spotted the pudgy form of Peculiar, standing down on the ground grinning up at me.

“Oh dear me. Dear, dear, dear. I didn’t mean to startle you, Threnody,” he said, taking a step away from the streetlamp I clung to for dear life. “But I couldn’t help but notice that you didn’t seem to want to go into the carnival.”

I glared down at him from my perch. It was solid and sturdy, so why did it feel so frighteningly insubstantial?

“What are you doing here?” I growled, trying my best to sound dangerous. “If Blackjack sees you near here I’m sure she-”

Peculiar made a tsk-tsk sound.

“Nuh, uh, uh! No threats. Little ponies shouldn’t threaten. It’s very rude!” he said, waggling a hoof at me. “And Blackjack isn’t here, Threnody. I brought you here because I wanted to talk with you. Somewhere… where I felt safe, but where I thought you might be able to relax.”

“I don’t relax. Anywhere!” I shouted down at him.

Peculiar’s features melted into a look of concern and pity.

“Well, that’s an unfortunate indictment of your mental state, Threnody,” he said gently. “There’s nowhere that feels safe to you? Dear me. Here I went through all this effort to teleport you to Seaddle for no reason.”

Seaddle? Wait, I was in Seaddle?! Oh, this was bad. Glitter was going to freak out, and Blackjack was going to cut a line straight through the Equestrian countryside along with everyone in her way.

“That… that’s a terrible idea! Are you fucking insane!?” I shouted down at him.

He gave me a surprisingly gentle smile.

“Well, I am not a learned Heartmender. So the jury is out on that, I suppose. Yes, completely out to lunch on whether or not I am insane! But! That doesn’t mean we can’t be friends! After all, aaaafter aall! You aren’t exactly the most stable pony either. Are you, Threnody?” he asked, tipping his top hat at me. “Or are you the only sane pony left in the wasteland?”

When you travel long enough with Blackjack, neither of those things can be certain. A bitter part of my mind muttered as I stared down at Peculiar. He wasn’t being threatening. He wasn’t trying to get into my head. So far as I could tell. While that set me on edge, he...

He also wasn’t trying to hurt me.

I frowned, and slowly released my grip on the lamp. I spread my wings and drifted down about four metres away from him. Standing firmly where he was, he simply quirked an eyebrow at me.

“So… am I less scary at ground level?” he asked, a wry grin on his muzzle.

“No,” I replied, and felt a small swell of satisfaction as he deflated a little bit. “You still make me really nervous. Like… I think you can somehow read minds, and I don’t get it! That’s really weird! I’ve never seen you cast a spell for it.”

Peculiar’s eyes lit up.

“Well… that, my dear mender of hearts, is a Family gift!” he explained foalishly as if he was showing off an art project. “My brother and I are the results of a long line of breeding. We can ‘read’ other ponies’ surface thoughts. While it wasn’t precisely what the Family was hoping for...” He trailed off as a wave of sadness and loneliness washed off of him. “Well… we make do with what talents we have, no?”

The tide of emotion that surged off of Peculiar stunned me. I’d… spent so much time afraid of him that I’d forgotten that he was a pony too. The sudden reminder that he wasn’t an unfeeling monster was jarring, and set me on edge. Memories forced themselves unbidden into the fore of my mind, replaying times when mom would come home crying after seeing a client. There as well, for a moment, she was also just a pony. Not this dark-eyed dead husk of a mare that I had to live with. A broken soul who in fleeting moments vaguely resembled a maternal figure.

“I suppose you’re right,” I said after a long moment. “Some days that really isn’t easy.”

Peculiar nodded sagely before taking a single step forward. Fear reflexively reared its head at his approach. I stiffened, but did my best to keep from scampering away. Or trying to, at least. I wasn’t sure that he wouldn’t resort to magic to keep me where he wanted.

“No, it isn’t. Such hard, haaard work for little, little heartmenders, no?” he asked, tilting his head to the side, too far, as usual, but not quite far enough to be creepy this time. He seemed to be going out of his way to mute his body language enough to show that he was interested in my answer without freaking me out.

Still. He’d have to do a lot better than that to win me over. I frowned back, planted right where I was. Heartmending took a toll on everyone, we all bore the scars, all of us. But I wasn’t going to let him use that against me to win points.

“Well, it’s… not that hard…” I lied.

Peculiar rolled his mismatched eyes at me.

“Oh, dear Threnody, why, why, whyyyy do you lie to me?” he asked. “I may not be a heartmender, but I can tell when ponies aren’t telling the truth.”

Keeping his distance, he trotted to my left.

“I’ve read so much about heartmenders. Using that much inner magic takes a terrible, terrible toll on you all, doesn’t it?” he asked. My eyes widened as I realised he’d read what I was thinking. Again!

“How many scars do you carry because you tried to take it all? All of the heavy, hurtful emotions of others? How many times have you been kept up at night by the pain of somepony else’s heartache, hmm? How can any of that be easy?”

It was the gentleness that hurt the most.

“So can we, maybe, perhaps, perchance, try to not lie to each other, if only for a little while?” Peculiar asked. “I won’t lie to you, because you’ll know. And you won’t lie to me, because I’ll know. So, truce?”

He took a step back as he waited for my answer. I looked the pudgy stallion over. He was still a unicorn, but he wasn’t all that much bigger than I was. Well, aside from his weight. I was pretty sure he’d crush my spine if he had a mind to sit on me.

I sighed and took a few tentative steps closer. “Okay, truce. I don’t like this one bit, and I do not appreciate being kidnapped and taken far away. Honestly, this entire thing has me freaked out.”

Peculiar sat down on his rump and raised his forelegs.

“I know, I know. I told them this was a horrible idea. Did they listen to poor, hard-done-by Peculiar at all? No! The Family wanted what it wanted. And it wanted you,” he explained, rolling his eyes. “I suppose my report on what happened to dear Sweetness’ face got them interested in you.”

My ears drooped at the mention of ironically-named mare.

“I… feel really bad about that. I didn’t know that could happen!” I mumbled. “It… was a really unfortunate accident, but she was hurting my wing.”

Peculiar nodded, an expression of understanding on his muzzle.

“Yes, yes, well… you promise to not melt my face, no?” he asked, getting to his hooves and taking a step closer.

I frowned. I didn’t like this situation. I felt trapped, exposed, and there were probably some hidden ponies spying on me. So, I took a gamble.

“Peculiar, what is it you want from me?” I asked. “And I mean it. I am terrified being here. I want you to tell me the truth!”

Peculiar crossed his heart with a hoof then covered one of his eyes.

“Cross my heart and hope to cry, stick a cupcake in my eye! I am telling you the truth! Every bit of it! The fair dinkum, as ponies across the sea used to say.” He gave me a gentle smile. “I simply want to spend the day with you. Let me take you to the Carnival. We have this every month. Everypony who lives under the Family’s protection loves to attend! And I do mean love! No mind control involved, I swear. No badgering! No cajoling! No prodding! Just good, clean fun. And I want you to share it with us!”

If he was lying, he was a great liar. I couldn’t sense any mischief from him. So I switched to the other pressing matter: being returned to my friends.

“And I can go back to my friends after the day is over if I want to? I won’t be kept here against my will, right?”

“You’ll be home by nightfall,” Peculiar replied with a worryingly broad grin that made me want to run for my life. It would have been really creepy on any other pony. On him, it was like being frozen in front of some monster that had teeth. Too many teeth. Way, way, way too many teeth.

Still, I could tell he wasn’t lying, which calmed me a little bit.

Just a little bit.

I shook my head and sighed.

“So… um, is the thing beyond those tents the Carnival?” I asked, getting to my hooves and trotting just a little bit closer to him. Not too close, though. He was still really creeping me out. But... if I had to spend the day with him, I figured I might as well try to get somewhat comfortable with his proximity.

“Yes! Somehow, the amusement park managed to survive relatively undamaged after the great war ended,” Peculiar explained, slowly leading me around the corner toward the pair of mares that guarded the tents.

“When Stable 12 opened her great doors wide, we found a shattered city. The few ponies that remained were frightened, sick, and lost. So very, very lost. Surviving alone for two hundred years on their own left deep scars on their minds and bodies. But we, the Family, had food to share and resources to start rebuilding. To fashion communities anew!”

Peculiar waved a hoof over the buildings that, for the wasteland, at least looked slightly less gore-splattered and more… well, just war-damaged. If anything, the Family had at least bothered to clean up the streets of the rubble and litter. I would not have to pick my way around here like I would through the ruins of a city like Hoofington — which sounds exactly like something Blackjack would propose. I shuddered at the thought.

“So that’s what we’ve been doing. Bringing stability back to the wasteland. Guiding ponies back to a more… civilized society.”

I flicked my left ear as I listened to him pontificate. This did not parse with what I had seen of the Family back in Fold. If anything, this seemed to be the pretty pamphlet version you were given before the cult asked you to drink the ‘special’ punch.

The faded and worn-out fabric of the tents somehow blocked any and all noise coming from inside of the Carnival as we approached the two mares standing guard at the entrance. Gone were their smiles, now both wearing expressions that I read as listless disinterest at our approach. Which, seemed kind of fitting, given how still-life the entire setup appeared to be. I opened my mouth to reply to Peculiar, but my initial thought died a silent death as the bouncers looked me over with what appeared to be… apprehension?

“So… what happened back in Fold, then?” I asked as we stopped in front of the pair of ponies standing watch at the entrance to the Carnival. “It felt like…”

The whole place suddenly burst into a joyful clamour of voice and emotion that streamed out from between the two tents. It startled me badly enough that I sprung slightly on my hooves. My ears flicked and popped as I listened to the sounds of hundreds of ponies milling about inside. Talking, eating wonderful-smelling food I didn’t recognize. And… and they were laughing. Fillies and colts along with their parents looked like they were having… fun?

Silly, tinny music echoed over the confused burble of a hundred different conversations. Shrieks of delight offered occasional punctuation to the din. Then, something out of view whoosed over the crowd, leaving an odd clacking in its wake.

“It felt like…?” Peculiar asked, breaking me out of my wonderment.

“Sorry… I just… I’m trying to figure out what I’m looking at,” I admitted.

“The Carnival, of course! I thought I said that already!” Peculiar teased. He levitated up a small bag decorated with orange and purple swirls and pulled out ten golden bits. “For the filly and myself, my good mare!”

I watched as the bouncer retrieved the bits and levitated a single silver coin back to Peculiar, who placed it in his little bag. She fixated on me a moment and smiled. It was a quaint, false smile. Her lips quavered upward before I could get even the faintest sense of happiness, and what little I felt was weak and indistinct at best. It was awkward to look at her, so I broke eye contact and instead focussed on Peculiar’s coin bag.

“What-?” I mumbled as I looked back at the bag. “Don’t you use caps in Seaddle?”

Peculiar huffed, his features miffed with passing snit before a broad, patronizing smile crawled up his lips.

“One of the first pieces the Family brought back to impose order in Seaddle were the Equestrian bits of the old world. Pardon me the pun. We took the reserves left in pre-war banks and re-established the sovereign bit as the currency standard! There was some opposition since we devalued caps, but… well, sovereigns do look so much nicer, don’t they?” he asked while we waited for the two unicorn mares to slowly shuffle out of our way to let us into the Carnival.

Frowning at the two excruciatingly slow bouncers, I followed in Peculiar’s hoofsteps. The change in money, even with the cheer that Peculiar presented it with seemed like a bad idea. Paper bits could be found anywhere, and usually were worth something like a fifth of a cap, depending on the pony you tried to exchange them with. To be honest, they weren’t even good for toilet paper. Too scratchy. But… the coins Peculiar was using seemed to be made of gold. Or some kind of precious metal.

“What was that silver coin for?” I asked.

My reactions were tested once again as I was forced to dodge a face full of Peculiar’s hindquarters. He’d stopped abruptly and was looking down his snout at with a slight frown that had me pause. He gave a long, exasperated sigh before motioning me forward with a jerk of his head.

“Threnody, I can’t help but notice that when we talk, you always try to lag a bit behind. It does make it so very very hard to talk to you when you do that.”

I blinked. “Oh… I… I’m sorry…” I said. “I, uh… do that a lot…”

As I trotted up to his side, Peculiar hit me again with a look of sympathy that surprisingly matched his emotions beneath. I wasn’t used to such tensed frankness, not least from Peculiar.

“Oh my dear dear girl, you must learn not to do that! It’s demeaning to your stature as a gifted filly,” he said sharply, before smiling again. “Now… you were asking about the silver coin, no?”

I was still trying to process why he was calling me a gifted filly. I simply nodded and let him explain as he led me deeper into the Carnival. All around us ponies milled about, but I couldn’t seem to focus on any one conversation. I was in an echoing sea of vague voices, but the only pony I heard with any clarity was Peculiar.

Ponies gathered in couples, crowds and families as we made our way through them. It felt like there were an absurd amount of twins in the crowd. Then again, Sweetness and her brothers had been a set of quadruplets. Maybe that was another quirk of the Family’s creepy genetics programme?

“The silver coin you saw was a crown. Most ponies probably overlook them. They went out of style about a hundred years before the Great War but we felt they should be brought back. There are plenty of collections of old silver coins to be melted down and re-minted,” he said, levitating the coin in front of me. On the front was a regal-looking unicorn stallion. He rotated it so I could see the small shield on the back, stamped with the words ‘Royal Crown.’ “It’s made purchasing goods and supplies much easier. I mean… how often have you run into situations where something costed three to a cap, but you only wanted one?”

Not very often. I was still trying to get accustomed to having more than a few caps to scrape together. Being able to buy supplies had been an awesome experience that I'd not been able to have before Sandalwood fixed my pay. It made me wonder how my mother was faring now that her daughter was properly paid, which took away her drinking money.

Peculiar shook his head. “That’s a rather dark thought to have about your own mother.”

I glared at him.

“Why don’t you poke your nose around in my head a little more. Maybe you’ll find out why I feel that way about her. She’s-” I squeaked as a trio of earth pony fillies came sprinting out of the crowd and rocketed past me. One of them carried a large pink teddy bear in her mouth. I couldn’t quite believe it when I’d seen it from afar, but up close, there was no denying it. They really did look genuinely happy. And the stuffed bear that the filly carried as she scurried off to follow her friends looked… pristine. Not threadbare and well-loved like my darling Scootaloo plushie, but soft and new. And given the dust kicked up by the trio as they made their way through the crowd, far cleaner than it had any right to be.

“Do… you have a soft toy factory up and running?” I asked, suddenly distracted by the retreating trio of fillies. They could have been triplets, with identical bows in their pink manes and tails. Maybe they were?

Peculiar sighed. “Do you always pry into the minute details of everypony’s life? Threnody, that will just make you miss the big picture! I feel like you’re doing exactly that with your mother: focussing on the minutiae while missing that, at the end of the day, she is your parent, your dam, your progenitor! The one who gave you life, Threnody.”

I shook my head. “Could we maybe not talk about my mom?” I asked before a thought struck me. “Wait. Can we talk about my dad?! We found a computer of yours in Fold. It said you knew who my dad was!”

Peculiar gave me a puzzled look. “I’m sorry?”

I frowned at him.

“Peculiar, there was a terminal in your old room. Glitter guessed the password and pulled a file that said you had a profile matching me with another pegasus’ records. You know who my dad is! Please, tell me!” I begged.

Peculiar frowned a moment, then made a soft ‘ah’ sound.

“Well… I don’t actually know the answer to that, Threnody. You see, those private records that you found were anonymised. The data therein is not personally identifying. The protocols we used to construct them were from before the war, apparently when they were much more concerned with privacy. I had requested more information on your father, you see, but… we were rudely asked to leave Fold before I could receive a definitive answer,” he explained. “It never occured to me to follow up on that, dear, so… I’m afraid I don’t know who your dear daddy is…”

I could tell that he wasn’t lying. I hated that I could tell that he wasn’t lying! I wanted him to lie, but no. He had to be telling the truth.

The undisguised concern emanating from Peculiar definitely didn’t help my mood.

“Well, maybe after we have you home, I can find a way to contact you again?” he said, trotting deeper into the Carnival. “I mean, we could exchange pipbuck tags and send each other messages! Oh! That would make us like pen-pals! I always wanted one of those.”

I tried not to grimace as I followed after him. I was fairly certain I didn’t want to be the pen-pal of a madpony, no matter how much he could control his lunacy.

“Look, let’s not think about stuff like the Family, or family in general, or anything that gets us both upset, okay?” Peculiar asked, heading over toward a free standing caravan-esque cart. “Just you and me and the Carnival today?”

The smells wafting from the wide-open hatch on the cart’s side made my mouth water. I smelled cinnamon and sugar, along with several other scents that I couldn't quite place. They were potent, but… they kinda blended together in a strange mélange that was really good, but… also tinged with artificiality. Probably because of all the pre-war preservatives that went into the base ingredients of the treats.

“What… is an elephant ear?” I asked after reading the sign on the cart. The cart’s sign actually read “Elephantt”, and I was suddenly concerned that these ponies were eating elephants. If there were any left in Equestria anymore. I knew this was all too good to be true!

“Oh, it’s not what you’re thinking! It’s nothing more ghoulish than an extra inch or two on the waistline!” Peculiar said with a smile, before ordering two from the stallion behind the counter. “It’s an old world treat. One that was very easy to reproduce. Once we were able to get some crops growing at least. A bit of wheat flour for the dough, a bit of oil and… ah, thank you, sir!”

Peculiar passed over a pair of silver crowns in exchange for two very large pieces of fried… heaven really.

The ‘elephant ear’ could have been as large as one, and looked like more food than I’d eat in a week. It was covered in sugar and smelled strongly of artificial cinnamon. I sat down on my haunches, awkwardly holding the large piece of fried dough in my hooves. Taking a bite, I realised the taste was far better than the somewhat artificial scent. It took me a moment to register that Peculiar even spoken, let alone that he’d asked me a question.

“I said, did you want me to hold it for you?” he asked again, a small smirk on his muzzle.

“I… oh… um…”

I looked back and forth between the treat and my wing. I didn’t want him helping me out, but… cinnamon and sugar also sounded like hell to preen out of my wings.

“Yes, please…” I relented a moment later.

Peculiar beamed as he held my elephant ear in his magic. It struck me that this whole situation seemed like how I imagined a colt bringing a filly on their first date would play out. That thought sickened me a little. But I really, really didn’t want to make a mess of my wing if I needed to flee. So I shoved that thought way down and hesitated before taking another bite.

Cinnamon sugary goodness filled my mouth. I’d never tasted something like this, the guilt of knowing I was going to put about five kilos straight onto my flanks was dwarfed by the pleasure. And I wanted more. Peculiar chuckled while I ravaged the treat with reckless abandon. He only took small, delicate bites meanwhile as we meandered through the Carnival.

Ponies were playing all around us. Lights were flashing. Small, happy notes of tinny, barely audible music drifted down from the speakers positioned above our heads. There were games where ponies exchanged bits and crowns to try to win stuffed animals and other prizes. There were some sorts of… machines, I lacked the words to describe them. Ponies rode what looked like teacups that spun them around until some of them started looking green.

I had to look away and focus on my hooves for a moment. Maybe it was just because there was so much going on at once, but I felt like everything was moving too quickly for me to pin down the details of what I was seeing. Everything was a bright and exciting blur of ponies having fun. So much so that I frustrated myself by realising that I was tending to register ponies as globs and groups rather than individuals as they felt and looked and acted so similarly as to be almost indistinguishable from one another.

At the centre of it all was a massive contraption that looked like it belonged in a mine. Built on what resembled rickety wooden beams, a small series of cars raced around a track that followed small hills and swirls, and even went upside down at one point. The ponies in the carts looked like they were strapped in, shrieking with delight at each twist and turn as they raced around the track.

“Peculiar, what is that?” I asked, the elephant ear forgotten for a moment.

He quirked an eyebrow at me, then looked up at the contraption.

“Oh! That is the Timber Shivers! The pride and joy of the Carnival!” he said excitedly. “It’s called a rollercoaster. Ponies in the old world rode them for fun! Can you believe that?”

“Well, I kind of have to,” I replied dryly, taking a bite of my elephant ear. I realised the treat was half gone, but… I didn’t feel full. I frowned as a feeling disquiet settled over me as I looked at the elephant ear, then looked up as Peculiar continued.

“Nearly every theme park in the old world had one. It takes you on an exciting trip around those tracks! There’s no danger of getting hurt or flying out, or anything bad happening really, except possibly losing your lunch. Or getting someone else’s! Still, some ponies find it quite exhilarating!” he said with an excited gleam in his eye that didn’t bode well for me. “Did you want to try it?”

I bit my lip.

“Um…” I watched the carts careen around the corner at what looked like a very unsafe speed. “M-maybe later…”

Peculiar pouted slightly.

“Well, if you change your mind, let me know,” he said, restarting our wanderings through the mess of colours and ponies and Carnival lights. “I think you’d have a lot of fun with it!”

I frowned. Maybe. But it still didn’t look safe at all!

“Hee hee! That’s part of the fun!” He giggled back foalishly.

As we walked about, a flash of red and yellow caught my attention. A pretty female unicorn with an amber coat wandered through the crowd, looking lost. I stopped for a moment and couldn’t help but stare at her and how… very out of place she seemed. Anywhere else, she’d be just another face in the crowd, but here, she stood out just by being… distinct. Her flowing red and yellow mane felt lifelike and real next to rest of the crowd which I was still registering more as collections of pony-like objects rather than living ponies. She also felt familiar. But I couldn’t for the life of me pin down why.

As I watched her, my eyes drifting to her very shapely flanks and fiery cutie mark that reminded me of the sun undergoing an eclipse, I realised why she’d caught my eye. When she moved, it was like she wasn’t in tune with the world. Like I was watching her through the strobing light of a magical energy weapon firing in the darkest of nights. A pale teal aura surrounded her, accenting the movements that seemed like they should be smooth and graceful, but my eyes interpreted as slowed and… delayed.

Peculiar stopped as well.

“What are you looking at?” he asked, shifting around to see what’d caught my eye. .

Between the moment my attention had shifted from her and back, the mare was gone.

“I-I was just looking at a filly with a pretty mane,” I said lamely, finding it hard to explain why that mare had caught my eye.

He quirked an eyebrow at me.

“Threnody,” he said gravely. “Do you like fillies?”

“Wh-what!? N-no! Of course not!” I stammered. “I-I-I mean I’ve been known to look at them on occasion!” A lot, my brain helpfully added. “B-but that doesn’t mean anything.”

Peculiar surprised me with a laugh. “You know there’s absolutely nothing wrong with that, right?” he asked with more of that confusing gentleness. “Why are you looking at me like that?”

I frowned. “To be honest, from what I know of you and the Family, it… made me think that you’d be very much against the notion of erm… fillies liking fillies,” I admitted. “With you and your Family’s emphasis on good breeding and all.”

He sighed. “Threnody, not only do we want to bring back some of the old world to the Equestrian wasteland, like those coins I showed you earlier, but also keep the ideals that have stood for thousands of years! Nopony has ever been judged for being a filly who liked fillies, or a stallion who likes stallions. Why should they? The Family provides the most modern medicine to the ponies of Seaddle, allowing them access to things like surrogacy, egg extraction, or in vitro fertilization. We’ve perfected spells that let mares have children with other mares, and that allow stallions who love each other to have children of their own. The Family cares about good breeding, and allowing the next generation of children to be even more superior to their parents.”

“And while I know it’s always a bit of a difficult process to come to that understanding of whom or what you would like to have children with, rest assured, there’s nothing wrong with being a filly who likes mares, or a colt who likes stallions. Or a pony who likes both partners, or wants to have a family unit with more than one partner. While we realise that having a nuclear family of a stallion and a mare tends to have the best results for rearing foals, sometimes exceptions must be made. These are natural extensions of what it means to be Equine, Threnody. Would it surprise you to know that I prefer looking at boys myself?” He asked, tilting his head to the side at an angle that was just a little too extreme for my comfort.

I blinked at him. W-What? Then why was he… acting like we were on a date?

“Really?” I asked.

“Really, really!” Peculiar replied. “Something about stallions, their strength and just...mmm. Don’t you think so?”

“I… I mean, I like looking at Bubblegum,” I admitted cautiously.

The pudgy stallion bit his lip.

“Oh my, he is rather delicious to look at, isn’t he? I bet he’d be even more fun to be under!” he whispered conspiratorially.

I… honestly hadn’t thought of Bubblegum quite that way, but now that he’d put the idea in my head, my brain was doing things that I really wished it wouldn’t and a particularly deep blush began to heat my cheeks. “I… I hadn’t uh, really considered... it… um. Oh dear…”

Peculiar frowned. “I… feel I’ve made you a bit uncomfortable.”

“Really, this day has made me uncomfortable, Peculiar…”

The stallion snorted.

“Well, yes, I know that, we covered that already!” he snapped. “But I can’t help but notice that the mention of sexuality has put you very much on edge.”

“I don’t like to talk about it!” I snapped back. “There’s nothing wrong with that!”

Peculiar’s eyebrow raised ever so slightly.

“No, there’s not,” he pondered. “However, I do find it curious that the mare you travel with, Blackjack. That is her real name, isn’t it? – is one of the more licentious mares that the Wasteland has to offer.”

I stiffened as Peculiar used Blackjack’s real name. How the hell did the Family know about her? There… there was no way that they’d gotten that from any of us!

A shiver went down my spine. What if I was the weak one, and that’s how Peculiar knew about her!?

Unable to control my surface emotions, my facial expression twisted enough for Peculiar to burst out laughing.

“My dear filly, do you really think that the world revolves around you?” he asked, trotting around me, forcing me to crane my neck to follow him. “No, my dear girl. It wasn’t you, silly thing, that got us that information. Even before the bombs fell, the Family was always very good at… making friends in high places. Yes, very high places! And having those friends sometimes helps you figure out things ponies want to keep hidden.”

He tapped the rim of his tophat.

“Just because I can read your surface thoughts doesn’t mean I’m always in there! Always searching, sifting, scraping!” He shook his head. “No, we just found a nice, new friend to help us out! And my, my! What a story they had to tell! That the Heartmenders sent you – their youngest, newest heartmender – out all alone with one of the most vile, vulgar, and deadliest mares in the wasteland! Honestly! What was Heartshine thinking?”

That Blackjack was going through Heartmenders almost as fast as she was bottles of whiskey? I thought as I stared him down. “I… was the only one left that–”

Peculiar waved his hoof dismissively.

“Yes, yes, I know that, dear. We both know that. Must you bring it up? Yes, you are her last hope and all but really… what does Heartshine expect you to do with her? I mean, she’s basically a house-trained raider! And even then she still sometimes craps on the carpet!”

“She’s not like that!” I shouted back, then immediately looked around at the crowd. Nopony responded to my outburst. They all went diligently on about the business of enjoying themselves like I wasn’t even there . Most ponies, even though they liked to deny it, would have been very interested in the drama of a filly yelling at a stallion. But nopony in the crowd so much as made an attempt at feigned disinterest. They just kept having their unintelligible conversations with their friends or partners or families, and kept moving through the Carnival without so much as a sideways glance.

“Hush, hush… now, now. I’m only saying that because I want to protect you, Threnody!” Peculiar crooned. “But I do see that I’m upsetting you. So maybe we should just… do something else for a while? I dare say I don’t want to ruin my– your day with me!”

I blinked several times as I tried to process the emotional whiplash Peculiar had just put me through. I wasn’t sure if this was just how he was, or if he was intentionally toying with me. Something told me he was actually trying to be kind, in… his own twisted way, but then... it was like he’d hit me coming with a compliment and going with a backhoofed insult. It was very disorienting, and I was rapidly losing patience with it. With him. With this stupid Carnival with weird ponies that made no sense!

Worse, I was beginning to suspect I wasn’t actually in Seaddle. Where was I? I wanted out!

I stomped off away from him toward one of the events. The stallion running it stood in the way as I stormed towards the entrance of the ‘Hall of Mirrors.’ It wasn’t an escape, but I’d be away from Peculiar for a little while at least. I might even lose him in there if I was really lucky. I ignored the stupid stallion’s muffled bleatings as I shoved him aside, and strode inside to sulk. It struck me that I expended almost no effort to move him. He toppled like a pile of papers. Surely that elephant ear hadn’t made me that fat so quickly!

I wasn’t sure what I’d expected to find when I wandered in, but true to its name, the hall of mirrors had… well, many mirrors. Big, small, strangely angled, oddly distorted, all shapes and forms were displayed. I walked up to a large mirror and looked myself over.

I immediately regretted that choice. Something in the mirror made me look fat, obese to the point I felt something inside me shatter.

I burst out sobbing as I sat there, facing a mirror that displayed the worst image I had of myself. Bloated. Useless. And now here I was, trapped in this freakshow with the ringleader complete with tophat! Home, he’d promised me. I wanted it now!

A soft thunk drew me out of my miserable pit of self-loathing. I looked around for the sound, half-expecting it to be Peculiar’s plodding hoofsteps. But as the sound repeated itself, I realised it was coming from one of the mirrors!

Skewing an ear to the side, I trotted over to examine the furniture. The frame was shaped like an old-style horseshoe and appeared to be made out of some sort of purple heartwood. Several amethysts were embedded in the frame where the nails would have been. At the arch of the shoe, a small decorative column supported a pane of stained glass that displayed a prancing purple unicorn. The entire affair was surrounded by decorative wrought iron.

Not being able to see my reflection in the mirror confused me. Rather, the mirror showed another room that I didn’t recognize.

The amber mare from earlier appeared on the other side of the mirror. She had a panicked look in her very pretty blue eyes. After a moment of hesitation, she locked them with mine. I uncomfortably stared into her icy irises until she breathed against the glass, fogging up a portion of the mirror. As I watched, she used her magic to haltingly write three words.

Open. Your. Eyes.

Well, they were open… I tilted my head to the side as I tried to process what was happening. In an instant, her face contorted with terror. She waved her hooves, the same strange afterimages blurring her movement as she backed away, mouthed words like a pleading macabre mime artist. A shadow cast over her as a familiar silhouette walked to face me from around the mirror on the other side. Dealer. The apparition flipped over a card, showing me the Tower. As both faded from view, I met my own reflection and Peculiar standing behind me.

Slowly, I turned to face him. The pudgy stallion didn’t have that same gentle smile on his face anymore. He looked, felt, enraged.

“You just couldn’t be happy here with me, could you?” Peculiar drawled. “Now you’re trying to make up things, excuses, so you can leave? After all I’ve done with– for you?!” he screeched.

I lay my ears back at his sudden and intense anger.

“I-I-I… I just… I needed to get away a minute!” I stammered. “What was that mirror?”

I ducked as Peculiar’s horn fired a bolt of magic at the mirror. When the pieces had finished falling, I noticed that the shattered remains were of glass and common brown wood. Not the beautiful purple heartwood from before!

“That mirror was nothing! Nothing at all! You should have not seen it! I don’t know how you saw it, but it’s not fair!” he seethed through his teeth as he stomped the laminated floor with his forehooves. “Not fair, not fair. Not! Faaaair!” he shrieked.

That’s when it hit me.

Open your eyes. That’s what the mare had written.

Pieces began to fall into place. The reason why I didn’t remember being moved the night before. The reason why I’d felt disconnected from the crowd, hearing vaguely, watching dully, almost not feeling at all. The reason why I’d eaten an entire elephant ear but didn’t feel my stomach fill.

“You never brought me to Seaddle. This isn’t even real!” I shouted back at him, splaying out my wings to make myself look bigger. “You somehow got into my head again. This is all a dream!”

“No! No, it’s not!” Peculiar shouted back, his voice rising to the piercing screech of a spoiled brat having a tantrum. “This is not a dream. You are going to spend the day with me! You promised! You must! You have to!”

I glared back at him. “No. What I must do is get out of here. I’m opening my eyes. Now!”

Author's Notes:

Sorry this took a bit to get out. I... made some changes after biting off way more than I can chew with an idea that I'm going to blog about so you all aren't sitting here wondering what happened to 18. I you all for reading, and... thank you so much for enjoying this. I love your comments. I love the support I get from them in my blog posts. So thanks everyone!