It was dark, and cold, but not too cold. No sky lingered above as I stood at the edge of the gravel road, hands in pockets, waiting. All was silent but for the sound of my own breaths—or, it would have been if not for these intermittent loud, bleating sounds that cut like a knife out from the darkness behind me. Each hideous whine drove another gutter spike into my arms, crucifying me down the big wide empty.

I sighed. I don’t know how long it had been; how many whines, how many nails he’d driven into my limbs. In some sense, it didn’t really matter, and I shouldn’t really care. And yet—I couldn’t help myself, and that’s why it hurt. Of course I still cared for the old sucker—how could I not, after everything we’d been through? So while I had considered just going up into the house and grabbing the shotgun... I couldn’t help but hold on hope.

A petulant, withering hope, that drained away quickly. Hope of which I constantly had to remind myself as I stood there on the side of the road, tilting my head leftward and forward and any which way to try to see through the dark. Not that there was anything to see. Truly, I should have eaten more carrots... but carrots were always his favourite treat, and I always saved them for him. Perhaps to a fault.

Another bleat, and it sounded more pained than the last. Ah, fuck. I did my best to not turn and look, I really did—but I gave in, and I glanced, just for a moment.

Even through the dark, I could see his hunched-over form by the tree in front of my house, leaning oddly against its trunk. I’m sure if he could move, he wouldn’t be in that position, but... well...

He couldn’t see me—he was facing the other way—but through the lens of memory I could nearly see those piercing black eyes and how they used to stare deep within my chest, into my soul. I wondered what he was looking at in that moment, if anything. I wondered if he could think about anything but for the all-encompassing pain he was in—and I doubted it, for even I hardly could.

It was then, just as the caterwauling grew to a fever pitch, that I saw you. I didn’t know it was you at first, for all I could see was the vague silhouette of a figure moving down the path. It’s a wonder I saw you at all, really; the light was so low, and the land was so cold. But you approached, slow as you were, and soon I could see your whole form in front of me. A dark, black leather jacket, outline barely visible as the colour bled into the sky. Jeans rough with the wear of years of work. And, oddly enough, nice black dress shoes, not visibly dirty or scuffed. Your expression was uncertain, your features malleable, your shoulders wide.

As you saw me, you smiled. Another cry came from behind me, and the smile faltered.

“Hello,” I said.

“Good morning,” you replied, coming to a stop not two metres in front of me. It was not morning. Or good.

“It is not morning. Or good,” I said, plaintive.

“Oh, huh.” You paused. “I’m sorry to hear that.” Another bleat. “What’s your name? Have you always lived here?”

“My name is April, and I’ve lived here as long as I can remember, sir,” I would have said, but my lips did not move. Instead, I just stared blankly into your eyes. An awful groan came from behind me, and your eyebrows raised.

“What’s... what’s going on back there?” you asked.

“Mister,” I said, “would you please help my pony?”

You bit your lip. “Oh, I-I don’t know anything about that sort of thing. I don’t keep any animals on my farm.”

I said nothing.

“Really, if you want, we could call up a veterinarian or someone, and get him fixed up all right and dandy.”

I frowned. You just sighed.

“Oh, alright then. I’ll just give him a little look. But I really don’t think I’ll find anything.”

“Thank you,” I said, and I watched as you walked off the path over to the tree by the driveway behind which my pony sat. You stepped down the driveway cautiously, careful not to step in the ugly globs of mucus that were spread across the centre in an uneven line.

“Does he have a name?” you asked.

“No,” I said. “He’s a pony.”

“Mmmm,” you hummed. At this point you were standing only a metre or so away from the tree, leaning forward so as to get a good look. As you leaned, the pony raised his head, and bellowed out a horrible screech.

“So, uh, what exactly is the issue here?” you asked.

“He’s down and he ain’t gettin’ up,” I replied. “I think it’s his lung.”

“His lung?” You tapped your chin. “Hmm...”

“Yes, he’d been complaining about it,” I said.

You looked up to me and blinked. “Can he talk?”

“No,” I said. “But I listen.”

You pursed your lips, and shuffled forward to my pony’s side. I followed you, though not closely; I kept my distance behind. You put a hand on his side.

“Can you feel anything?”

“A pony.”

“Anything else?”

You moved your hand around a little. “Well, I’ve never really done this before... but it seems a lot squirmier inside than I would expect. So much moving around in there.”

“That’s strange,” I said. “Is there anything we can do?” The pony shrieked in agony.

You shrugged. “I have one idea, but I’m not sure how well it might work.”

“Might as well give it a shot,” I said. “Only other option is just leave him like this. Or shoot him. But I’d like to keep him alive if that’s possible.”

“We’ll see, I guess.” You gave him one final look, and then—squeezing his jaw open with one hand—you shoved your other hand down his throat. The pony made a bizarre, uncanny sound, one that I could only approximate as, “Gurpf.”

The expression on your face was uncomfortably pained as your shoulder sat at the pony’s teeth, shifting around as your arm moved.

“Feel anything?” I asked.

“A pony. But a side of which I never expected to.”

“Shit happens.”

“Yeah.”

A minute of shoulder-shifting passed, and then you stopped suddenly. “Ow!”

“What happened?” I asked.

“I think something bit me!”

I blinked. “Bit you?”

“That’s what I said.” You pulled your arm out a bit, teeth halfway to your elbow. “And it wasn’t the pony.”

“Hmm...” I tapped my chin. “Could you maybe try to get a hold on whatever it is and pull it out?”

“Uh, are you crazy?” You frowned with your whole sallow frame. “I actually need my fingers.”

“...But do you really need all of them?”

You sighed. “I guess not.” With a sharp inhale, you went back in up to your shoulder. Another minute passed, and your face screwed up in concentration. “I... think I might have something,” you said through gritted teeth. Your arm started to slide out from between my pony’s lips, and as it retreated I could see it was coated in giant globs of saliva.

And as your hand emerged, I could see you did, indeed, have something. Something small, about the size of a cat’s child. Gooey spittle strands laced the side of its head and body, a fact which it seemed to notice and not appreciate as it did its best to claw it away with its... paws? No... hooves. I didn’t even realise I was staring until it stopped, looked up, and flashed me an ugly look.

I goggled. Before me in your outstretched hand was a little pond-blue pony, or at least some bizarre facsimile of one—an almost cartoonishly disproportioned creature, bulbous by the head and splayed out unevenly. Matted hair stuck out at wrong angles at its mane and tail, coloured with odd impossible swirls of every hue I knew. Its head moved around at first, taking in the surroundings, before swivelling directly towards me.

“What even are you, you sweet thing?” I murmured softly. It didn’t murmur back—how could it?—but the small creature’s magenta eyes stared back, impenetrable as marbles yet somehow also windows to deeper pools of being.

“And why the hell was it in your horse?” you said, irritated. I looked up to see you shucking copious amounts of gooey saliva from your forearm, frowning deeply. The creature I held also glanced over, watching your repetitive motions intently.

“He’s a pony,” I said, “and I’m not sure; I can’t think of how it could possibly have gotten in there. Maybe he ate it.”

“Well, at least I was able to get it out.” You stopped wiping your arm, seemingly content with its relative dryness, and shoved your hand in a pocket. “Hopefully now your pony is—”

You were interrupted, naturally, by a deafening unearthly sound, something massive and heretofore unbeknownst yet so utterly consumed with pain. I winced.

“God fucking damn it!” you shouted. Up towards the heavens, to the empty blackness above. “Are you fucking kidding me?”

I sighed, stepping over to put a hand on my pony. As I moved, the small pony-like creature that had been perched on my hand scampered upwards, coming to roost at the crown of my skull. I’m not entirely sure how it stayed up there, what with its hooves—but somehow it managed to, for that’s where it came to be.

“Well, at least that thing’s kinda cute,” you said, eyeing it carefully. “Maybe you can replace your pony with it.”

“It’s too weird,” I said. And, as I said it, the creature slid back down my shoulder to my hand once more—proving my point. “And small.”

“It’ll grow,” you offered.

I just rolled my eyes. “Yee-eah, you don’t know that.” The pony beside us—the big one, mine—gave an anguished cry. Not in assent nor objection to what I’d said, but completely independent of the lonely path we carved through the soft wax of life. The other pony—the one in my hand—reached its head over, seemingly trying to get a glance of from whence the sound came.

“I... kind of have to go now,” you said with a frown. “Regrettably, for sure... but I don’t think I can help your pony. I’ve done all I can.”

I sighed, looking from you to the crumpled pile of pony a few feet away, still by the tree. As I turned, the blue pony on my hand made an odd squeak—hopping down daintily from my arm and landing with nary a sound on the drive. It scampered quickly over to the face of the larger pony—coming to a stop, brushing a lock of multicoloured hair from its face, and then just staring with its oversized magenta eyes.

“Yeah, okay,” I said as I turned back to face you. My shoulders loosened. “Thanks for trying; I do appreciate it. Guess I’ll have to gun it.”

You gave a solemn, solitary nod—and then turned and started to walk up the drive, shoes clacking on the asphalt. But you didn’t make it more than a few steps before—quite suddenly—the little blue pony noticed and, ears drooping, it dashed over to your feet and started nudging at your ankles from behind with its muzzle. Once you stopped, face lit up in surprise, it went around to your front and tapped at your shins with a hoof. “What the...?”

I blinked. “Well... now that is weird.”

“What does it... want?” you asked, bewildered as the little blue thing tugged at your pant leg, the tip of which being clamped between its teeth. It started to whimper, and looked up at my pony back across the drive. By me.

“I... think it wants you to keep going with the pony,” I hypothesized, weakly.

“Oh, jeez. Ah, man. I don’t know, I really have to—” The pony at your feet whinnied just as my pony let out another ungodly death whine that pierced the heavens like the corner of a rusted hinge into the side of a palm. “Um... okay. Fine. I guess. Whatever.” Visibly annoyed, you stepped past the blue pony at your feet and past me once more, back over to my pony.

“Thank you,” I mouthed as you lifted my pony’s limp head back into your grasp, though you couldn’t see me behind you. The little blue pony trotted over to me and this time it was my ankle it nudged; when I bent down to see what it wanted, it instantly climbed back up my arm to my shoulder. Not sure what else to do, I just stood back up and I could see you were already back shoulder-deep down the pony’s throat.

Your face paled, a stark contrast against the dark backdrop of the sky. “Oh, God...”

“What?”

“There’s more. Like, multiple others. Maybe four.”

“...Can you get them?”

You looked directly at me with an unhappy pout. It didn’t look quite so sincere with one of your limbs buried deep within the limp mammal—grotesque and surreal. “Must I?”

I gritted my teeth, glancing to the side at the little blue pony at eye level. Its brow was furrowed with an almost-human expression of worry. “Uh...”

“Okay, okay.” You clicked your teeth as your arm continued to shift around. A moment passed, and I just watched in silence. The space around was eerily silent, nary a breeze to interrupt the unnerving jostling of your arm inside the pony.

And then the tension in your face released, and your arm pulled up. Out something pink came, something you were holding by the scruff of its neck—and as it its hooves slid out from between the teeth, I could see it was another tiny pony about the size of the first. Its coat was pink and its mane was a darker pink, and even damp I could see that the hair frazzled out in a way the blue pony’s couldn’t even hope to achieve. As you lifted the thing up, a panicked expression took hold on its alien features; this was alleviated, however, as you set down its hooves onto the ground. It shivered a moment before looking up towards me, its pinochle-blue eyes looking up to the pony I held that matched them.

The blue pony hopped down and the two ponies met in the centre of the drive, equidistant between you and me. I watched, curious, as the pink one rubbed its muzzle against the blue one’s. I looked up back to you, but your face was already screwed back up in concentration; you were already back to digging around inside my pony.

Quickly the others came, each with a heaving grunt on your part as you wrenched the poor ponies from the throat. One with an orange coat, and oddly a blonde ponytail held together by a thin red band. A sugar-yellow pony with wispy, candy-floss hair. A mottled white thing, already its hooves up to boff at its flowing deep blue mane before you could let it drop. Each one of the tiny ponies caught sight of the others once it hit the ground, and the two, three, four, five of them huddled together in a bizarre show of alien affection, muzzles touching and soft neighing with each new arrival.

After the white one, you stopped, setting my pony’s limp head down softly on the asphalt. You looked up to me, frowning.

“Is that all of them?” I asked, after a moment of silence.

“Not quite,” you replied. “There’s something else in there, definitely—but I can’t quite get a hold on it, I think it’s too big.”

“Hmmm...” I tapped my chin. “Then, uh, let me help you?”

You didn’t look especially thrilled at the prospect, but I stepped over anyway. Crouching down, I forcefully planted my hand on my pony’s cheek, tracing the remains of his lip with my thumb. “He feels fucking weird.”

“You’re telling me...”

Ignoring you, I pulled on my pony’s head from the ears, lifting the nearly weightless fabric of his skin up before me. The pony’s neck twisted and was starting to fray as it stretched out below.

You sighed and clasped your fingers around the pony’s mouth as well. And, together, in strange solidarity, we pulled down—unwrapping the last vestiges of my pony’s head and neck like a birthday present. I choked back a tear; you paused, raising an eyebrow, but I wiped my eye on my sleeve and gestured for you to go on—which we did.

And then—revealed like a newborn unto life—there was a tapered spiral cone, poking up skywards. An odd red-blue, not unlike the small white pony’s mane, and it wasn’t alone; at its base was damp fur and matted hair of an even deeper complexion. With the crinkling tear of my pony’s skin further and further, we exposed more—a pony face with wide deep eyes, just like the now-gawking ponies at our feet. But larger, almost the size of my own head. On its face, exposed to the world, was a wide smile familiar even on this different species’ face. Once the skin was pulled down to its hooves, this pony stepped out of the last and moved past us. Its hooves clacked on the asphalt.

“Whew!” The pony looked around at the nothing sky, blinking. “It feels good to be free of... whatever that was, heh.” Its—her?—voice was feminine, careful in each word even as they spilled out. She looked over back towards where you and I stood, and her smile widened into a toothy grin. “Maybe Celestia shines here after all...”

My brain had shut down completely at this point, so I merely gave an automatic nod—which appeared to be more than you, as you stood stock still. The pony didn’t seem perturbed by our lack of response; instead, she trained her vision downward at the five scampy spots of colour that were excitedly whinnying at her hooves. “Girls, girls, please calm down! Just give me a second, and...”

She didn’t have to finish her sentence; the smaller ponies settled down quickly, fanning out into a half-circle. The large one before them was crouching down, and her eyes screwed up in concentration.

A burst of red light exploded from the pony’s head cone, beaming with laser focus to the blood-pink pony on her left. Its tiny hooves were lifted off the ground and its whole body began to glow white, leaving me momentarily blinded.

I rubbed my eyes and my vision came back clearly—and before us there was a larger pink pony nearly the size of the blue one. Its mane ballooned out ridiculously, like some sort of roadside bush.

“Twilight!” it—she—said in a high-pitched voice, rushing forward to nuzzle the other pony. “O.M.G.! How long were we trapped in there? How did you even get us out?”

“I think it’s only been a few hours, maybe a day at most,” this ‘Twilight’ replied, putting a hoof to the pink pony’s muzzle. “We can talk more about it, but let me switch the others back so I don’t have to say anything over again.”

The pink one gave a bowie nod and stepped back. Twilight crouched down again and, one by one, the bursts of light consumed each of the tiny ponies—restoring them to their full size. As the light travelled, so did the pink one, hopping over to nuzzle each of her colourful companions. They all grew larger, to about that same size—and a few of them gained either a forehead-cone like the deep blue one, or a set of wings. This I noticed Twilight also had, nestled away on her back, that somehow I hadn’t noticed before.

In no time at all, all six stood tall—or, well, about chest-height, but still taller than before. They spoke quickly among themselves with warm, friendly tones, laughing and chattering with a real sense of... community, I guess.

“You have no idea how good it feels to stretch my wings.” “I thought it was kinda nice in there...” “Well, yeah, you would.” “Hey, don’t be mean to Flutter-Butter! I thought it was pretty cosy-posey in there too!” “Oh, don’t pretend ya ain’t as glad to be free of that thing as the rest of us—you’re beamin’ around as well as anypony.” “Hee hee hee! Guilty as charged!”

“Girls, girls!” The one called Twilight stamped her hoof on the ground a few times like a gavel, and the others settled down. “I want to catch up with you girls too, but we’ve got to keep moving—we can’t stay here.”

“Okay, okay, hold yer horses,” said the blonde-braided orange one. Somehow, while I wasn’t paying attention, she’d acquired a comically oversized rancher’s hat that was tilting precipitously over her brow. “Where even are we? Last thing I remember was bein’ backed in a corner with Dash when we were fightin’ the skingarbler’s minion things, and then it all went black.”

Twilight took a deep breath. “The skingarbler... it gained access to the inner sanctum of the Marble Temple. And it used the brambleberry clippings to—”

“Oh crap, it unleashed the curse?” the light-blue one—the one I’d held in my hands when she was small—interrupted. It was odd to see her larger, so similar yet unrecognisably transformed, just moments afterward; and, what’s more, she was floating a metre or so off the ground, wings buzzing to keep her aloft. An odd sight for sure.

Twilight gave a curt nod. “I’m afraid so, and somehow in the process—maybe because of the Elements—we ended up here.” She looked around at the decaying field surrounding us, and the blank slate of a sky above; I think her eyes flitted to me for a moment, before darting away back to her companions. “And as you can see, we don’t have the Elements right now—so first we gotta find them. I’m... I’m not sure what this place is, but I know we’ve got to keep moving.”

This seemed to satisfy the pond-blue one, who nodded. The pink one, however, took a glance behind—and stared me right in the face with her large, alien eyes that were the same pond-blue as her companion’s coat. “What about these—?”

“Pinkie!” Twilight interrupted her, and all five of the other ponies looked back towards her, startled. “Don’t talk to or about them. There’s nothing we can do.”

The pink one whimpered, lowering her head. “Okay, okay... I just thought—”

“I’m sorry,” Twilight said to her. And she looked up at me—and at you—and mouthed those words again. “Let’s... let’s get moving.”

All joviality stripped away, Twilight—the tallest of the group—confidently stepped down the driveway, and her companions followed her out onto the road in an uneasy silence. Their hooves clacked and scrabbled on the gravel, scraping in ugly atones that grew quieter and more distant. I didn’t even turn to watch them go—why would I?—so I just stood there, and I breathed, until the shuffling was no longer distinct from the sound of worms not wriggling in the earth below, or the sound of no sun shining above, or the sound of the tree beside not growing.

“Well, that was interesting,” you said. I looked your way to see you brushing some dust off your shirt, shrugging your shoulders. You looked up, meeting my gaze. “Never seen anything like that before, honestly.”

“Yeah, no shit,” I said with a nod. My throat was dry. “I need to, like, sit down and think about shit now.”

“Hmm... care if I join you?” You took a step towards me and, before I could object, your hand was suddenly on my sleeve. “I could... use that too.”

I looked down at your slobbery, decrepit hand. The way the worn skin of your fingers pushed down the folds of my sleeve, pressing them against my arm in an odd, coercive presence. “I... huh?”

“Just you and I...” you breathed, leaning in.

I snatched my arm back, nursing it against my chest as I stepped away from you. “Uh, yeah, no. Sorry, I’m gay.”

You tilted your head. “Er, yeah, I am too. Isn’t that... the point? Don’t we... have something here, sweetie?”

I couldn’t help it, but I laughed. Not a loud laugh, not a chest laugh, but something sad and frustrated at the ridiculousness as I shook my head. I should’ve known, huh. I didn’t even say thank you for the help as I turned and walked across the driveway, up the couple concrete steps and opened the screen and real door. I let them close behind me and then—for some unearthly reason—I turned to look through the peep-hole.

There you stood in my driveway, alone. I could only just see the outline of your jacket against the soft velvet of the sky when you stood still—but you didn’t stand still for long. Curiously, I watched as you leaned over, clenched your hands around the folds of my pony’s remaining skin, and stood back up holding it. With a groan, you pulled up the loose fabric and slung it over your shoulder, visibly weighed down. And then—as I’d surmised was your objective from the start—you left. You slowly but surely walked down the length of the driveway with my pony’s skin draped over your shoulder like a scarf, and you kept going, down the road, into the shrouded distance in the same direction you had been walking before.

I could have gone after you and gotten my pony back if I wanted, but I didn’t. I had loved him and protected him for many years, done all I could, but now he was released. I had let go, and now we both were free.

With a sigh, I stepped away from the peep-hole. At my feet there was a thick black spider with an abdomen the size of a silver dollar and legs even longer, and it scurried across the floorboards and over both my shoes in sequence before running into a hole in the moulding. I reached over to my left, blindly opening the cupboard and pulling out a glass, one of the ones with a blue rim lining the top.

The glass was already full, and from it I drank.