Two days had passed since the events in Stableton. Though they had stayed at inns for their second and third nights on the road, most of Starlight and Anon’s time had been spent walking. They’d arrived in Bridleberg that morning, the closest town with a train station, but later than Twilight’s schedule dictated because of the Stableton complications. So when they bought their tickets, they’d had to take what was available—seats at opposite ends of the train.

“All aboard to Baltimare.”

“What if we exchanged these tickets for a later train?” Anon asked the mare behind the ticket counter.

She stared through him like a filly at an advanced alchemy textbook. “Then you’ll have to pay the transfer fee.”

“A fee just to catch the same train at a different time? What kind of fucking scam is that?” Anon said.

“Anon, it’s fine,” Starlight said. “We’ll just be a few carriages apart. Our train is leaving.”

Anon grumbled, then looked to the ticket mare again. “I won’t forget this injustice. I know the princesses, you know! I’ll have this entire station turned into a parking garage!”

“Sir, I don’t know what that means,” the ticket mare said.

“Oh, you will! Mark my words!” Anon yelled as Starlight dragged him away.

“Tickets, please.” The conductor said when they approached him. He took Starlight’s first and nodded. “Seat 22, ma’am.”

Starlight turned to Anon and smiled. “It’s only for a few hours. I’ll see you when we disembark.” She disappeared into the carriage.

The conductor turned to Anon. “Ticket, sir?”

“Yeah, here. Whatever.” Anon handed it to him.

The conductor nodded again. “Seat 107, sir. Near the caboose.”

Anon snatched the ticket from him and boarded. “Great. Thanks.”

Anon walked past rows of chattering ponies and found his seat. It was squeezed between a gryphon and a gruff, brown stallion, neither of whom looked pleased to see him. Anon sighed, sidled into the row, ignoring the stallion’s grumpy neighing, tucked his tote beneath his seat, and sat. Across from him were three mares. Two—one teal, the other violet—were cuddled together, reading a magazine, and the third, her coat ivory, was mid-nap.

“Uncivilized gulls,” Anon heard the gryphon, whose conical bill and gold and black plumage reminded him of a finch, say. Anon could see in his peripheral that the disgruntled bird was looking at the snuggling mares across from them. He must have been new to ponies. It had taken Anon some time, too, to realize that snuggling, cuddling, and nuzzling weren’t taboo in public, but just the way friends interacted here. The first several times he’d experienced it, he thought everyone everywhere was in some kind of intimate relationship, and that many of them wanted one with him. It wasn’t until a mare courted him for the first time that he recognized the difference. When a mare wants fuk, there’s no ambiguity. She’ll present like a cat in heat. Often because she actually is in heat.

The train whistled, steamed, then lurched into motion. Anon watched the station disappear. Soon they were sailing a green sea. In the distance he could see the mountain range hiding Canterlot, his old home. Anxiety twisted his stomach.

Anon leaned back and closed his eyes. He repeated Starlight’s line to himself, just a few hours.

“What are you tryin’ to do, push me out my seat?” Anon heard grumble from beside him. He cracked his lids and looked to the stallion.

“Yeah, I’m talking to you, you damn giant. Keep your legs to yourself.”

“Sorry,” Anon said. He pulled his limbs to his body and sat straight.

“Hmph, letting everything under the sun into this country…” the stallion grumbled to himself.

Anon closed his eyes again, a vain attempt to sleep through the journey. It almost worked. But as he stood at sleep’s edge, about to slip into the void, he felt thick, coarse feathers slap him in the face. He snapped open his eyes and pushed the gryphon wing away.

“Dude, quit it,” Anon said to the bird beside him.

“These pony carriages are too small,” the gryphon said. “I need room to stretch my flight muscles.”

“Ok, but can you not do it in my face,” Anon said.

“I make no promises.” The gryphon folded his wings.

Anon sighed. He resumed his quest for sleep. He saw stars flit by. His mind wandered off through lines of familiar faces and foggy impressions, and he found himself in Celestia’s throne room. Sun Butt glared at him and guilt bubbled from his depths. She shook her head at him, opened her mouth, and the sound of a chainsaw on stone spilled from her lips.

Anon jolted awake and covered his ears. “What the fuck?”

Across from him the ivory mare was snoring so loud that Starlight’s apnea was a kitten’s purr in comparison.

“That’s it,” Anon said. He stood and squeezed past the still grumbling stallion. He walked through four carriages, to Starlight’s row. She was in an aisle seat, reading Kites Quarterly. Beside her were two mares talking well above inside-voice decibels, but it didn’t seem to bother her. Anon crouched beside her.

“Starlight,” he said after shooting the chatty mares a dirty look.

Starlight looked at him and tilted her head. “What are you doing up here?”

“I can’t take it back there anymore. Let me sit with you.”

Starlight looked around. “How? There’s no room.”

“I don’t know, you can sit in my lap or something.”

She gave him a deadpan look. “I don’t think that’s allowed. And even if it were, no.”

“Fine,” Anon said and plopped down, “I’ll just sit here, then.”

“Ahem.”

Anon turned. The conductor was standing behind him.

“Please clear the aisle, sir.”

“Gah!” Anon stood, squeezed past the conductor, and headed to his seat.

“Try to make the best of it. We’ll be there before you know it!” Starlight called after him.

Anon sidled into his row, past the agitated stallion and the ivory mare still imitating a jackhammer with her nostrils, and plopped down.

“Ow! What do you think you’re doing?”

Anon hopped upright and looked in his seat. The gryphon’s tail wiggled limply on his cushion.

Anon sighed. “Can you get your tail out of my seat?”

“That’s is no way to apologize for dropping your rump on it,” the gryphon spat, then curled and stroked it.

Anon sat, limbs together, and groaned. If he couldn’t sleep, maybe reading would work. It seemed to for Starlight. He reached under his chair, unzipped his bag, and pulled out last moon’s edition of Better Boardgames. He flipped to the article on Steed Battalion. Ponies didn’t have anything as kickass as Warhammer, but they had their own set of crazy table top games.

He read the first line, but lost his place when the bear-in-pony-form across form him took another deep breath. He tried again, but again her lawnmower sounds kept him distracted. He inhaled, told himself to concentrate, then read the first line. It worked, Snorlax’s breathing didn’t derail him. Second line was a breeze too. No mind, like the Buddhists say. The third line was about to fall too, but…

“Waaaaaaaah!” a foal screeched behind him.

Anon squeezed, crumpling the pages. “Not parking lot. I’ll have it turned into a public toilet.”

The stallion next to him began grumbling again about Equestria for ponies, the foal screamed at the top of its lungs, the ivory mare went full construction site, and the gryphon’s wing pomfed against his face.

Anon stood, asked to be excused, and walked to Starlight’s carriage. She was writing a letter when he reached her.

“I need you to deafen me,” he said.

Starlight looked from her parchment, confusion written on her features.

“Like a silence spell or something.”

“That… Would mute you, not silence everyone else,” Starlight said.

“Can you puncture my eardrums with your horn, then?”

“Ew, no. Just go back to your seat. I’ll come to you if I think of a way to help.”

Anon groaned. “Fine.”

He trecked back to his carriage, slid past his row mates, and settled on his cushion. Maybe he was being ridiculous. He’d been in crowded train cars before on earth, and this wasn’t his first Equestrian train ride. Granted there was usually more room, and the trips weren’t often longer than twenty minutes, but it wasn’t a new experience. He just had to pull it together, man up, and make it through the next few hours.

--

Starlight finished penning her letter to Twilight. She blew on the ink and read it. “Maybe ‘so incredibly, amazingly, monumentally sorry’ is a bit much,” she whispered. “Then again, maybe it’s not enough?”

She looked out the window. Her first letter would have arrived by now. She hadn’t heard anything from Twilight, but that was expected. After all, she and Anon hadn’t stopped much since leaving Stableton. Besides scrying, how would Twilight know where they were to send a response?

Starlight felt the butterflies in her stomach throwing a party. She needed something to take her mind off it. She crumpled her parchment, then paused. She looked at the wrinkled ball, unfurled it, then ripped it in two. She narrowed her eyes and felt her horn warm. The papers flashed and became two matching earplugs, about the size of Anon’s auditory canal if her memory was right.

She hopped from her seat and trotted to his carriage. The human was having it rough, maybe these would speed his journey. She opened the door to the last car and froze in place. Horror gripped her chest.

“Sir, please let him go!” the conductor yelled.

Anon was sprawled out in the aisle, holding a brown stallion in a choke hold. The stallion was kicking wildly, his face bright pink. A nearby gryphon was placing bets and waving a bag of bits in the air, and she heard a foal giggling wildly at the show. Most ponies in the carriage looked horrified, but none seemed brave enough to intervene.

“Go ahead, talk shit again! Not such a big guy now, are you?” Anon said through a sadistic grin.

Starlight felt herself shake with fury.

“ANONYMOUS!”

--

“And your service is terrible! I didn’t get a pack of peanuts the entire ride!” Anon yelled at the train as it pulled away from them.

Starlight buried her face in her hooves. “Why, Celestia? Why me?”

She heard Anon humph triumphantly beside her.

“Told them, huh?” He said.

Starlight gritted her teeth, filled her horn with energy, and slammed Anon into the ground.

They walked the rest of the way.