April 22nd, 1001 Domina Solaria

Applebaum first awakens to pitch darkness, a deafening scratching, and agonizing pain.

Keep fighting...

The next time she awakens to a throbbing pain in her head, a tortured scratching, and the same darkness. The pain is barely tolerable, radiating from her skull. She tries to raise a hoof to rub at it, test the extent of her injury, but stops short when she bumps into a rock. A large rock that has her head wedged between it and the floor, closed like the jaws of a timberwolf.

Until you stop breathing...

There is a light rumble reverberating through the rock; it almost sounds like music, heavy on the bass with a definite, steady beat. What is it from? Why is it there? She has no idea. It’s too quiet, and easily drowned out by the scratching that continues unabated, occasionally accompanied by low moans. It sounds like Totem, fretting and anxious. He’s above her. And close? She can’t tell. The darkness is all-consuming, leaving not a glimmer or sparkle of the glowstick, only random pinpricks of light she knows not to connect to anything.

Keep fighting...

She tentatively gives the rock pressing against her face a light push, worried about causing a cascade from the recently relocated rubble. Her cutie mark remains silent, but she might have exhausted whatever reserves she has. Her body aches, sore all over, and all she wants to do is sleep. But the pain in her head is too blinding for her to rest, her throat parched and scratchy from inhaling dust. She tries to move her right foreleg, but it’s trapped. The rest of her body is likewise buried, and she can’t twist her head to get a look at it, not that she could see anything regardless.

See you through to the other side...

She tries to piece together what happened. She remembers the shield going out and her cutie mark going insane. The spot where she was standing was not safe - a gross understatement, that - and her mark located two spots of relative safety: one outside that she might barely make, and one inside. There was no way she was getting to the safety of outside with Totem, even if he had his snout between her legs. So she took the heavy bell she was in the process of picking up, chucked it outside to give herself a smidgen more momentum, and tackled him. She must have been buried afterwards, and desperately hopes Totem escaped the worst of it. She waves her left foreleg, as far as she can, finding a fair amount of open space. A good sign?

“Totem?” she calls. Her voice is whispered sandpaper rather than the loud shout she uses at the apartment, the elderly Dig Root’s rasp instead of that of a spry young mare. She coughs, a dry, hacking wheezing, that doesn’t help her throat. She tries again. “Totem?”

The rough scratching stops, though the steady beat continues. “Applebaum?” comes the colt’s frightened reply from above her. There is a hesitancy, a disbelief, that she finds disconcerting. “You’re okay?”

“Ah’m not sure,” she answers, figuring that honesty is the best policy and all, even if he might be distraught over her condition. “Mah head hurts, Ah’m trapped, and Ah could really use a drink right about now.”

“Oh,” is all he says. After a moment the light scratching returns. He grunts, exerting against something, and a crash accompanies the pressure against her lessening.

Applebaum tries to smile, but her face hurts when she moves. “A-are ya close ta diggin’ me out?”

“Um.” He pauses, as though looking around him. “I’m not sure.”

Applebaum closes her eyes in frustration, along with a certain amount of, how can she put it delicately, utter loathing of the colt. She tries to keep the venom from her voice, but it’s hard to tell one way or the other if she succeeds. “Then what’re ya doin’?”

“I-I couldn’t dig you out. So I went back to what you told me.” The scratching continues as he says, voice shaking with pain and distress, “You told me to stand here.” She imagines he points somewhere. “But I can’t stand here. The rock is in the way.”

Applebaum stares in disbelief. She swallows, a bit of feeling returning to her throat. “...What?”

“You told me to stand here,” he explains, sniffling, scratching at the rock all the while. “But I can’t. I can’t do what I’m told.”

“Totem,” Applebaum shouts, though it comes out as an aggrieved whisper. She lets her frustrations pour out, “ya don’t always have ta do what you’re told!”

“But I do!” Totem counters, voice raising. “When I do what I’m told, it works out! Ponies like me, mares get things for me, and my cutie mark is satisfied! Things always work out! They’ve always worked out.” He whimpers, and she can hear the loud thunk of a head hitting a wall. “But now I can’t do what I’m told. And it’s not working out.”

“Totem,” she starts. That ain’t how it works! But she doesn’t voice that opinion; instead, a desperate desire washes over her, to console and soothe the ailing colt. “Can ya come over here?”

There is a brief pause. “Are you ordering me to?” he mewls, choking back a sob. “Because, if you are, then I couldn’t follow your order. I’ll have failed. I’ll be a failure.”

“You’re not a failure,” Applebaum reassures. “It’s not an order. Just… can ya come over here?”

“Promise?”

“Ah promise.” Applebaum forces a smile. “Ah’d Pinkie Promise, but Ah can’t get mah hoof to touch mah eye.” Or my chest, for that matter.

He hops down from the rocks around her, not that she notices the pressure changing. His tentative hoofbeats line up with the bass reverberating from outside. She notes the jingle of straps and a certain foul odor accompanying him. She ignores the latter, her nose quickly adapting, to focus on the fact that he is still wearing his pack. “I’m here,” he announces, as if she couldn’t hear.

“Do ya have another glowstick in there?” Applebaum grimaces at the clatter as he dumps the packs to the side and rummages through them. She didn’t think the glowsticks were that far in, but she’s never had to go through a pack blind. It takes a long time, too, like it’s his first time feeling every item and he has to figure out what it is purely by touch. She bites her tongue before it can get her in trouble.

“Do,” Totem asks, and she can tell he’s struggling to get the words out. “Do ya… want a drink?”

He’s… taking initiative? Even if it is somethin’ Ah asked for. “Yes,” Applebaum answers with a grin. “Please.”

She holds her mouth open, gladly accepting the contents of the canteen that dribble down the back of her throat. She feels like a foal, bottle propped up for her and just suckling away. The cool liquid sends shivers along her back, refreshing and reminding her body that it’s supposed to be alive and fighting, not resigning to a frozen fate.

“...Better?” He sounds hopeful, glad to be doing something right, but a twinge of regret that it isn’t what she ordered him to do earlier.

“Much.” She sighs as he goes back to emptying his pack, one item at a time. There comes the crinkle of a haybar wrapper, and the chomps of him chewing. She wishes he would share a bite, her stomach loudly reminding her that she has barely eaten. She frowns as something hard yet squishy pushes against her jaw, then realizes it’s the rest of the haybar. She opens her mouth, takes a big bite, and finds herself unable to effectively protest when he pushes the rest in. All she can do for a little while is chew the dense glob, glad she wet her mouth first, then listen as he rummages around.

When he finally finds a glowstick the light blinds her for a full minute, but it’s worth it.

She smiles at the blob standing in front of her, it gradually taking shape as her eyes adjust. She likes to think it smiles back, the dark red colt blending into the shadowy darkness behind him. “You did it,” she praises, loving how she can see his own smile return.

“...Sure.” He leans down to nuzzle her, their grime and sweat blending together. Her eyes roam over his dirt-stained coat, his disheveled mane, his worn-out expression, exhausted and spent and yet still going at it. Had he slept? She doubts it.

“Do ya see this rock?” Applebaum taps against the part holding her head down. Totem nods. “Can ya try liftin’ it?”

“Sure.” Totem tries gripping from the top, not budging it, then rolls to his back and next to Applebaum. He places his hooves on the far edge, grunts in pain, then strains, lifting the whole stack of rock trapping her a mere inch.

But an inch is all Applebaum needs. The pressure relieved, she pushes with her rejuvenated legs, squirming this way and that until her whole body is freed from the trap. She whoops in joy, dancing about as feeling returns to her whole body, glad to be alive. Her mark stays silent, thankfully, even when he gradually lowers the rock and pulls his hooves free.

She spots his hooves for the first time, gasping. He has whittled the left horseshoe away completely, the cornified layer underneath bleeding from where he has worn through that as well. For some reason, she finds this hilarious.

“What?” Totem asks when she can’t hold in her laughter.

“Y-your hoof,” she explains between fits of giggles. “Your right hoof is a lot larger than your left hoof.”

Totem looks down, inspecting his injured hoof. “Oh,” he says as he compares it to his right hoof. “I don’t get it.”

“S-sorry,” Applebaum says, but she can’t keep from laughing. I-it’s gotta be the altitude. All the blood rushing to the head…”

That sets her off again, and she flops to the dusty ground, laughing her head off.

Totem stares at her. “Oh.” He blinks. “Oh!” He grins. “Normally, I use both my hooves. Guess I’ll need to borrow yours?”

Applebaum snorts. “In your dreams.” She smirks as he flops down, his head on her belly. “Can’t wait to get to that part, huh?” Soft snores are all she gets in return. “You know, of all the ponies Ah could be trapped here with?” She tussles his short mane, sighing happily. “Ah can’t think of any Ah’d rather be with.”

“I can think of a few,” Totem answers, drawing a frown. “Princess Celestia, Princess Luna. Princess Twilight.”

“Totem?”

“Actually, anypony who can teleport, really.” Totem twists his head to look at her. “Yeah?”

“Next time you stick your hoof in your mouth?” Applebaum taps his left hoof. “Use your left hoof.”

He pulls it away, wincing, then immediately puts it next to her. “...Because I didn’t mention earth ponies who can dig really well?”

“That’s your right hoof again.” She pushes him off to stand up and take note of their surroundings. They are trapped inside a small hollow formed where the central pillar and attached cave roof fell on their side. This blocked most, but not all, of the debris from landing on them. She looks back at the spot where Totem had been digging.

The spot directly above where she was trapped, where a long section had fallen, and then in turn been buried. If he hadn’t been forcing himself to dig there…

She decides to focus on continuing his excavation. He had tossed a number of rocks toward the central pillar, clearing the route that, previously, led to their exit. There are also a number of their metal tools, their worn and rounded tips broken off and discarded.

“That’s it!” Applebaum grins, even as Totem hops up to where she is pointing to continue digging. She joins him, searching for an opening she can use, preferably high and tubular. “This is too hard to tunnel though with our bare hooves, right?”

Totem looks down at his worn hoof. “Right.”

“So we just need to break it into smaller pieces.” She grabs a slender stick from her pack, grinning like a madpony. She twists it open and inserts a small rock chipped off from the wall, then twists it closed. “I just need to find a spot…”

She taps a few areas, listening for a loose or hollow section she would have an easier time digging out. It’s hard with the beat still going on outside, and the first sections offer no help. Then she finds one, a thin seam where two rocks fell but the crack wasn’t completely sealed by smaller rocks. She slips the stick into the seam, leaving the fuse dangling.

“Can ya help me pick up the food?” Applebaum asks, hoping he doesn’t take it as an order and give her grief. After they finish she gently pushes him past the fallen central pillar, even though this takes them further into the mountain. “Stay behind here, and after Ah’m done you’ll be able to stand on that spot. Okay?”

“Sure,” Totem answers, the sparkle in his eye matching his grin. He tucks himself away while she finds a torch, lights it, grabs the glowstick, lights the fuse, and high-tails it to Totem.

There is no explosion, just a heavy *whumph*, and the heavy bass beat gets louder.

“Just keep on singing…”

She peeks out from around the corner. A spherical section of wall has completely disintegrated, replaced by a collapsed wall of white snow backlit by the sun. Snowflakes sputter about in their diminished hollow, like miniature pegasi flitting about their day over Ponyville, but the loss of space to a snowdrift and accompanying chill is the least of her worries.

“Just keep on dancing…”

Totem knocks her over in his haste to rush forward; she doesn’t even care as she eats a mouthful of cold snow as he plows in the solid bank, furiously digging until he comes to a seemingly random spot. Her muscles complain as she stands, legs wobbly.

“There!” he exclaims with a heavy whoosh of air, finally relaxing. She can feel the joy radiating from him, for doing something as simple as standing where somepony told him to. He turns to her, grinning from ear to ear. “Now what?”

“What’d’ya think?” Applebaum answers with a roll of her eyes. “Now we get the buck out of here!” She smirks, “Ah’ve never been happier to say, ‘Follow me, Totem!’”

She climbs the slanted wall, kicking snow behind her. Her body aches, but she doesn’t care; she tunnels toward the light, Totem pressed against her, the music getting louder and louder until they finally break free.

And they spot Princess Celestia, not a stone’s throw away, facing one of the nearby mountains. Singing.

“Keep letting your light shine!”

Her voice, beautiful and perfect and booming.

“Keep fighting the good fight!”

“Princess Celestia?” Totem asks, not quite as dumbfounded as Applebaum.

The alabaster alicorn stops singing, her ears flicking with what anypony would interpret as confusion. Her echo off the mountain comes back, much quieter though no less inspiring, “Never give up, never give up!”

Celestia turns toward them. “Applebaum?” She focuses on Totem for a moment longer, as though she is flipping through an index. “And Totem? What are you doing here?”

“Ah could ask you the same thing, Princess.” Applebaum gives a short bow, Totem following along and staying with his muzzle to the snow. “But Ah’m sure as shootin’ glad you’re here!”

“Y-you didn’t answer the Princess,” Totem cautions, gulping.

“That’s quite all right, my little pony.” Princess Celestia calmly walks forward, though with the angled climb she never towers above them. Applebaum notices that she isn’t cold any more, and that the wind - that Windigo harassing them the entire way up - has disappeared. “I came here to, let’s say, investigate the collapse of one of my vaults.”

“That happened last night,” Totem points out. Applebaum coughs something about ‘right hoof’ that Totem ignores. “You’ve been here all night?”

“As long as it takes for my investigation to complete.” Princess Celestia offers them both a fond smile. “Which, I am pleased to say, it has.”

“Oh.” Applebaum’s ears fold against her head. “A-and what’s gonna happen to us?” She glances behind her. “F-for, ya know, c-collapsin’ your vault?”

“Do not fear, my little pony,” Celestia reassures, leaning forward to nuzzle Applebaum’s teary cheek. It helps, immensely. “You are not the first pony who has sought after a source of power in a time of need.”

Applebaum nods, contrite nonetheless.

Celestia stands, smiling. “Now that I am done, might I offer you a ride home?”

“Ah’d sure be glad to accept, Your Highness,” Applebaum says, thankful to not need to climb down the mountain. Totem eagerly nods. “And, um…” Applebaum leans forward and takes a deep breath, Celestia cocking an ear to better listen. “Thank you.” She gulps. “For everything.”

“We would not be the ponies we are,” Celestia answers warmly, “without the trials and tribulations we face.”

Applebaum nods, not surprised that Celestia caught her meaning. “Maybe we can tell ya what happened?”

“I would be delighted to hear the tale.” Celestia’s horn lights, the three disappearing in a flash of gold.

Next Chapter: Ch. 116 - Combat Focus, Part One Estimated time remaining: 13 Hours, 38 Minutes