The best laid plans . . .

I didn't need to open my eyes to know I was awake; my dreams were never so happy. Sweets was there with me. I felt his breath against my neck as I held him tightly. The bed was warm and soft, and I just wanted to stay there, safe and secure. From how tightly my little brother was holding me, I knew he wanted to stay too—wanted me to stay.

He was a good pony. He didn't deserve . . . he didn't deserve our mother. He didn't deserve what I had to do. He didn't deserve any of it.

He deserved a better life than what the stable had to offer.

. . . But that was the best life there was.

So I held him. I held my little brother close. I nuzzled the top of his head, smelled his mane, and just . . . laid there with him.

But a part of me already knew that it couldn't last. All the more reason to keep holding on to him while I could. All I ever wanted was to keep my little brother safe. I already knew how far I'd go to protect him . . . knew I'd do it all over again if I had to.

Of course, that part of me was right, and our peaceful morning together didn't last forever. A loud pounding against the door to our quarters broke us out of our embrace, and we both sat upright. There was muffled yelling, and then I heard the door opening.

I jumped out of bed and opened the door to my room to look out into the living room. The overstallion was there, along with a mare from security.

"Where is Sweetie Pie?" the overstallion demanded.

"Day? What's going on?" Sweets asked, coming up to my bedroom door.

I moved to keep him behind me. "Stay back, Sweets. What's this about?" I asked the overstallion.

Ignoring me, the overstallion made a move toward us. "There you are. Come—" He stopped abruptly when I flared out my wings and stamped my hoof. He leveled his gaze at me. "Sweetie Pie is my responsibility now," he said. "I told him to stay in his room, but he snuck out to come here. You have to get along with everypony, Sweetie Pie." His voice was at once stern and demanding and sickly-sweet. "Now come here."

"I don't want to stay with you!" Sweets yelled as he crawled under me and looked out from between my forelegs. "I want to stay with my big brother!"

"Sweets, let me handle this, please," I said quietly to him, trying to hold him back.

"I don't want to go!"

"It's okay. You don't have to go." I put my hoof on his shoulder and felt him calm down. I looked up at the overstallion. "He doesn't have to go."

The overstallion raised an eyebrow at me. "Come now, Lucky Day. We have to get alo—"

"No."

"Excuse me?" He blinked.

"I said no. I'm not going to let you take my little brother away from me." I took a step forward. "You've seen what I'm willing to do to protect my little brother. You already exiled me once. Do you think I'm afraid to do it again?"

Everypony was quiet. The overstallion opened his mouth to speak, but stopped. He glanced at the security mare and jerked his head in my direction. She floated out her baton and started toward me. I took another step forward, and she stopped.

"I killed a mare on my second day outside. She had a sledgehammer a lot bigger than your little stick. You wanna see if you've got better luck?"

She didn't move. I took a step, and she backed up.

"Th—there's no need for this to get ugly, Lucky Day. We can all get along here." The overstallion put his hoof on the mare's shoulder, and she put her baton away. "You've been away from your brother for a long time, Sweetie Pie," he said, clearing his throat. "We'll let you two catch up. I expect you home for dinner, though. Lucky Day, perhaps you should join us again. I'm sure your brother will like that."

The two of them slowly backed their way out into the corridor as I glared at them while advancing slowly.

"We'll think about it," I said as I pushed the button to close the door.

No sooner had the door closed than I felt the blood drain from my face and my legs go limp. I leaned into the door and slumped down against it. Sweets rushed up to me and threw his forelegs around my neck in a tight embrace.

"That was incredible, Day! Nopony will ever mess with us again!"

I clasped my hooves on Sweets's cheeks to hold him steady and to make sure he looked right at me. "Promise me, Sweets. Promise me you'll never do that. You should never talk to Security or the overstallion like that."

"But you—"

"I shouldn't have done that, Sweets. Being outside changed me. I don't get along like I used to anymore—I don't fit in here. Please, Sweets, promise me you won't try to be like me."

"I . . . I promise . . ."

Hearing those words, I let go of his face and pulled my little brother into a tight embrace. The panic I had felt immediately following the overstallion's departure melted away in Sweets's warmth.

"Day? Is everything alright?" came Starry's voice from the doorway to our mother's room.

Sweets shrieked and clung to me tighter.

"It's okay. It's only Starry," I reassured him. "She's my friend. She's here to help, remember?" I felt him shaking against me as he stared across the room at her. I stroked my hoof along his mane to try to calm him down. "We're alright, Starry. Just a little shaken up is all. The overstallion was just here." I looked up at her. "Is it time to go get the new capacitor?"

Starry walked out toward us slowly, but stopped a few feet away. "You know, actually, I can probably handle it on my own. There's no need you should have to come with me, so you can stay here with Sweets." She knelt down and ducked her head to look at Sweets on his level, smiling at him. "That sound good to you?"

Sweets's trembling stopped, and he looked up at me, smiling. "It's all I ever wanted."

***

"Check," said Sweets as he put his pawn down where my knight had just been. We were playing chess while waiting for Starry to return with the replacement spark capacitor.

I looked over the board. "And mate next move; nothing I can do to stop it." I reached out and shook hooves with Sweets in resignation. It was the third game he'd won since we'd started. I smiled as I watched him reset all the pieces.

"Remember the first time you beat me?" I asked, laughing softly. "You were so upset about it. You even tried to invent an escape for me when I wouldn't let you take your move back."

Sweets's cheeks flushed. "I thought you'd be mad, and . . . you're my big brother; you're supposed to be so much smarter about everything. I thought if I won against you . . . if I was better than you, you wouldn't want to play anymore." He rolled his king back and forth between his hooves for a little bit before putting it on the board.

Reaching across the board, I tousled his mane. "And now I can't even remember the last time I won against you." I chuckled and made my opening move.

"Last month," Sweets said as he took his turn. "When you were in Medical, recovering from your collapsed lung. You did something I didn't expect you to do: you sacrificed your queen. It opened up a hole in the pawn defense, and then you pinned the king with your knight and finished him off with your rook." It never ceased to amaze me how he seemed to remember every move of every game we had ever played.

"Ah. I guess I just forgot because I had other things on my mind back then," I said. "All I remember from then was how worried I was about you being on your own while I was stuck in Medical."

Our conversation quieted as we focused more on the game. I could tell I was starting to lose already, though; my mind hadn't really been on the game—it hadn't been all morning, and finally I decided to say what I needed to say to Sweets, what had been running through my mind ever since I'd scared off the overstallion that morning.

"I don't think I can stay in the stable after we finish the repairs," I told him.

He didn't say anything; only stared up at me, looking as though he weren't sure he'd heard me right.

I sighed. "I don't fit in here anymore, but I have a home with Starry I can go to outside."

Sweets's jaw trembled. "Y—you'll take me with you . . . right?"

I closed my eyes tightly and shook my head. "I can't. It's too dangerous outside."

"You'll protect me! You always protect me!"

"I can barely protect myself out there, Sweets. But with Mom gone—"

"D—did I do something wrong?" Tears welled up in his eyes.

"No! No, Sweets. Of course not. It's just that—"

"Then why are you leaving me, Day?" he cried. "I got the overstallion to let you come back so we could be together again! I did it all for you!"

"Sweets, it's not about that. I'm just trying to think of what's best for you: you're safe in here, but nopony trusts me anymore. If I stay, it'll make things harder for you. You need to start taking care of yourself now. I don't want to leave you, but—"

"You're lying!" he screamed as he lifted the chessboard in his magic and flung it across the room where it crashed against the wall and sent pieces scattering everywhere. "You wouldn't leave if you didn't want to! Why, Day? Why don't you want to stay with me?"

I reached out to put a hoof on his shoulder, but he ducked away. "Don't touch me!" he yelled. "You can't leave! You can't!"

"Sweets, please, just . . ." I tried to reach for him again, but he ran off, crying. I wanted to go after him, but he was too upset to listen to me. I figured that he simply needed some time to calm down, and then I could try talking to him again later. So I stayed behind. I busied myself with picking up the chess pieces, arranging them in their starting positions on the board to keep track of them.

There was one piece missing at the end: one of the black pawns. I searched all over the room, but couldn't find it. It had simply vanished. And as I sat there, alone, looking over the incomplete chessboard, I thought back to the first time Sweets had been the one to teach me something about chess: I had advanced one of my pawns two squares from its starting position, thinking it was safe there, and then Sweets made it disappear, simply vanish—he captured it with one of his pawns in a move I'd never seen before. En passant, he'd called it. It was an obscure rule that I hadn't known about. He'd read about it in the stable library all on his own. I had been surprised, but proud of him; my little brother was getting smarter, growing older, becoming independent.

Sweets had needed to grow up so fast, faster than he should have. And I knew how much it must have hurt him to be faced with losing me a second time—I hurt just as much to think about losing him again. But I had seen the world outside through the eyes of a stable dweller, and now I had seen the stable through the eyes of an outsider too. I had never really belonged in either world, but I knew I had to spare Sweets from the horrors that lurked outside. And part of that meant I had to leave him. I was stained by the wasteland—the way I had threatened the overstallion proved it. If I stayed, Sweets would be tainted by me.

I had protected my little brother his entire life. But now I would be his greatest danger.

***

When Starry returned, she found me sitting under a tree in the orchard. It was dark; the emergency lights didn't reach that far into the void that was the atrium. "Day? Where's Sweets?" she asked.

"We got into an argument. He ran off," I told her.

She looked around, and twitched her ears back and forth. "Do you know where he went? Will he be alright?"

"He could be anywhere." I shrugged. "He knows the stable at least as well as I do. He'll be safe. He's just upset because . . ." I sighed. "I told him I wasn't going to stay in the stable."

Starry didn't say anything right away. Instead, she walked over and knelt down beside me. There was a slight breeze from the ventilation system that ran through the atrium, filling the silence with the calm rustling of leaves above us.

"Oh, wow," she said at last, and I turned my head to see that she was looking up. I followed her gaze up into the dark void of the atrium. Through the rustling leaves, we could see the emergency lights as small points twinkling in the darkness. "I never thought I'd see the stars below the clouds . . ."

"I've never seen the stable this way before," I said. "But it's always been like this, hasn't it? Those lights have always been there; I've simply never been able to see them before. I've seen so much in the week since my exile." I lowered my gaze down to the silver bars on Starry's collar; they glinted in the darkness. "What are you going to do after you leave here? Are you going to go back to the Enclave?"

"I . . . don't really know," she said after a long pause. "I suppose I'll go back to the diner first and figure out the rest from there. But . . . well, I can understand why you don't want to stay here. And I think I'd feel the same if I went back to the Enclave."

"The diner's not so bad. But I can't bring Sweets out there with me. Even if I can't stay here, the stable is still the safest place for him. Isn't it?"

Starry nodded. "Lots of foals grow up in the wasteland, but a lot more of them never get the chance to grow up. I can't blame you for wanting to keep your little brother here."

"You think I should let him come with me?"

"I think you know better than anypony what's best for him; you've been taking care of him for his whole life." Starry paused, and I let out a long sigh. "You wouldn't have to leave right away," she said, putting a hoof on my shoulder. "You could stay here for a few days at least, so you two would have time to say goodbye."

"I know. That was my plan. He didn't even let me try to explain it. But I don't think that will make it any easier for him anyway. I know he doesn't want me to leave at all. I just . . . I wish I knew what else I could do. All I ever wanted was to keep my little brother safe."

"I know," Starry said as she stood up. "But let's take this one step at a time: I've got the capacitor, so let's go get the reactor back online first so there'll be a stable for Sweets to stay in. We can deal with everything else after that."

I looked up at her, her outline barely visible in the darkness; tiny points of light twinkled in the void above her, and glinted off the silver bars on her collar.

I nodded slowly. "You're right. Let's start there."

***

Starry had found a pristine spark capacitor. We had no trouble installing it, and when we closed everything up and got the reactor through its startup procedure, it hummed as good as new. We turned on the main breaker, and, like magic, the whole stable lit up.

We'd done it. We'd saved the stable.

We walked back to the atrium; I wanted Starry to see it with the lights on. She was congratulating me. I was smiling.

And then red lights began flashing along the walls, and a loud, wailing siren sounded over the P.A. system. It was a fire alarm. Screams and cries for help followed, and Starry and I flew up above the trees to get a better view: On the third level that ringed the atrium, smoke was billowing out of the corridor and rising up through the atrium in a thick, dark plume.

"Something's not right," I said. "With that much smoke, the fire suppression system should have kicked in already. I need to go back to maintenance; the control system there will let me activate it."

"Go," Starry told me. "I'll try to help evacuate everypony from that area."

I didn't stay to say goodbye to Starry. I knew that time was important: If the ventilation system didn't get clogged with smoke and spread it through the stable first, the metal corridors would turn the whole stable into an oven. Amid frantic yelling and the alarms sounding, I raced back down into maintenance. The yelling faded, but the sound of half the stable stampeding around echoed through the walls, as if to impress upon me just how many lives were at risk. But I only had one life on my mind—the only life that I had ever cared about. And I wouldn't let him down.

When I reached the control panel, I stopped dead in my tracks. It had been ripped apart; torn wires and smashed circuit boards laid scattered on the floor. And in the middle of where the console should have been, there was a lone black chess pawn.

My legs started scrambling before I knew what I was doing. They carried me back out toward the atrium, and as soon as I was out of the corridor, my wings spread out and carried me straight up. I didn't spare a single glance toward the fire. I had only one goal that consumed all my focus: the overstallion's office was the only other place in the stable that could control the fire suppression system.

Inside the office, I suddenly felt as though I'd never escaped the changelings in the forest. How else could I have been confronted with a scene, ripped from my darkest nightmares, and yet so frighteningly real, as I was then: The overstallion sat at the back of the room, his nose was bleeding, and one of his eyes was swollen shut. His hooves were bound in electrical cord. A large kitchen knife was against his neck, floating steadily in Sweets's magical aura. My little brother stood in the middle of the room, smiling at me.

"I did it for you, Day," he said. His voice was strained, and I saw his cheeks were wet with tears. "I did it all for you. So we could be together."

"Sweets . . . I . . ." I glanced over at the window that overlooked the entire stable; the smoke was growing thicker. "I need to turn on the—"

"Don't!" Sweets yelled as he twisted the tip of the knife against the overstallion's throat. "You have to listen first."

"Sweets, I'll always listen to you. You don't have to—"

"Why did you have to leave me, Day?" he whimpered. "Why? I had it all planned out, but you had to go and do something unexpected!"

"Sweets, what are you talking about?"

"And you did it all over again! Day, I knew you were the only one who could fix the reactor—he'd have to let you back in after it broke. And it worked! Here you are! But you want to leave me behind again. You want to leave me here with this . . . this monster! He's the reason our mother hated us—why she was killing you: He's been raping her for years, and we're his bastards."

"I never raped anypony!" the overstallion yelled.

"You're lying!" he screamed as he turned to face the overstallion. "I saw you with her! I saw what you'd do to her! Tell Day what you'd say to her—what sweet nothings you'd whisper in her ear while you raped her."

"It wasn't—"

"Tell him!"

The overstallion winced, and glanced from me to Sweets, then back again. He closed his good eye and swallowed hard. "I—I told her it was . . ."

"Say it!" Sweets reared up and slapped a hoof across the overstallion's face.

"Sweets—" I started to protest.

"Her lucky day!" the overstallion blurted out.

I blinked, incredulous; what I had heard hadn't made sense at first, and all of my thoughts came to a screeching halt as my mind scrambled to imagine how I might have misheard him. Then the overstallion repeated himself, and I was certain I'd heard him correctly that time, which freed my thoughts from the trap of trying to think of what he might have said, and allowed me to focus on what it meant. Slowly, the realization sunk in: this was the story of my conception.

"What else? What did you call her?" Sweets demanded.

His jaw trembling, the overstallion's eye focused on the knife Sweets was holding in his magic. "I called her . . . called her my sweetie pie."

"Her 'lucky day.' His 'sweetie pie.'" Sweets sneered while his magic tied a gag around the overstallion's mouth. "That's all she ever was to him. All we ever were to her: Sweet—little—nothings!" He spat the words. "You know why it was getting worse, Day? She was pregnant again. You weren't going to survive. Neither of us would."

I felt my chest tighten. "Sweets, let's . . . let's talk about this. We can make it better. Just let me—"

"Don't lie to me!" His lip quivered. "You said you'd always be here to protect me. You said we'd be together. You said . . . you said you loved me."

"I do love you!"

"Then why did you leave me?" he sobbed.

"Sweets," I said softly, taking a cautious step toward him. He flinched, pointing the knife at me, and I stopped. "Sweets, they would have exiled you instead. I couldn't let that happen to you. At least with her gone, I knew you'd be safe here."

"I would rather have died!" he shouted, the knife faltering briefly in his magic. "You left me all alone, big brother. You didn't even say goodbye to me. I waited for you. I waited for you! I was alone for so long until somepony came to find me, and then nopony would tell me where you went."

"Sweets, I'm sor—"

"Don't tell me you're sorry!" he yelled through gritted teeth. I'd never heard him snarl like that before—as if the word "sorry" caused him physical pain. I suddenly remembered when I had snapped at Chrys in exactly the same way. "You left me here with this monster! He was even worse than Mom." Sweets sniffled, wiping his eyes with a fetlock. "At least with Mom, we knew she hated us. But this monster . . . he'll tell you he loves you, and—" he choked. "And he makes you want to believe it. He . . ."

I started to take another step, but Sweets re-strengthened his grip on the knife.

Sniffling again, Sweets wiped his nose on his sleeve. "He wanted me to forget you."

"Sweets, I—"

"It was all a lie, though!" His horn shined brightly, as he turned the knife point toward the overstallion. "He never loved me. He just made me think he did. But . . . it felt the same as with you, Day." He looked at me, eyes wide, tears dripping from his cheeks. "How . . .? How can a lie feel so real, Day? Was it ever real? Did you ever really love me, big brother?"

"Of course I love you! You're my little brother. I'll always love you—I always have! Please, Sweets, just put the knife down. Let me activate the fire suppression system, and we can talk—"

"No!" he screamed. "Words don't mean anything! If you really love me, then kill him." He took a slow, shaky breath, floating the knife toward me, offering the handle. "I killed Mommy. You took the blame for it, but that's okay: you kill Daddy and everything will be alright. We'll leave together. As brothers. Like we were supposed to."

I stared at the knife, then looked over at the overstallion. His eyes pleaded with me. "Sweets, I . . . I can't."

"Why not? It's easy! You've killed before; you said so. Doesn't he deserve it? Don't you hate him? Don't you . . . love me?"

"Not like this, Sweets! I killed to protect myself, and only when I had to. This . . . this is just wrong."

His eyes going dark, Sweets levitated the knife back toward himself before I could snatch it away from him. "If you won't do it, I will. And I'll announce it to the whole stable, and they'll kick me out too, and then you'll have to take me with you!" Hesitating only long enough to look at me with tired eyes, he took a step toward the overstallion.

"Sweets, stop!" I reached back into my bag, pulled out my laser pistol, and aimed it at him, blinking the tears out of my eyes to keep a clear sight. My jaw trembled as I struggled to hold the pistol steady.

He stopped and simply stared at me at first, and then his eyes narrowed. "What? You're gonna shoot me?" he dared. "You won't kill this bastard, but you'll shoot me?" His lip quivered as he cried. "I guess my big brother really did leave me forever."

Sweets took another step, and I focused my aim on his foreleg—only a wound to make him stop; that's all I wanted to do. We could sort it all out if he'd just calm down and listen. I bit down, and the crimson beam streaked across the room, hitting him square in the shoulder. A dull glow flashed all over him, and—for a brief moment—I thought it'd worked; he'd stopped mid-stride as if frozen.

Then I blinked, and my little brother was gone, reduced to a pile of ashes on the floor.

And I just stood there, staring. My jaw trembled and dropped the pistol on the floor. Hind legs gave out, and I sat on my haunches. I wanted to throw up, but all I could do was look on blankly at what I'd done.

My eyes glanced over at the overstallion. He was watching me with wide eyes, his pupils like pinpricks. Slowly, mechanically, I stood up. In the back of my mind there was a nagging thought that I had come here to do something. My legs were shaky, but did their job and carried me over to the terminal. My forehooves tapped a few keys and reinitialized the fire suppression system; the screen confirmed the system was active and responding to the emergency.

Less shaky now, my legs carried me over to the overstallion, and slowly, mechanically, I untied his gag. He looked up at me and forced a smile. "Uh . . . heh . . . thanks, son. I'm sorry for what you had to do. That little maniac was going to—"

"That little maniac was my brother!" I screamed, and struck him in face. He toppled over and hit his head on the bare metal floor. I had barely felt anything up until that moment, but suddenly my chest was on fire. My heart pounded like an explosion inside my chest with every beat. The corners of my vision went dark, and all I could see was the monster on the floor in front of me.

I bit the collar of his barding and pulled him back up into a sitting position. "He was the

only person who ever loved me!" I rounded on my hooves and kicked out with both hind legs, catching him under the chin and in the side of his neck. The blow knocked him back against the wall, his head streaking blood along it as he slumped down to the floor.

He groaned and tried to move, but his legs were still tied. Coughing and drooling blood from his mouth, he turned his eye to look up at me as I stood over him. He might have tried to say something, but I could only hear the blood pounding in my ears as I reared up and stomped down on his head with both forehooves. Next Chapter: Chapter 11: Weightless Estimated time remaining: 13 Minutes