Hexagons: Part l

by Wand3r3r3

First published 23rd of January, 2015

Rewriting the tragic history of the Crystal Ponies is impossible . . . unless you're immortal.

The Crystal Ponies have been gone for eons, and no one seems to care anymore.

In this modern age, history and society have greater things to worry about, and while it is severely disappointing, the reason is valid: Our very first generation of ancestors — our glistening mothers and fathers — are indeed the reason why the current generation, and every one before it has been . . . haunted. Stalked.

Watched, monitored for most of our lives, their reasoning is unknown, and what's left of the Crystal Ponies' history is disappearing fast. However, there is but one individual, cursed by age, who plans to retain and mend that history.

But will it serve to be just? Will it mend more than just three broken minds, bodies and souls?

~Recollection (Prologue)

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~The Crystal Ponies~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
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Existent by day, expired by night. The power of the celestial sun's light, filtered through the ancient relic—the Crystal Heart—gives life to these Crystal beings. They are all deceased and are truly an extinct race, as past tragedies and massacres have left them ever so.

However, with the power and privilege of the Crystal Heart, the ponies are able to experience life after death.

A sheet of parchment laid blank on a dark desk inside an even darker building, locked up behind its sturdy, wooden front door. From the outside, a concealed and hooded figure approached the only window at the base of the exterior, scanning the inside for any activity.

A massive rainstorm had been pummeling the ground below for quite some time, and it had beaten the dirt and grassy terrain into little more than mere malleability. The coat that the quadrupedal silhouette wore was drenched in rainwater, with all four hooves covered in mud. The figure lightly sighed:

"I'm actually doing it," it spoke, deep underneath its breath.

After examining the interior one final time, it carefully opened the window, loosening it from its locking mechanism. But instead of lifting the window, a gentle aura of magic accomplished the goal with no sound at all. The evident Unicorn figure then climbed through the frame in the wall, closing the window back silently after entering the building. The light coat that was worn had been afflicted by the filth that spewed up from the very ground. The violent gales outside were unlike anything this town would normally see.

After entering, the first place the intruder headed was the desk at the far end of the wall directly ahead of it, where the parchment laid. The many books that lined the shelves gave the impression that this was a library; a public place of access. The ambient light that emanated from the Unicorn's horn was what led the way, not waiting for his or her hesitance to brighten up the room. A nearby quill was magically snatched upon arrival, its tip quick to be dipped into an intricately designed well of ink. Then, the cloaked criminal started to deface the parchment with its own additional literature, spaced directly below its introductory:

Their genealogy provides them with this ability, correlating to the concept—and the raw, unevolved virgin theory—of reincarnation. In their deceased state, they are all alive, but in the form of ultra-transparent spheres of light that roam free in all the spacial matter of our world, freely. They cannot be birthed into physical forms, and the bodies from their first life are carried onto their second; though they are non-corporeal. However, they can be seen, often wandering the land—their bodies in an ultra-translucent, ethereal form. Almost anyone can spot them if they concentrate almost every bit of their will towards it. It also helps if they really believe that there is a life after death.

Still, no sign of detection allowed for further writing.

Crystal Ponies are able to be seen by members of their own kind and . . . relation to family, with a very minor setback. Also note that, while their previous life's blood isn't necessarily a strict factor for their communication, as a whole; it is merely a similarity that does indeed help keep them gathered together but in an unconditional, forceful way. Such is the case for those that have been in close proximity to one another for quite some time.

But it doesn't always measure up to that result: some of them willingly choose to leave what little they had behind. The fact that they're able to do so proves that they are able to feel an emotional attachment since they know they would be completely alone if they do.

Of course, since they no longer possess physical bodies, and how they are almost completely invisible to anyone else but their own kind, the entire science and logic behind the afterlives of these wise ancestors of ours—of all of us—is slaved over and over. The belief is so misunderstood to the point, even, where the thought of any literal possibility pertaining to an afterlife of any figurative kind is treated as mere rubbish; be it 'an old mare's tale' or not.

Any, and possibly every other race of ponykind, cannot seem to fathom any sincere thought of theirs leaning toward the logic, even simple, raw fantasies. Perhaps, though, the latter could have been construed in an entirely different way; to use as 'old mare's tale' the use of fairy tales and the like. And with the rise of conflicts between and within religions all over the globe, every effort has been made to debate since the topic's popularity has risen. Far too much strife had been present to pay any due attention to imagination and wonder.

There is, however, but only one place where the Crystal Ponies need not hide from the cruelty and insolence of the world of today, regardless of their inability to feel fear. There is but one place where ponies' belief will be put to shame, and but one place where Crystal Ponies thrive and frolic and call their home.

The only reason why the author stopped writing was due to the prolonged use of his or her mind. But after seconds of cautiously listening and observing, enough energy had been regained in order to resume writing.

Underneath the wet, grey cloak that this entity wore, minuscule traces of tears started to well up inside the writer's eyes. There wasn't enough to have been dropped onto the cold hardwood floor, or down the thin grey coat that was worn, but hesitance was more than surely present. The weak, hazy, conditionally-hued aura that emanated from the writer's horn was perhaps the only bodily feature that would come close to defining an identity, if anyone were to bear witness at all.

The writer also wasn't very tall, at a recognized glace: standing just only a few inches shorter than most equine residents of the world. If he or she had been crouched down while writing, reducing the use of his or her energy, the shape of this character could give the impression that this was the doing of a mere filly.

However, it was highly doubtful that the writer was indeed the age of a filly, given the boundless intelligence of the topic it was writing about. Unless it had studied the Crystal Ponies with the insane intent to rewrite their history, it was amazing.

"Alright . . . Here we go."

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~The Crystal Empire~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
---The Birthright---
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This popular tourist location, tucked well into the mountains, furthest northwest of Equestria, is also the named land of origin for the Crystal Ponies. Or at least, that's the general consensus that history leans toward, in society's striving need to be correct.

While the Crystal Empire is home to many Crystal Ponies, and always open as a home to all, not all of them choose to take residence there. For a multitude of reasons, some of them are unable to experience frail cowardice, and decide to leave what very little they have behind and search the world for a place they feel is their rightly home. It is a fortunate thing that they can, at the very least, find correlations to living family members and whatnot, but it is also an unfortunate thing that they simply could not feel the warm embrace upon finding them; or upon finding anyone at all, really. . .

The Crystal Ponies are able to roam freely during the daytime, at any time, but only while taking residence in the Crystal Empire; where the heart of an immaculate ore is forever elevated above the region. The sun's light touches and enters the magnificent stone sculpture known as the Crystal Heart, and it is then refracted, radiating from the relic along with iridescent gleams of all colors, however vague. The hues shine over every inch of the region, providing the one and only foundation for the Ponies' lives.

The Crystal Ponies' fresh new lives are consistent with day and night, just like the lives you and I both live. When the sun begins to drop, the city starts to sleep, and portions of the city can stay alive until the light from the Heart vanishes from whence they stand. And thus, moving onto the very next day, the same routine is to be repeated.

However, those that are not present in the Crystal Empire at the time of sunset are able to remain outside the city limits for as long as they have stored some of the brilliant, sun-like warmth within their fragmented souls. But they must return to the sacred grounds of the Empire before their light—the only thing that makes up their transparent appearance—depletes and fades. Expiring the privilege of free-roaming the Earth without the light in their entities will result in the second, final death of that individual, whoever they were. in which they will never have another opportunity to exist as more than just a memory.

They are gone forever, no returning. The crystallized iridescence is what gives the Ponies life, and it is infinite. They need not be any worries regarding scarcity, selfishness, or greed.

The ponies also, really, have somewhat physical bodies, but it is too vague to classify them as actually possessing them. The most they could do upon trying to interact with the world is talk, which has always been vocalized as whispers — even if they scream — and wear a few articles of light clothing, proving that their ethereal bodies are also capable of touching. Sadly, though, they still wouldn't be able to feel the touch of anything, or anypony else.

Crystal Ponies have no way of remembering their tragic history, for the devastating event had resulted in the segregation of both organic thinking and biologic emotion, to put simply. This is the reason Crystal Ponies are unable to feel little to any stimulants toward fear, excitement, love, hate, loss... Not even a sense of fulfillment through achieving something in their second lives. But again, those who are able to can seek out a new life for themselves, however doubtful they are afflicted.

The Crystal Ponies cannot feel and experience anything-literally-on their own. They live their second lives accursed, as the popular belief of reward in their second life emulates from their suffering in their first. They appear to all have been wrong though, considering the way their history had to take the unexpected turn that it did.

The author, its quill enveloped inside a slowly strengthening aura, was beginning to run out of ink. The Unicorn, identity only minimally deducible from its use of magic, quickly dipped the quill's tip into the small cup of the dark liquid and traced it immediately back to the parchment it used to write upon, the pen dripping not one bit.

The complete story of the Crystal Ponies and their depressing history has yet to all be claimed and confirmed; such is the sad truth. There are so many fissures within the basic logistics regarding their very existence.
One can only believe the salvaged history that lives today for so long...

The writer ceased its actions. It laid the quill it had been using on the desk that supported the stained parchment. Its tip had glided over it so much that it had broken, and ink leaked profusely. But a little evidence wasn't going to stop the hooded Unicorn from rewriting history.

The intruder, namely, wasn't supposed to be where it was, in an area surrounded by shelves upon shelves of books upon books. They lined the entire wall in front of the figure, with the exception of the small space it used to write, being directly between two bookshelves. This was the only hint as to what this building really was.

"I've got what I came for," the Unicorn thought to itself.

With no intent on staying any longer than it did, it silently trotted with a decent across the enormous rug in the room, making no sound with how thick the decor was beneath its feet. The rainwater dripped off of the coat both to and from the desk, and the floor was fairly afflicted by it. The cloaked intruder then magically unlocked the small circular window at the wall opposite to the massive bookshelves and climbed out as soon as it opened.

The storm outside proved to be a nuisance, as the sound of marching raindrops and rushing wind made their way through the open window and into the building. The character, however cautious it was to this point, had closed the window again, but not completely. If anypony did happen to catch a glimpse of the mysterious character, their eyes would most likely be deceived. With the once lush trees around rushed low enough to the ground and the haze in the air so thick, no one could ever correctly assume that the figure was really there.

"Sorry, Rarity," the hooded figure muttered under its breath once more, but he or she was able to hear themselves in that instance. Then, less than a split-second later, the silhouetted figure vanished, and in its brief evanescence, only the clothing it wore was left to fly along in the violent gales that ravaged the area.
Whoever this was, he or she had some sort of hesitation to intrude upon the residence that which had been targeted.

"Sorry, Rarity..."

Those words; this regret, would most likely ring inside the character's head for the duration of the goal it had set out to accomplish.

Author's Notes:

I honestly gave this everything I had, and with my...perhaps sudden resolve, I do NOT plan to make this anything like I've written before. I want this to be a story about the love and joy of life, however portrayed through suffering and hardship and disaster. I have no real direction with this, much like a certain person that I idolize, when he works.
Ask me about it if you must.

Anyway, I felt comfortable with this, and even if something may look wrong to you, I do it the presented way because...well, that's complicated too. I DO hope I did alright with setting the stage.
And if this goes well, then there's no question I'll keep at this~

[====_Foretold_====]

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On the dawn of the only day in a week that presented a cloudless sky, the residents of a small town all gathered together. That said, from a bird's-eye view, they were coming from any and all directions, no matter how small the size of the population was. Not everypony was awake at the time, but a still-well number of them knew the importance of participating in a town meeting. No other dire news was ever to be heard of here.

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"What do you think happened?" asked one of the residents; a shorter mare with a teal coat that leaned its color to the lighter side of contrast. Her mane and tail made rough shapes similar to a mechanized cutting saw, if viewed from a good distance, but the mere shapes were obviously not as deadly. Her looks were the only deadly part about her. "Nothing ever happens here. This town's almost dead."

The mare who answered her--that of a similar build--was just as skeptical as the original inquirer, and it proved true through her voice.

"I...don't have the slightest clue," she replied, sporting a heavy coat on her back, the hood lifted above her neck and sheltering her head. It was evident, by the small bulge at the top of her head, that she was a unicorn. She must have been especially sensitive to the cold setting that the morning provided, in more senses than just the temperature.

Nevertheless, the two females decided to pair up, just as everyone else had been doing. Everypony who lived in this town was summoned to a mandatory gathering near its library, where a supposed crime had taken place the night prior.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~The End of the Beginning~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

---Fate Foretold---
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Ponyville, one of the most well-known places of residence in Equestria, was also, at one point, at a competition with Canterlot for the most visited area by tourists. It was a bright, bustling, albeit loud town where nothing but crazy, random shenanigans mainly took place, and no more.

The ponies there lived absolutely carefree, as they knew nothing would ever happen. The little ones would only dread the time of day where the sun sank behind the massive stalagmite to the south, where they would have to cease play and head back into their homes until morning came again. The golden, glimmering silhouette of Canterlot would shower the small town with a similarly gilded glow, but only for a few minutes as the sun hid behind the spires of the royal sister's towers. This presented an excellent opportunity for the older ponies to find new beauty within the town they had lived in for so long.

Everyone's lives were simple, but rather amazing at the same time.

But then there was the one day that all of that changed...

No pony saw it coming.

The town's local library was where they were summoned to appear, as this was the place that the crime took place. Its exterior was made out to be the body of a gigantic tree in the nearest, rightmost edge of the town's limits, all too familiar to the ponies who lived there.

The natural parts of the tree itself, such as its many branches and the nutrient-sapping weeds growing all around it, had remained untrimmed and unkempt for a few months prior to the gathering, subtracting the ones that were torn apart by the storm the night before. They all hung low, weighed down by the early morning dew and other remains plants that were attached to higher altitudes on the tree, and also torn apart.

It really started to look unattractive ever since Twilight Sparkle, the newest Alicorn princess who had been bestowed a crown, had left Ponyville for the country's best benefit. The library had remained mostly unattended since then.

When everypony in the town was seen to be present and heard to be shushed, a beautiful mare with an almost holy coat of highly contrasted grey walked up to greet the crowd.

"Thank you to all who chose to attend this calling we've set forth," she called out to her audience. The spokesmare felt comfortable enough to be talking to her neighbors, largely due to the small amount of those who chose to come.

Her mane and tail, showing off a bright, brilliant gleam upon the perfect saturation of royal purple. They both curled up around all the most seemingly intricate places at the ends of each; twists and turns. With a slight breeze that suddenly decided to blow through the area, the impeccable beauty in the hairs that her divine coat was comprised of remained the very same.

Her name was Rarity, and she had groomed herself flawlessly for the occasion.

"So," a small colt asked out from the even smaller crowd. He addressed her while she was speaking to a few other stallions behind her, those who wore black suits and looked like official figures of authority, based on their intimidating looks from afar. "What happened here? Anything important?" His own impatient demeanor told everyone a lot about him, though the whole town knew him. He was the school bully at Ponyville Elementary, located in the furthest, west-most direction from the library. "I have school in like, an hour."

Rarity was still talking with the well-dressed characters at the very rear of his sight, at the end of everyone's, really. It was a few more moments before Rarity dismissed the suited stallions with a few nods of her head, then turned her attention back to the crowd.

"Actually, ahem," she started, clearing her throat. "This situation has been, ah, unofficially resolved. "You're all free to go back to your daily tasks." Rarity stumbled in her speech a little as most her audience dispersed into several directions. A few stayed in their general position, chatting with their friends, discussing their disappointment with their, perhaps, unnecessary summoning.

Eventually, after everypony else left the scene, aside Rarity, one mare was left to wander the quiet, cold grounds that laid all around the library, which she approached with fair enthusiasm. It was the one who wore the thick-layered coat on the back, with the neck's strings tied around her neck and its sleeves filled in with her legs.

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"Excuse me," she called to Rarity, who was once again preoccupied, speaking with the same stallions in black. "Miss?"

Immediately after bidding her friends adieu, Rarity turned around to greet the mare seeking her attention, and she did so with an insomnia-stricken look on her face. She looked exhausted.

"Oh, my dear, I'm sorry for not noticing you earlier. It's just that, well..." Talking to a more common mind helped her clear her own. "Well, there was an investigation going on here, about four O'-clock this morning when most of us were asleep."

Rarity explained the details of the events to the best of her ability;

"Someone would bother to steal a little piece of a history tome?" The somewhat clothed mare looked absolutely puzzled, but inside, she understood the gravity of the situation.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Apparently, under everypony's sleeping muzzles, one singular character broke into the town's library--Golden Oaks--overnight. A thick pallet comprised of nothing but parchment was taken; stolen. Being the new abandoned nature of the building, it was a perfect opportunity for the silent, unsuspecting crime to go unnoticed, and the odds would have been in the criminal's favor.

The significance of this act seemed belittled to most ponies, no matter how hard they might have thought about it. Those who aren't able to see the full magnitude of something as specific as this;

Especially this...

They're special, in so many more ways than the mind could conceive, let alone believe.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

"That's impossible!" The mare suddenly snapped. The fury that had shaken her head tossed the hood of her material coat even further down her back, revealing a sensitive, bodily coat that took a fair amount of time for its hairs to stand up on end, due to the cold, but rising, temperature.

She wore a heavy seafoam-themed color all along her coat, which quickly shrunk back down to her skin as she already grew acclimated to the warming temperature. Her mane and the tip of her wavy tail were both streaked heavily; a pattern lined with a pure, holy white and a pale-ish green shade that shined bright upon contact with the sunlight. She could have been seen from half-a-mile away.

Her eyes shined bright along with her seemingly glimmering hairs, numbered in the thousands. Their clean golden color absolutely mesmerized those of an unfamiliar tint. It was a well-known fact that organic beauty like that was unnatural, but this mare possessed them regardless.

She was incredibly beautiful, to say the very least, and her name was Lyra Heartstrings.

"I know, it's strange," Rarity responded, unclear of the description she received from Lyra's shock. "There were so many other things the culprit could have stolen, whoever she was."

"She? So we know it was a mare?" asked Lyra, in a crisp lash of her gentle voice.

"Well, no, not exactly. But I assume that, since the majority of everpony who lives here is female, this ongoing investigation can be lead to believe that it was indeed the same sex."

Lyra saw the bit of logic in that, but there was still plenty of flaws within it. "Huh, good point. I suppose everyone here is a suspect for the-"

"Get...away!!"

Lyra and Rarity both jumped almost a whole foot from the ground as a high scream was heard from somewhere nearby. But it also sounded muffled, as if somepony had instantaneously felt an incredible type of pain. The thought occurred to them, however inexact, but they instinctively acted upon the happening regardless.

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Circumventing the library, Lyra led the way. They were both convinced that the scream came from somewhere behind the massive obstacle that was the building itself. The thick and heavy ligaments that became grounded also became an obstacle for them to have to avoid as they hastily trotted to sound, wherever it was, exactly.

They were almost running with how many other ponies noticed the vocal cue and headed towards it. It had alerted the whole town, apparently. But then again, it wasn't every day the residents heard something that sounded like a legitimate attack.

"They're back?" Rarity slurred through a delicate combination of anxiety and exhaust. She also spoke the truth, as the tall stallions from before—the private investigators that Rarity had hired—returned to the scene. They undoubtedly noticed the happening from their far distance, all thanks to the same vocal cue.

"They must have heard it too, just like everyone else!"

It didn't take too much time for all the other ponies to frolic to the scene, whatever it was, and it took even less time for them to block the view that Rarity and Lyra could have had-

"If only we were faster," Lyra muttered. Rarity concurred with her and tried to work out a solution when her ears perked up all of a sudden.

"Police?!" Rarity panicked.

"What!?"

Rarity was correct, as the sound of carriages was heard, and quite prominently over the crowd. Before they arrived, these two mares could hear the vocalize what they had seen, and some others reacted in shock to what they heard from those who were closer to the scene.

"Did they just say..." Lyra shook her head in utter disbelief. "Did they say that there was a death here?!"

Soon enough, official figures of authority shoved their way through the crowd, getting in Rarity's way as they did the same to her. Lyra headed off in a different direction, circling the crowd and trying to make her way past, but her semi-passive nature started to get the best of her, and she was stuck for a while, trying to decide what she wanted to do.

"Body confirmed," spoke one of the officers from the inner circle of the growing crowd. "You guys were right."

"That's it get out of my way!"

Frustrated and anxious beyond control, Rarity threw her body through the thickened crowd of ponies. She couldn't fathom why ponies were so attracted to something like this; something that was beginning to sound like a dangerous situation. She was able to push through, but Lyra had quickly returned to Rarity and pulled her back as much as she could.

"I don't think we should get too involved in this," she yelled, over the voices all around them. Rarity thought heavy about this, as well as something else that was running through her mind at the time; the whole morning, actually.

"I heard them mention a body," she continued. Rarity nodded again, but this time, she did it slowly. She seemed...defeated.

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Finally, after a few more agonizing series of seconds passed, one new, somewhat bellowing voice towered over all the others that were present.

"Alright, everyone move outta the way! This ain't a scene for you to be enjoying!"

The thick voice was also feminine, yet intimidating, as ponies were already clearing a path for her as she commanded. The entire crowd began to disperse as well, as she closed into the scene.

"Kinda seems like this town isn't exactly as innocent and quiet as everyone thinks."

It was true. With the way the entire town responded to this event, whatever it really was, everypony had the potential to be the cause of this whole investigation...

--------------------------------

Out in the distance, while everypony else was out of their homes, one lone figure watched the scene play out, in what little shelter the house was; where this character resided.

She had laid her stomach on the wooden floor, barely holding the scarlet curtains open and peering between them, panicking deep in the back of her mind. Her streaked, two-toned, raspberry mane and tail had its said flavored color distributed between both sides of them. And straight down the center of each, a sweet, candied pink streak ran through, exemplifying her magnificent beauty in so many ways.

Her eyes gleamed their dark emerald radiance as the rising sun had been touching them for a good series of minutes as she just watched. But eventually, she had to retreat behind the drapes' cover, with how much more intense the sun--and the situation--had gotten over such a short amount of time.

As she pulled her head back, her long and suede-like mane covered her entire forehead, and a little more than that. It was difficult for her to see past the hair in front of her eyes.

"We need to get out of here now."

Author's Notes:

Not sure if the author's notes thingy is appearing twice.
But either way, my apologies for having this take so long. I seem to be getting back into the groove of writing again, and I'm pleased with how I'm developing this story. There are a few incorrections with the spacing of a few paragraphs that I intentionally left; to add to the feeling of what you'll be reading

~Distants

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A heavy trail of color rushed down from the city of Cloudsdale at an incredible speed. There were many rivers that ran down from the Pegasus's primary place of residence in Equestria; with about twenty solid streams that held light dampness within their vicinity. The thick blanket of dew that was always present has always, to this very day, been created by the very light, yet structured and sturdy foundation of the city.

The clouds themselves.

The fluffy clouds that the iconic city laid upon were always, and rapidly, moving in a gigantic circle around the deepest inlaid grounds of central Equestria, also pointed in the north. They were always filled with elements from the weather that was excreted through them, leaving them with an almost entirely frozen surface from the bottom up. This allowed them to be able to support the city's aerial location above the land, and also to be able to retain its position in the sky as well.

And two of the most fondly recognized landmarks of the country laid in this particular region of the country; where Cloudsdale cycled its typical route.

"This land."

There was Neighagra Falls, from whose heights are second tallest in all of the country. From its apex, if one were to climb there, they would be able to oversee the whole ocean to the East. On a bright sunny day, they could easily make out the wide stretch of land that laid across it, and the Crystal Mountains would aid greatly, relaying the reflections of its glistening structure across the sky at its highest altitude.

Being only a few meters shorter than the Falls, they would refract through the moisture in the nearby air, sending vaguely, hardly noticeable rainbows comprised of microscopic polygonal shapes of all sizes, allowing one's eyes to quickly acclimate to the brighter radiance and see farther distances with greater clarity.

There was also the great stalagmite in the center of the country, the one that the city of Canterlot laid its rather awkwardly positioned foundation upon. From the bottom up, the city was constructed, brick by brick and stone by stone, carefully crafted along the waterfall that accurately crashed down the mountain's slope.

With one small pond to contain some of that water being part of the city, the rest of it would make its way down to the land below; a steady, curvy stream halfway circumventing the city of Ponyville. That same stream would then split into two separate paths; one heading down to either side of the desolate desertland to the southwest, and the other meeting up with a trail from Neighagra to deposit its contents into the eastern ocean along with it.

"...If only all this was here when I was a kid."

Both of these magnificent sculptures of natural build are provided with the water they pour from their heavenly altitude from the even higher heavens; again, Cloudsdale. And the lively elixir is then distributed through the land through the many canals and rivers that ran through.

In the Rainbow Factory, the weather for the entire land is artificially manufactured. This is due to the fact that the region below the city is not as close to any significant source of heat or cool, humid or haze. With the exception of the great Canterlot Falls bringing a light mist over the city on windy days, it was up to Cloudsdale to create artificial, colt-made weather for these areas below.

To maintain most of their fertility with rain, to promote condensed heat with clouds, even to keep up with early earth pony traditions after a season of play with the snow they create; for children and adults to enjoy all the same:

That is one of the main duties for the gifted ones. The Pegasi.

"So... So beautiful. I just wish I could share this moment with someone..."

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~Where the Nothing Begins~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
The Distants
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In the furthest southeast corner of Equestria's east ocean shore, the character presented its appearance with nothing more than the sounds of its hooves sinking in the soft sands. Along the shoreline it walked upon, the character wore another light coat, similar to the one it was hiding under in Ponyville before. The winds from the circular bay--contained within the geographical shape of a horseshoe--blew against it, and its hood blew off the figure's head for the first time since it began walking on the sands, wet and saturated by the racing ocean.

"The breeze," the quadrupedal figure murmured softly. "It feels...fairly strong tonight." It followed with a deep exhale. "The moon sure is big, too."

It was, it really was.

The bright star above was abnormally close in relation to the Earth, illuminating the pathway down the sinking sandy shore, and literally everything else. The waves crashed against each other as they retraced their steps back to the ocean's enormous body. Such sounds, amplified by the thick silence all around, brought peace to this character and was indicated by the decision to pull it's hood down even further.

The wearer's mane had fully come out into the open air now, as it was somewhat trapped underneath the base of the coat's hood, and her horn seemed to glitter in the moonlight. It seemed to be untouched, regardless of the weight pressed down on it. However slight that weight was, it was enough to keep it in place; hidden away from those who would be able to identify the rouge.

She popped its way up as she graciously flipped her head skyward, with her amazing mane retaining its shape; a long stream of hair, faded in color yet abundant in allure. It looked to have been in a fixed style over some year's time, and it was either that, or this pony had used this style all too often.

One wonder, for certain; one of the many things that would have been on anypony's mind if they could only see the elusive character, was his or her gender.

"Gosh, I love all of this. Absolutely all of it."

But based off of the length of the wavy mane that now flowed freely and a bit sloppily through the intensifying winds, a theory could be brought:

One that seemed to suggest that this character followed a more feminine nature.

-----------------------

A few more steps ahead gave an excuse for her to rest for a while. She had been walking the shore of Horseshoe Bay right at the moment of the sun's descent, identified by the aurora-like waves in the higher skies, very much similar to the ocean's malleable form. The sands beneath her hooves proved to be a bit troublesome, as her legs would actually sink in the sands.

But she had found a spot to rest her body.

A set of lone rocks near the water's approach was thought to be a rather risky move for what this mare wanted to do, but she heard toward them regardless, all thanks to another thing that had been built nearby.

There was a tall, colt-made construction that rose up from a corner at the front of one of the rocks. It was built with bundled up twigs, thick in size and diameter, and tied with binds that were magically applied. And at the very top of the structure was a similarly thick sheet of hardened clay with a small, thorough intrusion in its center. One would be able to poke their hooves through it, but what this construct was designed for was the mere sport of casual fishing, for those who just enjoyed the outdoor life and had plenty of time to spare for it.

And it was at that very rock where the mare decided to sit herself down.

"This feels so nice. I've missed it so much." She spoke to herself, silently. "I've missed anything at all..." She removed what little clothing she was wearing and trapped it underneath the same rock, nestled between the sands themselves and a wedge that protruded from the earthly fragment. "I haven't been this tired in such a long time."

-----------------------

A few hours passed after this mare decided to take a rest on the chilled shores of the horseshoe bay. She had actually fallen asleep, and peacefully. The amazing feeling of the gales and moisture pressing against her naked, yet coated flesh, was all too much to bear.

"God," she murmured, yet again. "This feels so good..." She began to settle back down into comfort, but she suddenly pulled herself back up. "But I'd better get to work, too."

With the known devotion she had in her mind, she sat straight up and faced the construct in front of her new position. She reached her hooves behind her head and fiddled with her mane a bit, puncturing the incredibly delicate strands of hair the seemed to have looked like they were held together with adhesive.

After a few seconds of feeling her way in her mane for what she needed, it finally fell straight and left a trail that dove accurately down her back, bundling with itself a bit as it touched the rock's cool surface. Another portion of her mane was left to flow along with the winds as it laid on her right shoulder, the feeling of the gales cutting through her hair, causing her to shudder a bit.

Finally, after acclimating to both the temperature and what she was planning on doing here, alone and unknown, she cast a magic spell which radiated with an audible coo and a contrasting tint. Suddenly, the rolled-up scroll that she had stolen from Ponyville's local library had sprung down to meet the open hooves in front of her body, ready to be subjected to further foreign influence.

The mare spread the parchment out against the top of the construct's build and laid her hooves firmly against it so that it would not blow away in the winds, rising as they were. She then activated her magical prowess once again to write a temporary addendum to the ones she had already begun back in Ponyville. It would only be temporary because she would continue her work once again, later.

She had an enormous task ahead of her...

As she continued writing, the night air, the water at her hooves, and the light radiance from the nearby moon lent her enough energy to continue on for a whole hour. She had no physical quill to use, she instead gathered the moisture that was in the air and magically bundled it up with a few grains of sand; concentrating it into an ultra-precise and generic type of lead that would only barely appear visible on white parchment paper.

"What a pain," she complained. "Should have kept that quill..." If she were to stick with her prior plan, she would need to resort to her current method sooner or later anyway. "Darn it."

She needed to be intent on being perfect with each magical stroke she cast upon the parchment, for one mistake could cost her the deformity of the story she was deathly adamant to tell; the very integrity of a lifetime spent.

-----------------------

Two more hours passed, and the mare had been growing very tired over this period. But her vigilant mind helped her ignore such exhaust, as she kept writing without ceasing. She had made very significant progress, too, with the time she had spent. The only time she did stop, however, was to fully take in one more sudden gale that brushed up against her sensitive plush coat and stare up at the moon as it did so, losing every total thought she had held when she did.

"I really hope you're starting at the same moon I am, sis... If you can even see it." The mare wept, bursting out in tears for a short while, and also with the few additional occasions that followed. "I just want you back..."

What was her exact purpose for undertaking this task? Was she missing someone? And who could it have been?

Who was this mare in the first place?

"Why did you leave me..?"

Author's Notes:

I'm sorry this took so long to get out. I look at this and consider the time it took to complete, and it's very embarrassing, but I might be a little busier soon, with joining a sort of proofreading group, and having more days at work, and all...

[===__Correlations__===]

--------------

The whole town's population was shaken up as they all discovered, one by one and word by word, what had really happened. About that blood-boiling scream from earlier...

"Well, what are you all looking at? There's nothing to see here!

The mare who had charged her way through the thickly layered crowd — even still growing in its size — had dispersed the surrounding witnesses. She didn't like what she saw either.

"Feel free to get outta here whenever you want to. It's not like I don't have any right to consider you all suspects and take you in!"

With just those few words from the authority figure, the crowd dispersed back into the city's concentrated areas, such as Sugarcube Corner over to the west side, from the scene. Though, nopony was really in the right mood to eat anything, or even run the bakery for that whole day. And even the ones who went back into their homes to spend further solitude with their foals... They would hold them close and tell them in every way that they were loved and that everything would be okay. And they would, to their furthest extent, hide the truth from them and let absolutely nothing hint at the truth.

The truth was not dismissed easily, at all. It wasn't any minor anomaly.

It was devastating...

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~The Persistence of Loss~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
---Correlations---
***
**
*

Rarity, upon seeing, scanning, and recognizing the dead filly's body that loitered in its cold place, instinctively walked closer to it. Lyra stood close to her for the duration of the entire scene and dismemberment of the crowd, but she saw Rarity's face from a devious angle as she took her actions forward. She didn't say a word or move an inch.

"Ma'am, I'm going to have to ask you to stay put!" Despite seeing the wondrous mare progressively break down, the bipedal character with a badge on her uniform stopped her. "You're no exception. Stay away. Go home or someth-"

"No..." she slurred, through disgust and disbelief. "How..?"

"Miss, I won't give you any more warnings. It's for your own good."

Rarity only glared at her with her surprisingly bloodshot eyes, adding onto the deathly stare she gave the other mare from underneath her furrowed, flaccid and false eyelashes. "Shut it!" She let loose the fury of her voice. It was both magnificent and intimidating. "That's my baby sister! Who the hell are you to tell me to back off?!!" Lyra had to fight her friend's attempts to lash out at the officer.

She knew she didn't mean to, and she knew it was a terrible choice on her part, but her emotions had led her to believe that — with the probable outcome of a deep investigation taking place later — the victim's body would be taken away. And that wouldn't give Rarity any time at all to mourn, because she just couldn't understand. She wasn't sure if she could ever see reason in this horrible act. It was a second later that Lyra reassured her with sympathy.

"Rarity," she slurred through her tears. She knew Rarity's younger sister only a little bit, but they have acquainted well enough that it brought literal tears to the teal unicorn's cheek. "I... I wish I knew the right thing to say here."

"You don't need to stress over it, dear." That was all she said. "Thank you for your help though, Lyra." The addendum she proposed didn't help any, either;

-----------------------

Rarity strongly stood there, defeated, and that was all there was to it. Her gaze upon her younger, deceased sister's body stayed as adamant as when they first set eyes on her. No tears trailed her face, yet sadness overwhelmed her. No anger made its presence apparent, but she welled with it.

It all consumed her, in addition to the confusion she had to implement into any sort of reasoning anypony had for killing her sister. She felt numb to anything and everything, and now, she was convinced that she would remain that way forever.

-----------------------

"Do you think they'll figure any of this out?"

"I'm not leaving anything to chance."

The redheaded mare pulled herself back from the thick curtains once more, her eyes being hesitantly pulled away from the scene outside. She was a cautious one; hiding in this house with boards set up everywhere to block all entrances to the inside. She took refuge in this house, disguised well within a street containing other abandoned homes like it, in an abandoned part of the town.

She was smart to bleach her hair the same auburn-toned color as the entire exterior of the house, and the curtains she hid behind, even if they were concealed behind thick wooden planks. She was conscious of all her surroundings; and everything she did prior to hiding in the first place would ensure that no one would notice her escape from this doomed town, let alone stop her.

Her name was Rose, and her good, impeccable heart was definitely crushed under the weight of many of the same, namely type of flower.

And there was no stopping her. She wasn't alone in this pursuit...

She had a friend.

"You can never be too careful, you know," a light female voice emanated from seemingly nowhere. It seemed and sounded as if it was reverberating off of an empty room; and such was the situation in the very room the mare cautiously stood in. But again, there was no source to be detected, and each word this character spoke left faint echoes to linger in its vicinity. It also left an air of ease floating around Rose, and it was managed just by being close to her.

Perhaps the speaker might not have even been real at all, in fact, and Rose could have been ridiculously ill in her mind. His supposed existence could have lied upon her health, for all she knew, truly.

"Yeah, you're right. But I could never leave anything to chance. Not now, anyway."

"You ever realize that it's kind of funny how you know more about me than we do? It kinda bugs me," she joked, before speaking again. "But hey, I know it's not your fault, though."

She felt it; every second of it. She loved her friend. She loved her best friend in the world.

The only one she had...

"I know, but hey," Rose started, staring at the wall for a few seconds, blank for an even longer series of them:

"It's not your fault either.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

The beautiful defanged Rose had an acquaintance since she was born, or shortly after, really. At the time she was physically conceived, there was an acutely-timed, incredibly heated nationwide debate about children born with anything close to a shade of purple in their hair. This was a very strict following that spoke of 'the demons of Equestria's past', and the movement only lasted a few years, but, those special children who were born during that short timeframe were immediately taken away from their parents and, they were either murdered by their captors, or the entire family was left to suffer the same fate as the child was constantly guaranteed to.

Roseluck was spared this certain fate, however, through the miracle of hope, or what was believed to be just mere hope. At that time, there was no hope for anyone. The beliefs got way too out of control and murders started occurring every few minutes, utterly convinced that the perpetrators were doing their God good, a favor:

'His bidding.'

Just after she was abducted from her parent's place of residence by members of that godforsaken group, she was placed in the care of a mare whose name she couldn't remember, but she sure remembered what she looked like. No, that was all too clear to ever forget:

She was a plain, perhaps personified version of a lifeless pony-quin, with no feelings or emotions whatsoever. She showed no compassion at all, in the entire period of time that she cared for the little wilted, malnourished Rose. Her coat was of a pale, weak color, similar to her mane and tail: both were worn down and unkempt: they seemed to have grossly radiated with the dark corrosive aura that was thusly dignified by the way she brought her new, unconditionally adopted filly up and into the world.

Her name was Pinkamena Diane Pie, and the only way she knew the world at that time was how she lived hers back then.

Rose spent her life locked away from the outside world because Pinkamena feared it. She feared that if she were to even breathe the outside air, she would turn against her and do the unthinkable; to betray all the trust she put into little Rose. She loved Rose with all her heart, despite how many times it had been shattered and how many times it had to be put back together by force. She felt like, if she cared for a child that wasn't hers, one that wasn't at all related to her through blood and attached to her through the same flesh, she could develop a sense of happiness and self-approval once again.

She treated Rose well, but she never let her outside. Rose never ever got a chance to experience the brighter side of all the misery that this left her with.

The pain that scarred her to this very day...
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

"Let's go, little Bloom," Rose ordered as she started moving toward and into another room. Immediately, she jumped at another chance to watch the happenings outside, in the distance.

"I'm a big pony, I told you already," the girl recited. She would be told that very same thing for a while to come. "Can you please stop calling me that, cuz that bugs me more than anything else."

"Yeah, I will." Rose didn't sound like it, through her voice or the words she chose. "I'm just a little nervous, is all."

"A little? Ya think?"

"I'm so glad I'll be having you on this trip...Big Bloom." Behind Rose's serious, resolved face, she cracked a small bit of a smile; the best she could do to stop the giggles that wanted to escape her mouth.

-----------------------

Rarity sat anxiously in a sort of interrogation room, with soundproof padding placed on the walls. She laid her head on the wide table between her occupied seat and two empty ones.

"I'll be with you in one second, miss."

The mare from before had brought her to the police station near the very outskirts of town. There was really no need for it, with how small the town was, but it was erected in its best interest. Especially now. She was prepping a few things before she would sit down to ask Rarity a few questions regarding the incident with the foal that was presumably her sister.

Rarity looked around the room to see the details that told her that the room was a normal office-like suite, complete with nothing more — and no less — than only the necessities required for normal operation of any enforcer of law. She scanned the room over, spotting a few small posters posted on one of the four mesh-covered constructs, in which the small space was comprised of. Their own space was mostly taken up by what looked like a few columns of ponies' mugshots, but she really couldn't tell. When she scooted the chair closer to the cluttered desk, to get a better look at the scraps on the wall.

But before she could register the images, the mare came entered the room once more.

"I'm sorry about the wait," she said. She finally lifted the dark shades from her eyes, and she gently set them on the table. She looked as if she hadn't had much time to wake herself up before she headed to that dreaded scene. Her eyes still seemed a little sensitive to the artificial light that shined from both a low-hanging ceiling lamp and a self-standing, manipulative rod that carries a few miniature high-powered lightbulbs. They were all dimmed down significantly, and while the setup still looked a bit intimidating, the officer reassured the Unicorn that she was not in any trouble.

As she pulled her body back into the comfort of the chair, Rarity also happened to spot a rather spacey, rectangular plaque, and it looked as if the front plate was embedded with the color of a certain, aged bronze. She also saw the name that read on its aforementioned faceplate, and read it out loud to the mare like a question:

Her name was Rainbow Dash, and her heart had perhaps grown insatiably soft over the years she had spent on her own. Perhaps even weak.

"You got me," she responded. "Now, uh, would you like a bottle of water or something? Pretzels or something?"

"No. No, I don't want anything, thank you."

"I hope you're not too traumatized," Rainbow Dash explained, doing her best to comfort her silent suspect. Being quiet wouldn't help Rarity at all, and she knew that. They both did. "We're going to need all the information you can possibly give us, or all that you know you can. This case is going to need it. The truth is going to need it."

"I know..." Rarity didn't do much after letting her eyes gaze all across the desk. Seeing how bare it was, she lifted her head to look Dash in her incredibly beautiful, unshielded eyes.

She was a witness, and she needed to share her story with this world. She just had to...

-----------------------

Rose, one of the bravest sprouts of life that would ever walk this world, had gotten over the fear of failure that she had held deep inside her consciousness from the very second that was split when this trouble began to rise.

She had a mission; a mission of her very own.

But there was one question that even she had to ask herself. One that, despite how every step and every stride of her new life would have to subsist with--or outright avoid--she couldn't even bring herself to think about, clearly. Her thoughts were clustered in much more than just a few senses.

She even wondered...

"What could I have done back there?"

Her resolve to leave her old life behind and create a new one for herself... It was a mere work in progress from the first thought she conceived; when she settled on completely forgetting every little thing she had ever lived for in her lifetime.

Friends. Love. Surrogate family...

She couldn't take such baggage with her on her journey. She had to be alone.

"Did she die because of me..?"

"I can't answer either of those, sorry. But I'll do my best to help you out, big sis."

Author's Notes:

I think I'm getting back into writing again ^-^
I hope you all enjoy this as much as I do, and that doesn't just go for this installment. It also goes for the story in its whole.
Also, I'm just now trying out the different fonts and stuff. Everyone has their own preferences for that right? And they keep them for their own computer?

~Identity

--------------

Equestria's eastern coast was the preferred route for the writing wanderer. And even if her existence was recognized, those who knew of it wouldn't have any reason to blame her.

In the far distance, other countries and continents would have their intricate bodies foreshadowed. Dark silhouettes outlining them underneath a dark cloud that hovered over the sky in their direction. The nearby cities of Baltimare and Fillydelphia were lit up and supposedly gleeful, but the wanderer took a route around a forthcoming mountain, which a shallow forest seemed to also prefer. Thick clouds were visible above the trees, as the city lights illuminated most of them.

The wanderer didn't seem to pay them too much heed though, nor much else. She discovered a river that ran near the edge of the small forest, and she started walking near it, but still within the trees. She wanted to take in every bit of physical fragrance that she could from the crisp winds that blew against her bare body, with the help of the flowing river. She showed no signs of stopping, even with the cool sands shifting around the weight her hooves.

"I spent too much time back there," she muttered to herself, frustrated. "I need to find a new place to write."

With that very resolve, she tried her very best to turn her walk into a soft trot, with a very far destination in mind. She only hoped and wished that she would be able to retain the feel of the cold night air upon her coated flesh, and the rushing gales flowing through her mane.

It was the very reason why she was beginning to feel tired. It was the very reason why she was able to have these incredible sensations flow through her.

"I don't know how long I can last doing this."

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~Beside You in Time~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
---Identity---
***
**
*

It had been almost a full twenty-four hour period since Rose left the tense scene at Ponyville, and more so, the solace of hiding — at least among other ponies. She simply couldn't stay there, acting as a scapegoat. They would find her.

She knew how all the town's operations worked, and even everything about the ponies who ran them. She had every right to be as cautious as she was, considering the secret she was keeping from the world.

They could find her...

"For the last time, they're not going to catch us," Rose assured her partner, who was taking after her in many ways. The only thing was, though, that she was making it out as if she were actually terrified of this journey they would take. Showing weakness.

Rose feared to look fragile above all else.

"How can you be so sure, though?" the little one asked. "I'm the one they'd never be able to see, cuz I'm so small. But if those guys catch you, I won't be able to do much to help."

Rose sighed — a culmination of the exasperation she would forever hold inside, and the fear, as well.

"It should take them a while to figure out what's going on, anyway. Longer, I hope, but-"

"Are you sure you're not scared?"

Rose got to thinking again, and deeply. She thought deeper than she had before in that same day, aside from how careful she was with her departure from the doomed town. She even got herself lost in her mind, once again. She was a very active thinker, and the fate of the world would need her delicate mind for its benefit.

"I'm plenty scared," she admitted, hesitating throughout. "But I have you, and I need you for this."

"Oh..."

"Don't worry, Bloom. I need your love, too. You're the only friend I've got in this. Partners till the end..."

_______-------*******------_______
*******-------_______-------*******

As the stealthy mare reached the literal apex of the route she took; at the top of a short hill flooded with tall grass that blew in the gentle breeze, that same sensation still coursed through her body. This was the very motive in her mind that would keep her going for the duration of her trip to her next generation, and beyond that, even.

But then something caught her eye, she hid as fast as she possibly could. She knew she couldn't be seen very easily, especially with how the sun was slowly rising behind her, enveloping her bright coat in the blinding light. And, perhaps, doing such a thing was a force of habit; of caution.

But still, she had no reason to ever feel comfortable. Not now. Not ever.

"Oh gosh. . !"

With her choice words spilled —and rather rapidly— she peeked out from behind the cover of a few lone bushes at the side of the small, protruding hill. She was already beginning to regain her sense of security as she observed the active subjects that caused her to hide.

"I can only hope they didn't see me. . ."

"Rosie, when are you gonna take a break? You've been on your hooves since we left and you haven't stopped one bit."

"I can't. We can't."

"Yeah ya can!" The little filly moved to Rose's front and pointed her hoof to the far right of her, toward the hill. "You can take a break right there. Please? You know I don't tire the same way you do,"

She took a moment to catch her breath. "Heh...you're not calling me old, are you?"

"You know what I'm saying." The filly tried to laugh, but she ended up staying somber. "Just do it! Pretty please?"

Rose's rebuttals came out as kindly as she could put them. "No, we've got to keep going. We can't stop. Never stop, remember?"

The mare in the shelter of the bushes listened to their conversation with great intent. She noticed the filly in particular, as a weak sensation suddenly coursed through her. It was probably the strangest thing she had experienced since she started her journey. It was different than what she had felt before—the coldest air brushing against her bare, exposed body.

Yes, that was a different experience all in all. She considered it to be incredibly stimulating, in fact. But this was rather...direct. It seemed appointed and directed to her.

Though, she knew what this really, honestly was.

It was inside of her. It was in her mind. It wasn't the same kind of fear, such as the type that caused her to hide. She wondered if it could have been a different kind of fear, however, or even sort of defense to prevent her from being slowed down. Maybe it was a different feeling entirely.

"Is that her..?" She kept her eyes on the filly and her adult partner as they approached the little hill. They would probably be there for a while, dangerously close.

"Darn, this is no time to be lost in thought. Remember what your sister taught you." She was speaking to herself, backing away.

"I miss her so much... I can't just forget that. Both of them, really..."

~~~~~~~~~~~~

A whole hour seemed passed by as quickly as its minutes did, all with nowhere for the mare to go. If she tried to leave, she would be noticed, no matter which route she would take. The brilliant sun shined against the land, engrossing it in a certain radiance that only natural light could. If she were to try and leave the scene in any direction, she would be noticed by someone, somewhere; no matter what. She decided to stay put, huddled between the hill and the bushes to the side. She was still able to feel the cool air coming from the ocean as she leaned against the land mass.

It was time to rest. She had come a long way, once more. She would try to, anyway.

And that meant that it was time to write as well; it was time to add on to what she had written on the eastern shores.

Her heart depended on it...

Her weak, broken soul...

[=====]

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~A Questionable Consequence~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
---Death---
***
**
*

When a fully-grown mare or stallion has come to terms of accepting their expiration, they are given a series of choices. One set that heeds many possibilities, and another that has the power to hold much, much more than the other. As the concept of completely leaving one's life would seem irresponsible, in regard to one's own pride, some other ponies would find the thought irresistible. Such misery and relentless pursuit for a life of negativity exist, whether one chooses to believe it or not. The latter kinds of ponies are known only for a few months time--normally--before they abruptly disappear from sight, at first—then mind—soon after. But there is more to explain as to why those ponies chose to live their lives with such immense suffering.

It was a tale about a selfish ruler, but more about the innocent ones that were under his threatening haze. That time has passed, though, but the scars have been inflicted on this race ever since then, and they have stuck with each and every member.

Given that, they all have a connection to each other. It's more subtle when it comes to their direct memory, but one can describe it as...being hardwired into their Crystal being. And that subtle characteristic coincided with yet another factor that, sadly, stands true. It's truly an incredible miracle for some, as mysterious as it may be.

Elaborating on the concept and forthcoming of one's death, the simplest way to explain their conversion into sparkling nothingness is that, if they were blessed with wings upon birth, or were gifted with a horn in that same time period, they were destined to relive their lives if they so chose to. They would trade their birthrights for the shattered, uncolored pallet of a 'Crystal Pony', as they are much known as today.

[=====]

The auburn-maned mare and her energetic, albeit concerned partner were heading toward the writing wanderer to take the break that they needed and deserved, as they had traveled far from their home. While the character was well-hidden, the taller mare's sheer beauty made her physically stutter a bit, as she found herself completely lost in her presence for about half of a split second. It was strange, but she broke herself out of her trance almost immediately.

"That one is still alive..."

The writer processed the critical information just about as fast as she reacted, innately trying to further hide her presence. She could feel the fear run right through her, and it made her rather skittish.

She moved along the sides of the hump in the ground, with the high-noon sun assisting her as she stepped her way into the shadows cast by some shrubs at the shallow top of the hill that swayed in the gusts of wind that suddenly appeared in the area. She peeked around the curve while still hidden nicely, but she pulled back just a little as she saw that the two strangers were closer than she had anticipated.

"It's way too hot out here," the scarlet-maned mare began, "that storm just passed, though..." They too had been seeking shelter from the sun, but for different reasoning than the wanderer. "We'll rest for a little bit, but then we've gotta keep going, Never stopping, remember?" She smiled sweetly at her partner.

The writer listened to their conversation with great intent, as she swore up and down that this was somepony she knew in her past. But nonetheless, it was strange. She had a serious mission of literary importance, and nothing had gotten in her way since the moment she stole the parchment paper she needed. Her momentum was almost unstoppable.

She got closer to these characters, still hidden and silent.

And even with the knowledge of how she would never be caught, given her small size and proficient sneaking abilities, she would have just enough time to invest interest in a familiar-looking character without letting her guard down, that is if she were to stay relatively close to this filly whenever possible. And the lack of direct sunlight was still in her favor.

"If I could feel anything right now..."

She leaned closer and closer to the filly that was ranting and raving about, only a few feet from her now. She was coming out of the protective blanket of darkness that was that overcast shadow. Her sleeveless hoof started to light up with its bright contrast under the sun, breaking her cover a little more.

"It's that she's real... It's that I am real." She reached ever closer now. "I want to feel you... I want to feel you so badly."

Upon touching the filly's shoulder, she did indeed feel her smooth coat with her hoof, but no physical response was given by the filly in return. She was appalled by this and kept her hoof there, stroking the filly's fur as she developed a somber look on her face, just staring at nothing. She looked like she was feeling both sides of the spectrum when it came to any and all emotions, though, with her physical indications being clear enough to depict her current emotions, her whole body froze. The look anguish and defeat started to saturate her quivering lips, and the thought filled her cunning mind with an intense doubt; that there might be a total flaw in the logic of her goal.

However, she managed to shake off the majority of that doubt; just with a great deal of difficulty. She couldn't lose hope.

Her mind raced at a thousand miles a second. She started to panic.

"What if she knows who I was back then? Oh my goodness..." She retracted her hoof into the shadows, and it was a good thing to do, as the little filly looked all around her in a frantic fit of energy. "What if she does... I remember her, though. So maybe there is a way..."

-

The Crystal Ponies left behind an early impression on the concept of illusions, so early, in fact, that it had easily become that of a fairy tale as old as the grandparents of the Alicorn princesses of the current time. It was based on the premise of dreams—the ones that all the sleeping beings of the world experience almost every night.

It soon became one of the greatest tales one could tell in this very same world, filled with those very same dreams. There are likely major connections between this hypothesis and alterations of the mind. The living and the dead.

[====]

"Do you hear that sound?"

The wanderer finished up her notes with her magic but soon ceased its use, as she feared she had been detected. She dropped everything—figuratively, of course—and stayed still. She didn't hear anything herself, though. She couldn't tell this filly even if she had a real use for that sense. Rose didn't seem to hear anything either.

"Oh? What is it?"

"It's gone now, but it was just squealing in my ear. Somepony back there must be talking about me or something."

"That's...strange. I mean, I hate to say it, but-"

"Maybe they're just remembering me or something. I was one of her friends."

"Whose?" Rose looked back in the direction from whence they came. "Sweetie Belle's friend?"

"It's still hard to imagine her being gone, but yeah..."

The filly's eyes were slowly darting to both her left and her right now, as if she were the one in a hurry this time around. "Great, now I'm all ancy now."

"Well that was quite the switch up," said Rose. She was quick to pick up on this as well, but she also retained the soft tone that came with the filly's small fit of mournfulness. "No one saw us leave town. We can go anywhere else and we'll be fine for the most part; no need to worry.

Rose was being honest; she really was. But she also spoke the bluntest ends of the truth as well.

"I'm not as much worried as I am just...thinking, I guess." The filly then started looking around at her surroundings. "I'll take a look up here and see if it's alright." She started scouting out a route not even a few feet from Rose, who also got up on her hooves and looked for a route to take, but she ended up looking behind her much more than the filly did:

For the first time, she saw what looked like a settlement behind them, no longer behind the guise of thick greenery as she started walking after her partner, about half as fast as she could. The backs of three wooden buildings with about three feet in between each made her pupils shrink. She knew she couldn't be caught. She knew that the news of the filly's murder was breaking, and anyone was a suspect in the investigation.

She made immediate haste and caught up with her partner, even more worked up now; head full of paranoia and fear.

--------

The majority of their surroundings were now blocked by large foothills and would require their weary bodies to take a night to recover. The sun was still high in the sky, beating down on them with its harsh rays, and its position in the sky also indicated that it was going to be a long time before darkness would fall. Making their way through the mountains any way they decided on was going to be a difficult task.

"Applebloom," Rose started.

"Did she just say her name?" The wanderer had been following them under the guise of more shadows, provided by miles of looming trees.

"Yeah? What's up?"

"She did..."

"Are you ready to go?"

The wanderer just sat back and watched them; she waited for them to turn their backs. And it would be a good thing to move quickly because all the shade she took shelter in was rapidly inching away from her as the sun began to set.

The suspected filly looked at Rose, then cocked her brows, putting on a grimace of a frown. "I am, but you sure don't look like you are."

It was true: Her eyes were heavy and her legs were shaking, and she was struggling to stay on them.

But she persisted to stay strong. Always and forever.

"Well," Rose started again. "The sooner we get out of sight completely, the sooner we can settle down. Hopefully." She would follow the point that she made, despite her partner sharing a grimacing glance. "And it's starting to get cold again..."

"Rosie, I know you're stubborn when you wanna be, but I couldn't help you out if you get yourself hurt. I'm just a little filly!"

"Not only that...but I'm also not going to get hurt."

She leaped into a full gallop with that sentiment, heading toward an opening into the foothills ahead of them and limping slightly to her left. She had a fire in her eyes, much like the fire that flowed in her mane and tail when she ran. She was truly a beautiful mare. The little filly took no time to follow suit after groaning just loud enough for the wanderer to hear. However, she said nothing more and disappeared into the hills.

"I'm not letting you get away so easily, the wanderer preached. "I'm not letting you get away at all.

"I know I know you, and I know you know me."

"Even if I am. . .

She herself focused on nothing more than keeping on their tails after that. Watching all of her surroundings, desperation had driven her to travel in the sunlight, where she could be seen by anyone. She was risking her life.

"Even if you are. . ."

"My life. . ."

Author's Notes:

https://static1.e621.net/data/52/a9/52a925bfff50f9d9ec8a5cf582d55302.jpg
I know it's an e621 address, but it's NOT porno-ness

Still trying my best to write this as a mystery-thriller thing. And as such, I feel the need to tease you guys with pictures pertaining to possible "jump to conclusion' moments x3

[==___Driftwood___==]

--------------

The wanderer never looked back behind her after she had entered the twisting trails inside the collection of tall foothills. It was miles west of the grand earthly spire which the posh, capital city of Canterlot was mounted upon.

She could still feel a bit of crispness fill the air as the evening came. The sun was setting behind that same grand spire, and a similar source of ironic solace — that intense, fading sunlight around her — was leading her astray. The temperature hadn't been affected yet.

Slightly, ever so slightly, she stumbled in her silent pursuit of these two ponies of interest. She knew what she was experiencing this time around, as with everything else that had happened to her during her task so far nearly every night now: she was simply succumbing to the exhaust most ponies would be experiencing.

She followed them for miles, walking up a dull dirt trail that kept shifting in its size. In fact, those two ponies were in no better shape, as tired as they were. The sun had just about disappeared, and that meant she was hidden in the darkness.

"Rose," the little one started. She sounded very scared; deathly worried. "When--" she paused. "Let's rest. Please? You need to."

The weary mare replied, between the occasional breaths, "I hadn't been thinking about that at all. I can't."

"Look around, Rosie! We're safe. There's no way anyone will find us!"

Much to Rose's distraught and lack of energy, her friend remained as composed as ever. She continuously trotted around her as she walked, and kept telling her that she should do what she'd been asking this whole time: to sit down, take a break, and rest her body. The grown mare would have very well denied herself comfort again, but this time she was forced to stop, as there was no other direction to head into.

"See? No one comes up here anymore. There's nothing here," the filly pleaded. "Not anymore."

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~Life on Vapor~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
---Driftwood---
***
**
*

Rose eventually took shelter under a short yet aged oak tree, and she was immediately greeted by her energetic partner, pleased as can while snuggling up with her. There was no light to aid her as she assessed the entire area she took the time to study what she was able to.

There were some small trails through the tall stretches of grass that huddled up near the upward slopes of the foothills. Few oddly shaped rocks were scattered along the area, which she nearsightedly assessed in the dark night. Up in the far corner reaches of one of the taller hills, to the far right, she believed to have made out the sight of a dark lamp, hanging from a post buried inside the earth. For a second, she wondered if it would get any colder, being up that high.

"Someone...used to?" said Rose, announcing her findings afterward. She was shivering now, the cold running right through her.

"A deeper trail in these mountains? That sounds pretty exciting." The filly asserted her excitement for the prospect of adventure. "Maybe after you rest, Rosie. Maybe. But trust me, no one would even think of coming here, even if anyone was looking for you."

"Aren't you the confident one all of a sudden?" Rose blushed as she chuckled.

"Now we're safe, so," the filly said. She was no longer looking around to her left and right.

Rose shifted her bottom across the cold dirt, looking to get more comfortable until she laid her upper body against a small patch of dirt, raised into a small lump. It didn't crumble beneath her weight, even as the filly huddled up to her side.

Rose tried to relax, listening more closely to her partner than ever. She knew what the little filly wanted the most right now. "I believe you," she said with a small smile. "Of course, you would know better." The smile was definitely genuine, however sarcastic her choice of words seemed.

Rose always meant everything she said in her life; she was an honest mare, and much too beautiful, at that. She knew it as her greatest value, and so did her friend. "I love you, little Bloom."

"I love you too, sis."

The filly meant well, as did her surrogate sibling. Rose was her watcher; her protector. And in a way, the filly watched and protected Rose as best she could. Her physical influence helped her little, but her energy sure was contagious.

"In all honesty, dear. . . Without you." Rose paused, looking all around a few more times. She was taking in the scenery as it grew more beautiful with each passing moment spent with the filly. Even though darkness nearly surrounded them, she knew she wasn't alone. "Well, I might have gone crazy long ago." She seemed to stop shivering for a few seconds, scanning her partner's happy face across from her own, more exhausted and painful expression.

There were only a few inches between them, but Rose wanted her closer. Before she reached a hoof out for her, the little filly took it upon herself to cuddle up to her as close as she possibly could. Rose gently rested her forehead against the filly's and looked her in the eyes, smiling, until her eyelids started to droop down.

"I'll see you in the morning, Bloom." The filly fell asleep with a smile. Rose took a little longer to fall into sleep — nuzzling the filly's cheek until she did — but all with a smile on her face. She tightened her grip around her partner, falling asleep with that same smile. "You're not going anywhere."

The wanderer had more than caught up to the scene, having been only a small distance away. She witnessed the heartfelt moment herself and wished that she could cry; she knew she wanted to. She had so much agony built up inside of her that needed release, but she couldn't bring herself to weep no matter how hard she tried.

"Rose," The name slurred off her lips, as it was one she did not know by heart. "What happened to you?" She fought the urge to visit them, as they were seemingly cemented in their embrace. She simply studied them, wondering what kind of relationship they had, and pondering how the older Rose had come to supposedly need this little one in her life. "You seem...so desperate."

The more she looked at them, the more pain and hardship she imagined she had gone through. And the filly remained as cheerful as ever, while Rose struggled so much, seeming so frail.

"If I only could," she started again, then sighed. "I don't know you, Rose...but I'd give you a hug, too."

_______-------*******------_______
*******-------_______-------*******

The moonless, starry sky continued to light up the night for all but restless insects, crickets chirping away in the faraway distance. It was easy to listen to them within the mountainous bowl-like formation, and from the narrow, poorly constructed trails in between the rocky walls. The growing grass all around them also swayed in the few light winds that managed to enter it.

The wanderer didn't sleep. She felt as though she needed to torture herself in any way she could endure. "I can't believe how far I've actually come," she whispered, looking up into the dotted skyline.

She easily found herself lost: the dark hue in the sky resembled the very depths of the ocean that she stared into the night before. A stronger breeze came in and rattled the leaves on the lone tree, and the cool temperature made her shudder once more. To her own thoughts, she would come to curse her ethereal existence.

"This night . . . It's absolutely perfect." Soon, the air was filled with a light mist that gently pampered them, as if on a cue.

A certain kind of ecstasy then lured her closer to Rose and her filly friend. She spent the next few hours both resting and writing, sitting down with her back against Rose's body, with the light mist still falling from the sky. She felt like they wouldn't be waking anytime soon, but if one of them ever did for some reason, there was much more at stake now than keeping her presence a secret.

This was her chance: she could probably finish her studies if everything went perfectly, as she thought the night would allow.

"Little Bloom, huh?" she whispered, followed by a content sigh. Her gaze was fixed on the sleeping filly for an extended minute, already swapping focus from the parchment paper. She spoke to her with a slightly somber tone in a strained, quivering voice, sounding different than the faint voice she always heard escape her mouth.

"I really do wonder that...if you saw me, or if you were even able to...if you'd remember me." She reached out to touch her again, though knowing it to be futile.

But she felt the little filly's coat this time! She couldn't believe it at all, no; not a bit. She took instantaneous advantage of the surprise, however.

"What!? Oh God, Applebloom it is you. . !" This phenomenon benefited her avail amazingly. She used the filly's birth name, just as she remembered, and just as Rose had done. Her spirit was filled with the same kind of ecstasy as before, and if she had a living heart, it would be beating out of her chest.

When she glided her hoof to the filly's own chest, there was likewise no heart to feel the beat of, nor were there working lungs: just a cold body of the filly friend she loved. But she believed! Some criteria were met correctly, as Apple Bloom's body was now tangible

The wanderer shut her eyes tight, focusing on her contempt for everything except this filly. She quickly found herself wanting to cry, but when she opened her eyes again, there were no tears: she simply was not able to cry.

But it was so strange — she knew from her life in a physical body what it was like to cry. It was the very same way she knew how to simulate it in her mind, and with what was left of her soul. It was an almost orgasmic stimulation, and a strange soft purring sound escaped her throat, her mouth barely open.

She found solace in petting Applebloom. For full minutes at a time.

"You know, some of this doesn't even make sense," she said to her, running her hoof along her body, "I can feel your warmth, just as I did before, but now I can feel you. Us Crystal Ponies aren't supposed to physically feel anything...you and me. Is it in the-"

Just before she finished her sentence, Rose started to turn on her back. She draped a foreleg over her chest, her hoof resting near her shoulder like she was locking it over Applebloom's body where she couldn't. The wanderer's eyes were drawn to her; she didn't think to write about what was happening here. Not yet. It had not yet escaped her mind, though.

"You don't intend to take Applebloom away from me, do you, Rose?" The mare smiled in her sleep, as if providing an answer. Surely she doubted her judgment to be true, but the intimacy of the situation was spoiled by her cursed conclusions regardless. She gave it her best effort not to instantly misconstrue their relationship, and think that Apple Bloom had forgotten about her.

But then again, she forgot; she knew that the memory of her hadn't passed. Her faint voice became even more so.

"I know you remember me, Applebloom. And I'm not dead... And neither are you."

It was true, Applebloom was a Crystal Pony just as she was; she was truly deceased. She had died, and this wanderer knew exactly how. "Well, we're not gone yet, are we?" Decades ago, she gave her life to save little Applebloom's, despite living in a prosperous time — when life was good to everyone.

But then, how did Applebloom die..?

Before Sombra; before the blizzards; before the dreaded Shackles arrived and all came to ruin.

That was the first time Sweetie Belle died.

"Only death is the end."

She remembered, for the reason was right, and for all intents and purposes, a just cause as well. She had been through such heartache without a heart, and such horror without any fear. She remembered promising her two best friends that she would die for them if she had to, in the new age they had been unfairly thrust into.

Sweetie Belle was the only hope for the memory of the Crystal Ponies to live on. It was an enormous weight that encumbered her, where she felt like it was her the only purpose she could serve in her sequential life. And every passing night, it made her want to weep; the sadness inside what was left of her soul.

So, reminding herself of her mission, she went ahead and provided an addendum to the last thing she wrote:

[=====]

However, correlating against the fact that Crystal Ponies have no way to remember one another, even if they were family in their first lives, some can form a special, instantaneous bond with one another. It is one that creates a spark between the two, one that makes them absolutely inseparable; one that just...makes them family.

The emotions that were present charged each studied sentence Sweetie wrote, and it had quickly become a personal affair. She took another appreciative look at Applebloom, seemingly trapped inside Rose's embrace.

Personally, I don't understand how death would divide two lifelong friends' timelines. It's like she doesn't know me anymore. There's a reason for this, but I can't fathom... How can an Earth Pony like her even like me?

Like me . . . Dead like me. I can't have her suffer another death as well. Then she'll be doomed to live forever in a perpetual hell. Just like me

I must be different. I must be some exception to the Crystal Pony's genealogy. I've died twice, but I can still feel connected to this pony, where she can't do the same for me, and she's only living her second life. Might I have been misled this whole time? What have I missed, I wonder. . .

Was I chosen by a high power to educate this ignorant world? Rose must know how we still exist. Maybe. Maybe this all isn't futile.

[=====]

Sweetie Belle saw that a few lone clouds were gliding across the misty sky, even without moonlight passing through them. The stars aided in their presence.

Her glistening, sorrowful eyes then fell upon a hidden trail, a path visible behind some more strange-looking rocks, and she was urged to investigate. Sure enough, there was the sight of a fairly wide trail that came from below, which must have been an alternate path to take, and led further up the hills.

"Rose noticed this path up the mountain. I'm not sure if Apple Bloom was defensive about it or not, but there's probably something up there." She looked back at Rose and Apple Bloom, all but shuffling in their sleep. "Maybe they're so close, their dreams are connected, too," she crudely kid.

She stepped through some thick bushes with smaller perhaps broken rocks on the ground within them and looked down the trail, where she could have come from. Then she looked back at the path where she followed the two ponies up.

"No one's coming up, but someone could still come down, and they might see them as a threat. I just have to make sure." Again, she looked back at the ponies, but for the last time. "Maybe I can save you this time. . .my little Bloom. Do something for you, maybe. Anything."

Roughly about a quarter-mile ahead and sloping slightly upward, she made a left turn along the curvature of the hill and disappeared from sight. Still, no one could see her, as she was a Crystal Pony hidden in the shadows of the night. And so she hurried on, now focused on the fantasy of Apple Bloom noticing her actions, and ultimately noticing her.

Further on, she saw more signs of traffic along the path; more lamp posts buried in the cliffs, more flat areas aside from the trail big enough to rest on; big enough for a carriage to be out of the way of others, even. Sweetie Belle wondered what all this was about, if it was about anything at all, at this time.

It all had an abandoned look to it, yet she noticed that the trail itself was not overgrown like a few portions before. The fires within the lamps were far extinguished, but one of the seven-sided lamps had one broken side, missing of glass. She looked inside of it to see only a small bundle of ashes inside, which a precise wind took away, sending shivers up her spine. She suspected everything and nearly anything as she continued on the cliffs between the hills.

______-------*******------_______
*******-------_______-------*******

Apple Bloom awoke to a very strange vision as she slept. She opened her eyes to see the very same sights around her as when she fell asleep with Rose, who still had her eyes shut with the same, perhaps bigger smile across her face. She smiled back at her, thinking about kissing her on her muzzle. But something felt wrong to her.

The vacant air was still cold, she could feel that much, but she felt like she was being monitored. She easily escaped from Rose's loving embrace and stood up, scanning the area once again and quickly noticing the hidden path that Sweetie made her way through.

"Someone's here," she said, her lips soon quivering. She, too, would be willing to abandon the comfort of a loved one in order to protect them. "I'll shove them off the cliff to keep them from finding out." With that, she left Rose to snooze all alone, who would be unbeknownst to the history that would be written soon enough.

~Evanescence

--------------

Apple Bloom felt very uncomfortable leaving Rose behind the way she did. But as with Sweetie Belle, a lack of information led to a sense of urgency. She needed to protect Rose from any danger that her worried mind could possibly dread. She would be back for her soon, however. The secret she was trying to protect was the one that would save Rose's life, she believed: she had faith that another mistake could be prevented. But uncertainty guided that faith as she hurried around the same corner that Sweetie Belle took, but taking less caution.

"I should be able to phase through walls," she joked, partly cursing the situation. It would be quite a while before she would reach her destination, at the top of the mountain; at the very end of the path. "Gotta hurry up."

_______-------*******------_______
*******-------_______-------*******

Rainbow Dash had long since released Rarity from questioning. She couldn't imagine any theory presented to her to be true, as they all wove their fabric from the existence of magic. She was not a Unicorn, and she would not slumber this night. "She couldn't have just...appeared out of thin air, you know?" she argued with herself. Rainbow Dash would find justice for not only the mare but for the rattled community of Ponyville as well. She felt pity for both of those things, and her own wall of fidelity was quickly collapsing upon itself, having no answers. She could not do this on her own.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~Dearly Departed~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
---Evanescence---
***
**
*

"Applejack? Are you here? Applejack?"

"Who wants to know?" Dash heard a voice call out from inside, questioning her intentions. She had faith she would find help here at Sweet Apple Acres, no matter how uncomfortable a confrontation might be.

"It's Rainbow Dash," she started. "From the town?" Whichever Apple family member was inside recognized her name immediately, but still questioned her intent. Dash delayed a detailed explanation. "It's not . . . Look, it is important. Can you tell her I'm here and maybe, you know, get her?"

The building in which the family lived as well as its siblings were still in as good of shape as she remembered back then, just months ago. Save for heavy tarps on the rooftops and all the absence of all farm animals, keeping warm inside the insulated barn to the right, they were all necessary precautions to counter the cold weather the town had been recently experiencing. It felt like snow could flake down at any given moment: the barren fields absent of crops and but plentiful of cold decayed trees would surely die. Dash briefly remembered hearing the news from Cloudsdale, news about the difficulty the ponies at the Rainbow factory were having, trying to keep freezing winds from sweeping the land. They don't know where it came from at all.

"I can tell her, but I really don't think she's too fond of you anymore." Dash wouldn't let this female voice trip her with guilt, as she knew exactly what was being brought up, and immediately elaborated upon. "Tell me, Dash. Why'd you have to break her heart?"

"If you're gonna take my place and interrogate me, at least let me in. It's getting to be freezing." Dash's jaw trembled. She clamped it tight, breathing through her nose; she saw the air she breathed expelled upon the wide door, pushing off of it. "Please?"

A few miserable seconds passed, and she finally heard the door unlock: she didn't wait for many instructions, but only an invitation to come inside. "Just go get her," the voice added.

Rainbow Dash pushed the door open and started walking into the building when she was first greeted by a small filly walking away from her. The immediate scene was hardly lit but for a weak fire burning in a stove, and a glass lantern a few feet in front of it, in the path she walked.

The filly then walked toward a noose tied upon the beams supporting the second story of the house. She put the pieces together instantaneously and dashed toward the little filly, but she was too late to stop her from leaping up at the noose.

"Scootaloo!" she called. "No!" But the filly fell to the ground in failure, hard on her protruding hip bones firstly. She was truly a sad sight as Rainbow Dash looked her over.

The name slipped from Dash's lips just like it used to so often before.

It was the filly's lack of flight that gave her away, despite having wings; Dash knew who this filly was. The poor, sad thing...

"Go away!" Scootaloo ordered Dash with hostility, but she watched her approach regardless. It was not in defiance, but instead of care. Fear, perhaps. The vulnerable filly beckoned her protection all over again.

"Scootaloo," she said, "what are you doing here?? Of all places, here? What the hell were you trying to do?!"

"This wasn't supposed to happen!" The little orange filly got louder. "I was supposed to die! Before you could stop me!"

"Scootaloo, I'm..." She chose to catch a bit more breath. "Well...I saw this coming." Dash was both confused and upset, the latter washing over her all of a sudden. "You shouldn't ever want to think like that. You know better. You've been through so much, we both know that!"

Dash was upset because she looked Scootaloo over and saw that she was in terrible condition, a great deal of life looking visibly drained from her, with her slow and feeble movements, pulling herself back along the floor in a fluster of emotions. And she was also confused for the same reasons, but that confusion turned into a need for answers from her. She knew her and still cared deeply for her, after a long period apart.

"And I didn't stop you, Scootaloo," Dash added, sounding sorrowful before she discovered something much more mystifying. "Wait, where are your wings...?"

Dash looked her over, again and again, kneeling down to her side now. Her sight met with the filly's, who was now suddenly whining from what she initially thought was physical pain. Her eyes were now far accustomed to the dim lighting in the room, and she soon saw that Scootaloo was...looking to be transparent. The dark, unrefined wooden floor was seeping through her, or maybe she was sinking into it? Dash knew she was very tired, but when the filly's panic was rising, so did hers. They both remained unmoving: Dash was frozen in place watching Scootaloo stay the same, only suffering. She didn't know what she could possibly do for her.

"Dash, Applejack needs your help more than me," said Scootaloo, starting to slur her words through. Dash obviously refused and didn't believe her. "She's looking for Applebloom like I was," she added. That seemed to have gotten Dash's attention, however.

"So, Scootaloo . . . Where did she go? Come with me, we'll find her together. We'll find both of them together!"

As hopeful as Rainbow Dash could be at the concept, the filly could hardly move off the floor. The light from the fire was now looking to illuminate her entire body, like a light from inside. When she tried to touch her...if was as if her body was so much softer than what it must have been for her to take the awkward fall that she did.

"She's not that fond of me either, Dash. You have to bring her to me. She'd never..."

"You don't know that, Scoots. Where are they?"

"I didn't check their rooms yet. You should... I have something important to tell them."

Now Scootaloo's words sounded choked, painfully forced out. Dash wanted to stay, but it was getting more and more stressful to stay and not even be able to carry the filly. Her heart raced; her mind fluttered; she felt the strongest constraints squeeze the essence from her heart as she abandoned the filly, from the thought just a few seconds to a single minute. She was assured that she would be alright on her own, as the Scootaloo led her to believe. She turned away from the filly's figure and approached the hallway to her right, curved from a wall parallel to the building's entrance.

The following hall was immediately divided into two paths by a stairway leading up to the second floor, but she knew where to go from the start. She took the staircase, climbing up with the assistance of the banister at the side. Her head still felt heavy, but she swore it came to be worse alongside an uninvited shaking in her steps. She worried about Scootaloo, but she came here for Applejack, after all. And so, with heartache throughout, she opened Applejack's bedroom door. The last time she visited was months ago when the two mares were on good terms. Very good terms, in fact.

---------:-

Sweetie Belle still saw nothing but stars in the sky, looking down on her and lighting the path. She imagined that they were growing bigger the higher she ascended up the mountain trail. As she progressed, the path became more rugged and precarious, but she traversed every natural obstacle in her own path. The higher she climbed, the higher the amount of snow flew around and down the cliffside and onto her body. It wasn't as frigid as it appeared to be, however, to warrant a cold that looked to be blistering but wasn't.

"There have definitely been a few visitors here," she said. She was so high up in the sky, but she could still see the tip of the country's central and mountainous spire. Where the area absent of stars laid, the outline of its pinnacle was visible from atop the height of the very peaks around her. "What would ponies be doing all the way up here? It's freezing." But she soon found her answer out. She could see where the ground was becoming nearly leveled, meters ahead.

"This looks like . . . Some kind of a shrine? I don't know."

From around the curvature of the next hill, strange architecture began to appear. Sweetie Belle approached with caution, scanning the area just as such. There were no traces of physical operation, but she did see unnatural glowing markings in the snow and trudged through it to investigate promptly. As she set more approached upon the area, she saw a shallow cave within the mountain with wooden scaffolding sheltering its entrance. It was battered by the heavy snow but was supported well enough not to collapse. The inside of the cave was dark and offered little to attract her inside. But given the wooden structure above, she would investigate nonetheless. However, the markings in the snow were proved to be more curious.

She was conscious of the tracks she made with each step, but more so about the hole she dug, unveiling the mark that seeped through the snow. When she reached the bottom, she saw the glowing mark with much more clarity and much more brilliance — more brilliant than the sunlight that would pierce its way through the dark clouds above. Moments were truly defined each time the sun shined upon the snow, which became so bright that it threatened to blind her.

"What are these?" she asked herself. Looking at each other symbol etched into the snow, she magically pulled out her parchment paper again, but this time, she was without the desire to write, etching the image onto the paper instead. She shook, perhaps in anticipation or anxiousness, or perhaps something deeper. "Will this get me closer to the truth I've forgotten?"

---------:-

Rose didn't remember when she woke, or when she opened her eyes at all. She knew Applebloom was gone, and she was worried, yes, but with the cold weather having only grown worse as she slept, she felt frozen. Not due to the cold, however — even though the morning sun brought her clear sight and particular warmth, she felt frozen in fear.

"She could have gone anywhere," she said to herself, pleading that Apple Bloom was merely playing another game with her, being the silly filly that she was. "Applebloom, come on, where did you go?? You must be freezing!"

Typical Rose, always thinking of others' well-being far before her own. It could soon be the very death of her.

"Come back!" she kept calling. The cold bitter air had only gotten worse from what Rose remembered: it came to dampen her endurance and make her shake uncontrollably. She looked up above and saw snow beginning to fall. She'd never seen anything like it — she had never seen snow just...appear, undulating its way down onto the earth. Every second that passed, the situation seemed to get worse. "Nnng . . . Applebloom!!" Her teeth were chattering and she swore her lips were doing the same, and so she pursed them. when a sudden scream caused them to drop, along with her jaw.

Rose's senses didn't have to take time to sift through the mountains to know that it was AppleBloom's voice.

"Applebloom, I'm coming!" She knew the general direction in which she needed to go to find the little filly. In her rushing desire to reunite, she discovered the very same path Sweetie Belle and her own partner took. She took caution as she sped along the cliffside trail, curving her way around the mountain.

"Oh god, I hope you're okay. Oh, I hope she's okay..."

---------:-

Rainbow Dash creaked Applejack's bedroom door open just a little bit. She hesitated as she thought Scootaloo may have been following her, and when she looked behind her, and even down the stairs she called, she didn't see or hear the filly. She didn't hear her either, but a few sudden thuds from Applejack's room once again tore Dash's harshly divided attention to it.

She called the mare's name and swung her sight to the door, where she pushed it wide open. But she saw no one inside the room, empty as it was; it was cluttered, but there were signs of life just having inhabited this space. Something had to cause objects to crash down onto the floor. Dash walked inside and then experienced several flashbacks at once.

Some of her memories were of loss and sorrow, examining the room's walls and decor with a deep longing, as there were so little of each. The walls felt suffocating and claustrophobic with how there was nothing at all to adorn them, and not even the curtain rod held over the window featured the beautiful green drapes she so fondly remembered. She looked out the wide and open window and quickly realized that Applejack was gone, that she was the one who opened it; that she was the one who hurried out of the room before Dash could catch her.

She had very little doubt, but when she made out the shape of AppleJack's iconic Stetson hat swaying in the cold morning air, she could no longer hope that it wasn't her who left the note under her right foreleg. She reared back two steps and picked it up with the cleft of her hoof.

But when she brought the note in front of her face and started reading, the memories that were of joy and comfort quickly flourished forth. Although the time may not have been appropriate, they brought a smile to Dash's face: one memory of note was of her spending a few nights with Applejack after her grandmother Smith passed. Those were the nights where Dash developed the delicate feelings for the mare, where they were both at their weakest.

"I'm gonna get you back, Applejack." The note read hardly two paragraphs long, giving her a strange albeit invited hope:

I have a lot of regrets that I don't talk about, and while I don't know who will find this note first, big bro or little sis, just understand that I've gotta leave for now. I gotta make things right with Rainbow Dash. It's not that I feel alone with either of you, but Rainbow Dash was there for me when granny passed, and you two are just as devastated as I am, I know that. While you've both shown signs of moving on, I think it's about time I do the same.

The note went on a few more sentences, but Dash couldn't help the feeling that she was wasting time not going after her, in whatever direction she took off in. But the next few sentences also made her study the words within them, taking that extra time to do so.

But when I found out that Dash was dead, it woke something reckless inside me. I found a way to bring her back, bother her and granny, too. Neither of them is more important than the other, but I'll get them back. Then we can all be happy. I'll be up in the mountains. You know where.

"Oh my god. She thinks I'm dead . . ?" She lowered the note onto the empty platform to her right, seeing it as the empty bed frame that it was. Her mind had to wander to great lengths as to why her former marefriend could have thought the way she did — not just about Rainbow Dash, but about her own family. She clearly wasn't okay and Dash knew that for a fact all those months ago, but it was highly doubtful that either of them anticipated her to disappear. "Well, either way, AJ, I'm still gonna get you back. You're up to something, too, and I'm gonna find out what."

There was little more Dash could do to suspect any specific location she could have gone, but with one more look out the open window, she abandoned the already derelict room and headed downstairs again, following closely to the simple wooden banister and along its rails. Her head was in such a blur now, and she was dead set on finding leads to where Applejack could have run off to.

What kind of goal could she seek that would bring both her grandmother and Dash's presumed-dead self back from death? Was death really even the end? She pondered the question.

With her visual leverage from the stairs, she was embarrassed that she had to be reminded of Scootaloo's presence on the first floor. First, she saw her gorgeous violet mane, and then her quilted mane, some fluff visible with help from the dying fire. "Scootaloo?" Dash said gently in the filly's direction. "Come with me, I'll take you to a doctor." Dash approached her, hoping she'd see some movement, as she desperately wanted to help her on her way back to Ponyville, but she saw no movement from her own bobbing sight. Scootaloo could have passed out, and Dash even tried to pick her up — yes, she could fly back to Ponyville a little slower, she could afford the clean conscience.

She raced to Scootaloo's side where she set her mind on grasping her in her hooves and taking the flight back to town. She hesitated, though, when she heard her crying softly, and with how long she found herself hesitating, it was the only sound that filled the room with the fire having nearly died, its ashes merely shifting. Laying a hoof on the filly's back, she likewise found the feeling a bit hesitant; it was almost ethereal but less so, but she could still touch her. Hastily and firmly she tried grasping her, but this time her hooves came clumsily crashing down to the floor. She still heard the weeping cries, and it sent her into a panic; her mind doing most of the racing as she could do no more than attempt to touch her, to feel her, to make any kind of correlation — any at all — to any kind of magic. But eventually, silence and stagnation came to reign over Dash's mind.

"Dash," Scootalooo spoke, her voice ringing in the mare's ears. She lifted her head from the floor to see Scootaloo's body getting up from the floor as well. She wasn't struggling, even considering the state dash knew she was in. But once her their gazes connected, Scootaloo gave her an innocent smile, while Dash was left gasping for words, all of which never failed to ask for an explanation. "I didn't mean to hold you up, you know," Scootaloo said without consideration for Dash's obvious pain, blatantly shown. "Sorry about that." Rainbow Dash just looked her over: the filly's ghostly figure was hardly visible, but the more she focused, the more she was apparent.

"I... I wouldn't just leave you." Now her voice quivered as it took on a higher, trembling octave. "You look so pale. If you can't move too much, I'll bring someone here."

"I can move just fine," said Scootaloo, still seeming as though she had. "I guess...I just died."

"So you're a ghost now?" Dash asked relatively calmly, seeing how Scootaloo was speaking the same way. How'd you die??"

"I don't know...but I think I need to see my friends. My time must be close."

"Close? But you . . . You already died!" Dash was still truly speechless, playing her words like a broken record. "I don't want you to be totally erased or anything. I didn't even know you were about to die!"

"It's just how things go, I guess." Scootaloo met the mare's side and looked at her expression; Dash's sad and mournful expression was brought up a little when she was given a composed smile. "I'm not gone yet, Dash. We can spend a little more time together." Despite the lack of enthusiasm Scootaloo's voice would normally have, Dash, no matter how she hesitated, was unclear in acting upon the resolve to just accept reality.

"Yeah, maybe we can find answers together, then." Dash's conscience gleamed at the thought, just past all the haze. "Maybe I'll find Applejack, too." Thereafter, Scootaloo gave her a look that represented total disappointment as they started heading out of the building. Dash failed to make sure she was keeping up; she missed that wretched expression upon the filly's face.

---------:-

Applebloom's cries rang in Roseluck's ears but had far ceased in reality. She knew she would reach her eventually if she just followed the trail. The snow had pelted her body enough as she came to a weary trot from exhaustion; she shook it from her eyes and her muzzle.

She found the path to be long and tiresome, but whereas Sweetie Belle traversed the entire length, Roseluck found a path perpendicular that led down below the cliffside and inside of it. She muttered to herself as she followed the path down, slightly more slim and requiring only mere conscience not to slip. But Rose's attention was far divided -- three quarters for the Applebloom's safety and one quarter for her own.

"Rose, no! Don't go down there!"

Roseluck's legs stammered when she heard the filly's voice once again, but she quickly recovered. However, she made the mistake of looking down at the sky below, and she brought her rear to the rocky wall and her forehooves to her side. She then looked to the sky above and saw the filly's face; wrought with emotion; tears in the lids of her eyes; reaching a foreleg out to Rose in desperation. "Rose," she cried, "I know the truth! Come on!"

Applebloom visibly leaned a little closer and extended her reach a little more, and Rose would immediately take hold if doing so wouldn't put the filly in danger. She knew what Applebloom was, a Crystal Pony; a spirit from the past. Even if she had a corporeal form, she would be too small to support Rose's weight. Not lithe, but small. "Rose, you'll freeze if you don't take my hoof! Just try! Trust me!"

And so Rose reached for Applebloom with a lacking faith, but she felt a physical warmth she wasn't at all expecting. It was so real, and as she reached for her for both forelegs now, she felt her hind legs being lifted from the ground. The filly was struggling up above to pull her up, and Roseluck making every effort possible to push herself up on any rocks.

The struggle ended sooner than she dreaded, however. The storm that had been brewing became so unpredictable and violent that it started tearing at the mountains and likely any ponies that would be on its cliffs. If the howling of the cliffs were any indication of danger, then the threat to literally tear at the mountain was the storm's resolve. A sharp boulder was cut overhead Rose and Applebloom, from the high rocky wall next to them. It plunged to the ground and then immediately headed for the two girls, with the thrashing winds at its back. Fortunately for them, it had already gained so much momentum and force that it flew upwards and barely grazed at the hairs on Applebloom's mane. It flew down the precipice behind Rose, whose heart could afford to calm down. She heard the filly call behind her as she gripped Rose tighter:

"No! Get away from her! Get away, I hate you!!"

Her heart racing faster, she strained to pull herself up again. A hefty stone sank into her hooves with a seemingly unfitting reason before she yelled out; she wasn't a very strong or toned mare and was left frail. She lost her grip easily and scratched at the surface of the rocky wall before the winds took violent hold of her.

But as she screamed now, knowing she would die when she'd reach the earth, Applebloom's head popped out from atop the cliffside followed by the sight of her hoof. She also caught a second-long, shrinking sight of her struggling with a pony that must have been trying to restrain her. But she heard no cries; she was much below the cloud's surface as soon as she completed her thought.

What could she do? Applebloom could hardly protect herself in a physical situation. One more thought that crossed her mind concerned the 'truth' that her dear filly was speaking of. Could it have to do with her sudden ability to physically touch Rose, and struggle with whoever it was that she claimed she hated?

Rose had no ideas. She could only fall; only reminisce; only mourn. She could only feel gravity grip her body tighter and tighter . . .

---------:-

The wandering mare Sweetie Belle stood there, now knee-deep in the snow. She was met by two Earth Ponies that she had never seen. "Are you . . ? she started, "Are you the ones doing all this?" She had to continuously combat the snow that was battering her face. The two ponies only stood there, disregarding the question entirely. Their bodies shook underneath their raggedy clothing while they just studied Sweetie Belle's presence. She concluded that these ponies must have something to do with the disastrous weather because they had to be here for a reason...

"You need to help us," said the taller pony, his thick red coat smothered in patches of snow. His mane was evidently thick, and above his upper lip, it acted as a mustache. His deep orange mane was lifting the hood above his head, and what was revealed was a brave but pained expression. "Please, my little girl needs her sister." He ceased speech for a second. "I know you can help her. You the only one who's here."

The little filly took a few steps forward and looked up at Sweetie, unveiling an adorable freckled face from underneath the flowing hood she slid down. "Big sister?" She reached for Sweetie Belle. "That's . . . you?

All of an abrupt flash, authentic memories flashed before Sweetie Belle's weary mind. She instantly felt a connection to this filly that was near the same for Applebloom. She knew they were all real. More and more feelings for her filled her distracted mind with hopes of happiness and dreams of love. She closed her eyes tightly as this was all happening. But why was it happening?

"Okay," she said, a half-lidded expression lasting only two seconds. When she fully opened her eyes, she noticed a new face among the ponies, a new body.

The new orange mare was also of Earth-dwelling. She must have been related to these others, as she nuzzled their similarly freckled faces. In doing so she revealed the side of her face that held these freckles. Her Cutie Mark was also visible unlike the other ponies'; it was as simple as a three-apple pattern that formed no real shape in their placement. Her blonde mane undulated and flowed in the storming winds and was also braided just like the filly's hair was. And then she spoke.

"Is she-"

"What do I need to do? I'll do anything . . ."

Sweetie Belle stopped the mare before she finished her first three words. She took a moment to finish gazing into the young one's eyes and move her sight to the others.

"Listen," the stallion pushed his voice through the howling winds. "We know all about you and your kind. We've been working to bring 'em back. You must know about our baby sister Applebloom and how much we wanna bring her back."

Sweetie listened well, as her deep desire resonated with their own. "I don't care how you know me, but must realize how much I want her back, too."

"You're an Apple, ain'tcha?" The grown mare seemed to expect a particular answer with the tone of voice she used. She trudged through the snow to walk up to Sweetie, whose face was smiling despite looking down. "Help us, then. Please, Sweetie. We're all family here." Sweetie's form felt like thin-woven fabric, but she put forth her entire heart into a hug she thrust upon her. Sweetie choked as if she tried to draw breath and failed; she struggled to find the right words to say.

". . alright," She felt strong, brave; she could bring her back. "Applebloom," she muttered, "welcome back, sister."

And so, Sweetie returned to the first glowing spot she recalled seeing as per the siblings' orders. She firmly planted her hind hooves into the ground, all the way through the thick foot of snow and soon did the same for her front legs. Her tail rippled violently in the ripping winds and her body started to rattle, as the cold air that allowed her physical form equated to a soul-sucking endeavor to endure.

She had no soul to own, but she would so selflessly give it to Applebloom if she did.

[=____Betwixt____=] (convergence)

~~~~~~~~~~~

Blistering cold pangs surrounded Rose's body, waking her up with violent results. She worked her eyelids open into a wide slit, finally; she could see a bright white light that violently struck her vision. She immediately shut them again, and rightfully so, but not only was it the piercing white light trying to enter her eyes, no. There was a soft, fluffy weight that pinned her whole body into such a tight constraint that she fought so hard to break. Once free, she allowed her head to fall further under the weight, where she made the sights around her out to be snow. Her thoughts did not race as of now, but she was still in a panic: details of her situation were flooding back.

"That storm... How could it have gotten so...out of control..? To bury me??"

With her body now free, she felt as if she was nimbly 'floating' in midair, and so she 'swam' upward, where she hoped was a surface level to all this 'snow' around her. The weight of it all soon became nothing to her, but the pain she was writhing in became all the more clear, with all the more inches she cleared. She summoned a super-strength from her deepest depths in order to continue her ascent, but it was so strange that she needed to in the first place:

Rose hardly felt a few dozen pinpricks on her body while climbing that mountain; after the sun had set that day, everything seemed to change. Even with the suffocating weight all around her, hindering both her movement and her mind, she needed not struggle to take a single breath, just as before...

"Nngh... Ha-aah..!" Though, she could surely feel the icy pinpricks pierce right through her coat. Her senses and bodily needs were confused and contorted. She scrambled for the air that she suddenly craved — her lungs had never felt as empty as they did in those dire seconds. "App..bloom!" She was freezing, but she refused to stop fighting.

Her reasons to live were drastically dashed without little Applebloom at her side. The filly must have been scared sick after escaping whoever that was up there on the mountain, and Rose prayed to every god to forbid the opposite outcome.

But was Rose even still alive? All of this felt like a dream to her...

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~Depths of Dejection~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

---Betwixt---
***
**
*

After some amount of time, her head penetrated a sudden surface to the ocean of white matter she swam through. There was no way to tell how close she was, but she ignored explanation and quickly grasped the solid surface, cursing out and sucking air in simultaneously. She quickly mounted a firm hold, but her hooves started sinking back underneath, thrusting right back down into the boiling cold. It was then that her pain threshold was crossed; she cried out to no one but the mercy of the storm, in all futility. All of her facial features flinched and her head shivered uncontrollably under a brand-new kind of cold that lashed at her face, all under the gusts of whistling winds. But she could not falter, so with a firm resolve to climb slowly and painfully up onto the surface, she distributed her weight across a small space, inhaling deeply.

She crawled her belly along the soft cushioned ground, quickly gaining a sloppy stance onto her legs. She didn't waste any breath on words, but the silhouette of the very same cylindrical spire she had fallen from was something to behold, to exempt from the rule. It was to be her guide.

"Why is that mountain so special? What's going on?" She proceeded to walk her weary legs toward the blurry sight. And all the while — and once again — her body felt like it was undulating in the hold of the winds.

"Is this even...Equestria?"

A much more powerful flurry of winds washed along her body like a tidal wave, and she couldn't believe that it almost lifted her off of her legs. She fought them using all of her similarly diminishing might, but withal, her hope resurged in the form of her destination becoming clearer than ever, with the final flurry acting as a cleanse for the air around her. Many meters she had traversed, lifting her legs with an unknown, incomparable strength that the extreme conditions could not halt, all while the sun above looked as ill as she had ever witnessed it. It sent down terribly bright, peach-colored light that saturated the snow below her with a sickly-tinted colorless radiance, but the many swift-moving clouds above offered her eyes protection from potential blindness.

"I'm getting closer," she muttered. Her body felt heavy, but it did not ache; .the more distance she covered, the more weightless she felt. Perhaps her mind was merely trying to comfort her, to coax her into reaching her goal. But more importantly, she made out a sense — and sight — of progress over the strange land she traversed, quickly finding herself in an auto-pilot state.

"Where in the world else would I be?" she debated. "I know that's it... That's where I fell. That's where she's got to be..."

She didn't realize it, but she was quickly approaching the precipice of a massive downward slope that sank deep within the ground, with exposed rocks scattered throughout the misty view. And where a wide valley laid as paved as can be, the huge earthen spire stood erect in the center of it all, reaching to what could only be seen as the heavens. Had she not been at the height of her senses, she could have easily met her demise at the climax of the sixty-foot drop. Pale particles weighed over her eyelids, but she glazed her sight down the slope, picking up every detail she could possibly perceive. She inched her neck as far as she felt was manageable, at the very edge, but she was losing her balance fast.

"F-ff! No!" There was nothing within her hooves' reach to cling onto. There was hardly a chance she would survive such a great fall, with gravity juggling her lithe body upon all those rocks... "I can't die..! I'm not!" She readied herself for the initial impact, anticipating it to come sooner than later. But despite her finding time to look down at the valley below, it was still so far above her. Her flinching eyes relaxed and her body, while still tense and filled with adrenaline, remained far above. Relief far superseded the need to watch her own life flash before her eyes — she shook her head in disbelief, bending her neck down to look at herself.

Rose's front legs were hardly even visible, even against the contrast of the dark rocks scattered down the rough slope. Her modest imagination prompted her to lay a hoof upon her chest, to feel her heart thump, but no physical contact was made. Instead, a force similar to magnetic repulsion pushed her hoof away. The sensation brought a quiet quake to her legs that made her stumble, but instead of steadying her hooves on a solid surface, her legs merely hung down from her barrel. Her weight was now so inconsequential; her physical body was no more.

"That's it, then." Her voice quivered; she was absolutely mortified; her vocal whines were alleged to be as weary as her spirit was doubtlessly destitute. "I can't believe this," she whispered, "It's really...real. This is really what happens to ponies when they die... But why me?"

Rose was aware of all the stories: for all of her life, she found the majority of the stories engrossing and compelling, but never had she thought that she would depart that same life as a Crystal Pony. She knew as much of their own story as what was told in text — she knew all that was meant to happen upon a particular pony's death, but she concealed no wings nor did she wield a horn. She was not special, so despite the many passages that promised post-life immortality only for those marked at birth, why was she an exception to the rules? Though now, he'd have all the time in the world to spend chasing after every detail as to why if she so chose. An eternity...

But Rose's eternity would have an epilogue, written by none other than her own actions and words. Though neither would tangentially touch, nor have ears to hearken, she would find a way to mend everything within the power that she wasn't even aware she now possessed.

"We'll be together again, Applebloom."

Her spirit was reinforced by her physical invulnerability, and so she glided down into the barren valley below. As she closed the distance, a circular blizzard raged on, as incensed as the one that threw her off into this unknown land. It quickly enveloped her body, where she felt absolutely nothing — another thing that wasn't supposed to be: In the wide narrative of imagination, one would be inclined to believe spirits of the deceased to be affected by the hydrogen atoms of the complete substance of water, more so than its oxygen half.

That was the truth for all Crystal Ponies...but again, she was exempt from the most major rules for one reason, or another. The blistering cold wasn't weighing her down and she did not falter in the heart of the most violent of gales. And her mind grew so shallow so fast...until it was populated only by thoughts of her dear filly. And so, unsure for their fate, she clutched onto the smallest of fragments of a desolate hope.

"..if we'll be anything at all..."

~Inhumed

-----------

In a similar fashion, in a similar state, Sweetie Belle lifted her heavy, weary eyes open to lay them upon the dreary all around: Solid walls of protruding crystals surrounded her within a space of twelve feet all around her, with not a single crevice to catalog. Her sight started to fail her quickly though, as some of the strongest physical sensations suddenly surged through her mind and body. They all proved to be much too cumbersome much too soon — the shock of experiencing every tangible feeling imaginable at a single time, multiple times rattled and jolted her body with the rythm of a heartbeat.

Her entire body convulsed and quivered, with her knees first to collapse, and so when she fell onto her belly, she became absolutely enraptured in all the familiar sensations she forgot from a previous life. The cold floor itself, transparent and glistening, sent rapid chills up every nerve in her body. She slowly crawled toward the room's periphery, but couldn’t carry herself more than two feet before she collapsed onto her side, groaning in what was a perfect consonance between pleasure and pain. She frenzied and she spasmed, and she could speak no words.

”Is this purgatory? Unadulterated suffering, chosen for me alone?” She started to pout, then to cry; to shed real tears and to feel real pain. In her chest, she felt heavy, and in her core, weighed down. Shackled, even. “I thought . . . we did everything right. Oh, God, did they have . . . Did they not divulge . . .? To . . . lie to me? To use their own sister as a pawn . . .?”

But she was only wasting as much mental capacity she could devote to the situation: Just like Roseluck, who was currently the one closest to Apple Bloom, she would have all of eternity to wonder why. And it could only be cut as short as her wandering imagination could process. Already, she was losing herself.

“Whoever you are, Rose . . . take care of her.”

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~Enveloped. Enraptured. Entombed.~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
---Inhumed---
***
**
*

Scouts that were monitoring the supposed winter storm found themselves aghast: Despite all the coming signs of the typical wintry weather, and all the science they understood, an isolated blizzard was raging throughout the center of the country. With razor-sharp winds spiraling within a twelve-mile radius all around Canterlot, thick blankets of snow blocked off all access to the city, but that was hardly cutting it close to the small storm’s potential. Lest they get pulled into it, no Pegasus could fly anywhere near the storm, and no pony traveling on land could endure coming close for the same reason. And it was only increasing in size as the minutes passed....

Popular presumptions and theories came to light with the more resistance the town fought — some spoke of mutiny up at the royal city while others held simple blame for the Pegasi. And still, with no solid story on Sweetie Belle's case, the filly who died with no known cause, the troubled community was given even more reasons to grow distrustful and cynical. Every one of their claims was rather undeveloped and primitive, but Ponyville had nothing left to lose now. The storm was coming, more children were dying, and more ponies were leaving for all the right reasons, it seemed.

-----------

Lyra Heartstrings sat on a sofa that lined the wall to the outside, to the suffrage she modestly pitied. Her partner Bon Bon sat next to her, huddled onto her side and lost in thought. She lifted her head to look and speak to Lyra, who shuffled up to her hooves. They both swooned in sorrow to all the misfortune and heartbreak through the rickety door to her left, coming straight from the hearts of older mares who were lamenting the death of their own children. Their quivering lips preached, one way or another:

"I don't care if everyone else's kids are gone, you can't act like we're not at the same loss! Not without a deathwish, anyway!" Their quarrel would continue, though their words were quickly drowned out by bellowing winds. All the windows in the pair's building rattled in their frames due to it all, but could it have also been the work of superstition?

"Bon Bon, we have to go. You know there’s nothing here anymore,” Lyra was the first to speak, albeit in a slightly irritated measure. Her partner developed nearly the same hasty tone.

“Yeah, I do, but you want to leave behind all we’ve lived for. And...I just don’t, Lyra. We discussed this just yesterday, so you know how I do."

All along the walls, memoirs of their years spent together reminded them of their sad situation once more: framed pictures they treasured, signed plates they collected and shelves lined with various knick-knacks... It was everything that they lived for; the souvenirs, tokens, and gifts for everything they had ever done over their impressive eight-year dating period. They first met in Canterlot at the seventy-first annual raising of the sun, bonding rather quickly as the assembly concluded, and even more so as the crowds started shrinking.

Bon Bon was incredibly delighted to know that Lyra moved from Canterlot just to be with her, and she still felt the exact same for her as when they first shared a bed together. Lyra, however, had been drifting away for months, and her take on their relationship never ceased to spiral downward from the point it started. She was at her happiest for the longest time—seven of those eight years—but now she imagined that they were nothing more than awkward roommates, sharing a house instead of a home.

She could leave. Bon Bon couldn’t. Their fate as a couple was highly ambiguous, but the coming signs would tell their tale.

“I know you don’t, but what else can we do but try together? We could brave this storm together. We don’t need to leave each other at all. We stay here, we’re probably... not going to make it.” It was tough negotiating with Bon Bon, as she always ended up at the forefront of their relationship. “I want us to be together forever... I really do. Underneath everything.”

“Lyra... It’s going to be hard....”

“I will hold your hoof through this. We will have each other. ” She then proceeded to physically hold Bon Bon's hoof with her own.

“I knew it’d come down to this sooner or later...”

Lyra understood her words as weary slurs, so she enunciated, preparing to use adjectives that were much less vague. “What we both want... It all conflicts. What is it out there that you want to find?” The sounds of the argument outside surfaced above the winds to distract them for a moment. They both fell silent, and while one relished in the respite, the other waited eagerly for an answer, with the first furrowed brows she’d brandished in almost a year.

“Fighting? Do you want to fight for the rest of your lonely life? Without me? You depend on me, Lyra. You literally cannot hold yourself together without me. Not anymore, you can't.” Her voice rose and Lyra’s expression fatigued. Each of the Unicorn's following facades would suffer the same weakness.

Lyra was trying to hide something that Bon Bon saw right through. She felt threatened.

“I thought you knew how hard it is for me to love you. At least, the way you want me to, and the way I know I should..." Lyra's voice was defensive, but she also wasn’t afraid to add weight to her words. “I would hate to have you waste away here. Alone, as you said, without me. I hardly offer you anything anymore, but-”

And Bon Bon was growing desperate, refuting Lyra's miserable words.

“But why do you want to leave? It’s terrifying out there! Goodness forbid, I would hate to think of you wasting away out there! I care about you too much to-” The Unicorn interrupted her, turning to face her. Just a few tears had welled up in her eyes.

“Bon Bon, I wish you would just come. We don’t have much time left.”

“Before the storm comes? Before it separates us anyway?”

“That’s a morbid way to put it, but... yeah, I figured you would have known that.”

“So either way, it doesn't matter...”

While Lyra tried to form her next statement, Bon Bon was staring at the floor, absent of thought — she had grown comfortably accustomed to staring into nothingness. She slowly rose from her seat and started walking toward the Unicorn, but passed her completely. Both of their weary minds were clouded by certain loneliness that compromised even itself, where neither of them would understand what it really meant to be helpless until what little association they had was completely gone.

"Lyra!"

Bon Bon scratchily called her name, her voice reverberating off from all the walls that enclosed their space. The summoned mare hated her partner's frustrated voice, but she would follow it regardless. Lyra had to finally be brave and brash; she would finally confront Bon Bon properly, and both of their lives would change.

-----------

“Bon Bon... please don’t do this.”

“Why not? Don’t you want to be on your own?”

“No, I don’t! I want to survive together! I want to be with you! I love you!”

“Then why aren’t you willing to die together?!”

Lyra lazily leaned in the doorway, watching as her things were hastily being thrown together on their bed, her resolve already crushed. Bon Bon had actually grown furious enough to take action for—and against—the one she long-thought was her soulmate as she rummaged through their possessions, haphazardly separating them on the floor. She knew well the Unicorn was there, merely allowing her actions, and she looked back at her, once again taking note of her distant, vapid expression.

“Ugh, do I have to do everything?” She continued in her apoplectic grievances, tossing a saddlebag up from underneath. “If you’re not gonna do anything, just go ahead and go, Lyra!” She wasn’t expecting her to listen, but when she wished to throw her another indignant glance, which was far from the last one she planned to give her, Lyra was nowhere in sight. “I can’t believe this is actually happening. Heaven help me....”

That would be the very last monologue of misery Lyra would need to hear, hidden out of sight. She hesitated to walk out the front door....

______-------*******------_______
*******-------_______-------*******

Scootaloo asked for Rainbow Dash to accompany her to a choice stop within Ponyville’s rapidly numbing grounds. Walking through the town, surrounded by irritated civilians and suffocated by freezing air, they mutually agreed not to spend more time there than necessary.

“First murders start happening here, of all places, now-”

“Ponyville’s looking to be another forgotten landmark,” Scootaloo insinuated, silently reading the motives and actions of each pony they passed. Dash dared to fight the idea, but to the dismay of the overwhelming odds all around them, and to the mercy of that particular pressure that turned into guilt much so much sooner than she liked...

“Half the town’s already left,” one couple bickered. “And there won’t be anyone left if we just wait around!” Their unusually violent voices tones pushed through the walls of their humble home. “I wouldn’t want to turn up like that little filly. Do you?! Does everyone else just want to give up? Well, not me!”

Yet another female voice came to dominate the one-sided argument, but a wintry howl dominated even that. Dash’s body acted before her mind did, grasping at Scootaloo’s small frame. She wasn’t entirely expecting to feel their chests touch, but all Scootaloo had told her on their trip to the town was enough to put her impeded mind at ease.

“All that matters is that I can still hold you,” she told Scootaloo. They were both grateful when the winds subsided for the moment, the chills dying down with them, and so they continued on. Luckily, Sugarcube Corner—the filly’s destination—was to their mere left.

“Thanks... Dash,” said Scootaloo, her once insipid face became flushed with all the signs of a distinct expression at her touch. Dash made it out so clearly, but the sentiment was spoiled when Scootaloo enthusiastically pressed toward her destination, starting a single hoof toward the building. But first, she turned back around and stared at Dash, studying her own exhausted yet determined expression. “I won’t be long, I promise,” she said. She left the mare smiling as she entered the building, its bright blushes and tints of color barely surviving the dark.

“I swear, Scootaloo... you could be my kid if I ever wanted any.”

With some shreds of dignity still intact, she bravely sought to acquire any clues about Sweetiebelle. She was worried because she could not solve the town’s biggest mystery, and from the looks that few ponies greeted her with, she feared that they would turn on her. But with Scootaloo at her side, she could surely make progress. “She might be onto something though, about this... ungodly storm." She clung to the thought. "Maybe. I’m just looking for anything...."

Another deep chill sent shivers up her spine and made her flinch violently. When she opened her eyes, she scanned her sights all over again, and it was then that she laid her her sight on a single lonely mare who sat outside of her home, on a cold, wooden porch, solemn all the same. She looked to be brooding, and she took Dash by surprise with how quickly she looked back at her...but the mare’s familiar face took her aback even more.

“You’re that detective,” said the faraway mare, “Can you come here?” Dash started closing the distance between them, with each couple of steps soothing the voice that beckoned and beseeched her. She recognized her voice first, but then she saw her face up close, no matter how downcast and crestfallen it was. “Is there any way-”

“And you’re...?” Dash came right up to the mare and opened a single wing, where she extended it out to her chin and lifted her heavy head. A pair of golden-amber eyes were the first thing to strike an addendum to her fluttering motivations, especially in contrast to the minty green color of her coat. “You...strangely sound like you’re the only sane one here. Tired like everypony else, but,” she didn’t fail to digress from the fact that she had forgotten the mare’s name — though she admitted to it humbly.

“I’m Lyra. I was there when we all found the body of that little filly. When you told us to dismiss ourselves... and when her sister fought you and said-”

“And you were compliant, so I didn’t take you in. You even held her back.” Rainbow Dash was defensive, as she didn’t ask to be reminded of events—failures—past. She’d try to revoke the terrible title that Ponyville must have given her, yet her scarce clues have yet to even be resolved. And the coming storm was only growing more belligerent. Lyra continued fighting though, lashing out at Dash’s pressure, but she did so with stress of her own built up. Confusion.

“You’re telling me you weren’t traumatized by those cries? I’ve never heard anything like them before....”

“Look, I’m here to ask about her," Dash snapped. “I don’t need anyone else looking at me as a failure.”

“I... wasn’t going to, miss. And I... I don't think anyone does.”

“Do you know anything at all, about Rarity or her sister? You two seem really close... just close enough to coax her out of the rage she was in.”

“Well, we'd occasionally see each other outside her work hours for... therapy sessions? I don’t know what I’d call it, really.”

Dash cocked her head; mention of any kind of therapy wasn’t at all anything she expected. “What do you mean?”

“Well, I’m outside right now because my... roommate is throwing me out. We used to be a lot more than that, but my head has just been so cloudy that I can’t feel the same way I did for her before. Rarity would just kind of... be there to listen and help whenever could find a way to.”

“Is it Bonbon?” As interested as she was, she would press Lyra as gently as she could for anything at all. "It can't be her... Lyra, Is she available to talk?"

“She’s usually fine, but not... now I....” Lyra silently sighed to herself, but Dash picked it up — she was about to ask about it, but she gambled that wrapping Lyra in a warm embrace would be more appropriate. She raced to do so, spreading her susceptible wings out and laying them on her back. The caress was empty of all physical comforts, save for the raw feel of one's heart pressed against the others'. Lyra spared a few dry sniffles, touched by all of Dash's sentiments.

-----------

Scootaloo watched from afar with a million fireflies in her non-existent gut. She was looking forward to sharing her findings, and the knowledge she had acquired, but her wild mind was racing with stories and conclusions. She immediately abandoned the idea of talking to Dash; the mare could continue to bash on Lyra's front door, and call for either entrance or answers.

She would intentionally strike at her hopes of feeling reliable: this wasn't the first time Dash had let her down, so this was the ill reparation she felt the mare deserved. However, before her sudden, callous wishes could come to light, another character could bring comfort to the situation. Stagnation, as it solely was.

-----------

“Everyone, get inside!! Anyone who’s still here!”

A hefty feminine voice penetrated the subtly howling winds. It belonged to Rarity, the spokesmare from the morning of Sweetie Belle’s discovery, and the one Dash interrogated the following afternoon. She was patrolling the town, cataloging the number of ponies outside their homes and doing everything in her power to coax them inside.

“For the love of the Princesses, don’t let this storm beat the spirit of this town!” Her voice carried itself around the corners of the buildings incredibly well, signaling her position to Lyra and Dash. She galloped around to a subdivision of the town’s main residential road and she saw the two embraced together, possibly choosing to give their lives. And all the while, Scootaloo just watched, listened, not saying a word to change the course of it all.

“Detective!” She immediately began to close distance from her — she noticed Lyra’s most defining features and spoke accordingly. “Lyra? What are you two doing? You must have heard my warnings...!”

“Your screeching?” Dash teased her, but it was all in the aim of making good fun while the opportunity still allowed. Something to turn the mood around. “Apparently Bonbon did something-”

“I did it. It’s irrevocable by now, and it’s a long story, so-” Lyra started sniffling.

“But you two need to take shelter in the Boutique with me,” Rarity finished both of their sentences. Whatever happened here, we can discuss it at the boutique. But for now, please, come on!” She needed to assure somepony’s safety... better it be them—ponies she knew—if no one else. Dash and Lyra heeded the suggestion and acted upon it, both easing away from their embrace, but Lyra was more aggressive as she broke away, running in the opposite direction, apologizing profusely.

Dash was the first to start after her, planting a single hoof an inch ahead of her and nearly slid the distance of two; the first to call out to her through the winds that moaned so heavily over her voice. Rarity then took to reprise, hoping she could push through to the other Unicorn, but she dived between two other snow-battered buildings and lost their sight. “Lyra, come back! You have everything to lose out there!” The most they received was a trio of simple, refutable statements:

"No, no. No!!"

Dash immediately turned to explain Lyra’s predicament to her, and solemnly. By now, her well of tears had long-since ran dry, but her brisk and fragile words still heaved utter distress. She berated herself, as she instinctively told herself she had failed once again. “She’s going to die... she’s going to... die.” Rarity attempted to console her, and she shrugged off every sense of futility that she possibly could, for in the end, her words elicited no positive reactions whatsoever. And so, overcome with destitution from the even the diligent detective, her next words stood to reason with nothing at all, as she had also lost her faith, deep down inside. In everything.

Scootaloo, having climbed to the top of the home Lyra would never return to, listened to every word they shared. She wasn’t aware of Sweetie Belle’s disappearance....

“I suppose some ponies...” A strong silence overcame them. "They just... want to die, Dash.” It was the foreboding sense of impending circumstance. “You’ve tried to help her. I’ve tried to help her!” Rarity was afraid that Dash was losing herself, as she had also gone silent. Possibly by a coincidence, she realized quickly just how wrong every word she chose was; every word that she was able to fit into their tense conversation; the few and far-between responses Dash gave. “She’s not the first to willingly choose death, in any recent memory.”

The elements of fire intertwined and multiplied. Embers danced within Dash’s empty kiln of a body until they corroborated the ignition of her long-forgotten conscience. All that was recent in her memory became but a blur, a flash, for they were all the sparks she didn’t know she needed to be blinded by. The lie she lived for the past few years as a ‘detective and the recognition she sought therein, yet didn’t need, the duties she had unnecessarily tied her hooves with, and the guilt she would so easily squeeze her heart with... all so unjustly cruel, and much more unkempt than her true masochistic tendencies.

“Dash,” Rarity’s voice calmed to a quiver. “I don’t like it when you’re silent....”

Slowly, Dash raised her head, but Rarity had no repercussions to fear. The storm only continued to grow more hostile, but the fire in the Pegasus’s heart spread through to her weak mind, fortifying it with ambition and intent, with her body the next to follow: She found herself shrugging off the benumbed sensations that quickly grew pervasive throughout her form. Rarity was struggling to keep her eyes open, but she was witnessing Dash figuratively repel the cold, holding her head up high once again. Then, finally, Dash surfaced from her trance-like state and wasted no time proposing ideals befitting to the young mare she knew she used to be.

Already, the Unicorn was struck with paralysis from Dash’s incredible change in demeanor. She even had a preamble ready — Rarity had only a few ideas as to who Dash was when she was young... goodness, she was inspiring, and Scootaloo felt the same way. However, the still-impressionable filly she knew it was only a matter of time before Dash would forget about her.

Before she would be replaced by someone that meant more....

“Rarity... Wow, you actually...made that make sense to me.” Dash’s dazed mind thought to hug Rarity, but she was instead snatched up within her ecstatic clutches. Forelegs around her neighbor, her acquaintance. “Thank you.”

“I never wanted to see you on the path to self-destruction, dear.”

Her friend.

Dash and Rarity made their amends anew, using as much time as they estimated their thin coats could endure. Black skies approached and darkness fell over the town, and with no lit lamp posts to act as guides, it was a grainy sort of dark with time quickly running out before it would grow worse. As such, neither one of them could see Scootaloo staring down at them with heartbroken remorse. She felt indifferent as their short time was minimized further, as Dash’s hooves started to freeze onto one of the few dry patches of dirt that were buried beneath the snow. She struggled but managed to free herself, and that was the very push she needed to finally say goodbye to Rarity; for the whole time they professed their best wishes for one another, she never wanted their conversations and their warm embraces to come to conclusions. But they could consort no longer — the blizzard would be swayed no further.

And Scootaloo would no longer hold out for Dash’s once-again empty vows. Frustrated, she averted her eyes and abandoned the scene.

“Stay safe Rarity, I have to get Lyra!” Dash reared her legs back and started taking lengthy steps back, calling; “I will find you closure for Sweetie!” She then gracefully swished her body around, sprinting away. Rarity did the same, recalling the route she took to the best of her memory, but not before calling out to Dash and begging her to return safely. The town was likely doomed to die, and likewise, its inhabitants all the same. And with their faith stripped away by such a cruel fate, the ones who remained hoped to some power that they would endure. Any godly magic at all....

~~~~~~~~~~~

Scootaloo stood firmly on all fours, watching Dash run away until she could no longer, as the sights all around her were quickly turning achromatic. She wished she could have gotten close to her, gotten to know her and, more so, become a part of her. Scootaloo had so much love to give her; she had so much trust to confide within her; she wished to be the one whose shoulders Dash’s tough demeanor could crumble upon, and withstand all the tears that would wash it all away. But she was going to die, both of them — and so she asked what the point of it all was, from the start of her journey to the end.

She wanted to cry, but she had to emulate the sensation through means of sight: she caught a few seconds’ glimpse of a candle on a table, and that drew her to stare at the lonely mare who could cry without restraint. She watched her lift her head from her folded hooves and stare outside, where debris started kicking up from the ground, and she just continued crying, sniffling, staring....

Scootaloo did the same, slowly turning her head to the coming storm as it tore everything apart in its wake. Her lonely heart wanted to share this moment with the mare—even if it was her last—now that Dash was gone. To have someone to cling to, someone to hold. She told herself that the mare knew of her, and about how much love they both needed at this dire time, and how much she wanted to give to her, even though she had no idea who she was. Grasping at thin air, essentially. Manufacturing hope that was already stretched so thin.

They would surely be mourned....

One more than the other, perhaps.