Eq Renaissance Part 27 (Teaser)

 	Some parched desert landscape somewhere.  Far off, in distant Africa.  Late in the day, not quite night.  The sun is nearly down, casting a sharp angle.  Even casting a glance in its direction is to observe waves of heated, rippling air, rising  up above the parched, cracked clay desert.  It stretches on for countless lethal miles in all directions, save for along the road from one village to another.  The only break in the sweltering sun is the occasional silhouette of a boabab tree, or rocky outcrop, a tiny island in an ancient, dried sea.
	There’s a hut.  Some ponies would call it a vet’s office.  The vet certainly does.  It’s a hut.  It’s got corrugated tin walls and roof.  It pops and pings in the heat, a teapot in hell.  The one nurse has already been sent home for the day.  The vet steps out of the door, into the long shadow now being cast towards the east.  He’s sweating bullets, and stink.  Its a good kind of stink though, a working stink.  The kind that any pony would have after carrying a double pack of equipment up and over a mountain pass.
	He hasn’t been hauling any load.  All he’s been doing is stitching gashes and treating cracked hooves and fighting infections, rectoceles from too many unsupervised foalings.  It’s hard work.  It’s hot.  He’s happy for the chance.  It’s his second chance.  He screwed up the first one.  He’d nearly gotten himself and others killed.  He tried to explain things to the panel.  He lied, at least a little.  They believed him, the suckers.  So they sent him back to Africa.  One last chance.  He took it, leaving a life behind in Equestria.  He had debts to pay off.  This one last service would take care of that, and then he could go home again.
	Ponies died.  He did what he could, but ponies still died.  And zebras.  More zebras than ponies.  And giraffes.  One of them fell, splayed, the other day, and there was nothing Golden could do but stay with him until the end.  It wore pony down.  He felt responsible, even though he wasn’t.  The heat was just as bad.  On evenings like this, he spent his few quiet minutes in the shade, suffering from the heat, and suffering from the suffering.  They went well together.
	There was a dot on the horizon.  Somepony was coming.  There was no sense in going after it, it was coming his way.  No sense, unless it collapsed, but that wouldn’t happen until it happened.
	He waited, enjoying the suffering, as it grew larger.  It grew closer.  It was a zebra.  He watched its gait.  It was a steady gate.  It was strong.  That meant it was young.  And a mare.  The only young stallion in these parts that would dare be seen by a vet would have to be injured.  Gored maybe, or lame.  No, this was mare, and she was walking strong, and young, and she was coming to see him, so more than likely she was pregnant.  And foaling.  If she stops, Golden thought, it’s only because she’s having another contraction.  It’s the only reason an otherwise healthy mare would walk all the way out here at this time of day.
	She didn’t stop, or slow down.  Despite the heat.  Despite the heavy load she was packing on her back.  Zebra mares were strong, Golden remembered.  Stronger than him.  He had learned just how strong, years ago now.
	She was getting close now.  So close, he could probably hear her if she called out, though she did not.  He could see her stripes.  The white in her mane glowed a golden red in the fading sunlight.  It glinted off her jewelry.  She must have come far, obviously she wasn’t from around here.  Her eyes were bright.  Beautiful, dark and blue-green.  If his heart hadn’t belonged to another, Golden might have fallen in love.  She was beautiful.  A part of him stirred.  He blushed.  He was ashamed.  But he stirred anyway.  She was so beautiful.  She looked just like her.  Just like her.
	Oh god.
	Oh god.
	Oh god.
	It was her.
	It was really her.
	It was Zecora, she had come.