The Dark Shape

The pony in black fled into the desert, and Braeburn followed.

The sun was low, shining into the two figures’ faces. Braeburn pulled his hat low and squinted, but the hooded pony ahead of him continued running, seemingly heedless of the light. A tumbleweed rolled past, carrying seeds to brighter pastures, chased by dust and small pebbles.

It was a hot wind, as winds in Appleoosa tended to be, and it was something Braeburn was used to. What he wasn’t used to was the feeling of dread that rose in his throat every time his eyes locked onto the hooded pony up ahead.

It was like he was being followed himself, despite checking behind many times. Like he was the one being chased and harried into the dusty badlands outside Appleoosa. The feeling wasn’t prominent, but it was there, like a tickle on the back of his neck or a whisper in his ear, a faint, mumbling voice the wasn’t going to leave him alone. But it wasn’t the voice of the hooded pony, it was somepony else. Somepony different.

But that wasn’t the focus! Braeburn shook his head and glared through the evening light at the pony ahead, with his dark hood cast over his face and flank. No mane nor tail nor cutie mark were visible to give him away, and that hood was all he had.

The stranger had come into Appleoosa three nights ago, with his dark hood down and an aura of mystery about him. He’d claimed he was looking for somepony. Somepony important to him who should not be out on his own. His questions had gone unanswered by the townsfolk, not because they didn’t want to, but because they couldn’t. He was the only stranger who’d come.


Despite the ponies’ claims that they hadn’t seen anyone, the stranger had insisted on spending the night. Braeburn had told him if anypony had come through during the night, no one would have seen them, and they could have moved on down the road, but despite his warnings, the stranger had stayed. Had stayed and left an impression.

His words had lit the fires of paranoia among the townsfolk, and they began talking and muttering about strangers coming to town. Instead of he approaching them, they began to approach him, begging to know more of this stranger he was following.

“Is he dangerous?” they’d cry, wringing their hooves next to him at his table he’d taken in the saloon. “What does he want?” “Is he your friend?” and what came to be the most dangerous question; “How can we help find him?”

He’d told them, of course. That’s where all the troubles began. He’d told them this pony was unusual, and that they would know him when they saw him. “His mane is a fright, dark and unwashed and terrible to look at. His  unmindful of the air around him, and it falls limp in front of his eyes. His hooves are shoed with cold iron, beaten roughly into shape by an old hammer of his own making. He travels alone, clothed in silk—the only expensive thing he allows himself—black as night to keep him in the shadows. He skulks about, so I’m not surprised you haven’t seen him, though I would have hoped you would have a more observant sheriff.” At that he looked to Braeburn. “Somepony to protect you all just in case something awful might have come to your little town. You do want them to be safe, don’t you sheriff?”


The question was loaded, of course, though Braeburn couldn’t quite figure out why. Of course Braeburn wanted to keep everypony safe, but if he couldn’t find one pony dressed in black with ugly hair and shoes, then how could he protect the townsfolk?

They left the stranger and flooded Braeburn with questions, the lot of them badgering him with queries and requests. More deputies! More jail cells! More weapons! Longer patrols! Everypony had their own ideas on how to make the town safe, but none of the understood the logistics. From then on Braeburn kept an eye on that stranger.

It wasn’t enough, of course. The stranger seemed to disappear around corners, inside rooms, and in small crowds. He’d be in front of Braeburn one moment, then a wagon would pass by and the stranger would be gone. Around a corner into an empty passage and the stranger would disappear. He was a master of deception, and his movements were no different. It was a losing battle, and Braeburn was failing.

Then came the sightings. No danger, no destruction, and no injury, but ponies claimed they saw a pony that was dark and shadowy limping about with a heavy tread. A pony that conveniently matched the description given by the stranger.

Hysteria, Braeburn thought, but the more he explained that to the townsfolk, the less they believed him. “I really saw it, why aren’t you keeping us safe!” “He was staring in my window! He could break in at any time!” “He was watching the cattle! He’s going to attack!”

And so Braeburn then found himself running away on errands to keep the townsfolk safe, while the stranger continued his wicked deeds with impunity, unmolested by Braeburn and his deputies.

Check this, check that, look for a dark shape over there, stake out the barn overnight, watch the windows nearby. The requests he got were pointless and harmless, at least, physically. Braeburn found that he couldn’t ignore them, but he couldn’t take them seriously, either. It was a losing game on both ends.

He declined one request and the town blew up over it. “Why aren’t you taking these threats seriously, sheriff?” somepony yelled. “Aren’t we more important than haranguing some… stranger?”

The Stranger was nearby, always, to put in a quiet word or a hinted laugh, but he was present, and he was ready with a counter to every argument, or a match to put to the tinder. Given enough time, Braeburn was sure it would be a flame, but it was all he could do to keep it under control. He couldn’t stop it.

Or could he?

He was the sheriff, after all. He had the final say in who stayed and who had to go. He could even resort to drastic measures if he needed to, though he hoped it wouldn’t come to that. A Stranger in town should be the target of suspicion, not him. That stranger had something on the townsfolk, and something wasn’t right. Braeburn had to find out what.

He tried to sneak up on the stranger and spy on his dealings, but the pony did nothing out of the ordinary. For all intents and purposes, and everything Braeburn could see, he was normal. He bathed, he drank, he ate, he idled, he talked (oh, did he ever talk!), but nothing was unusual. He wasn’t a unicorn, so he wasn’t using magic, but Braeburn was sure he was up to something. Something sinister that was affecting ponies about him.


The day came when he had to approach the stranger about his behavior. Braeburn had just finished investigating the well for bodies someone claimed they had seen. He was tired, and irritable, but a poisoned well in the middle of town would spell death for them all, and that was a big enough threat that he couldn’t brush it off. He’d climbed out of the well, stormed over to the Stranger, and pointed a hoof in his face.

“Stranger, I don’t know what your intentions are for the good folk here in Appleoosa, but you’ve been stirring up nothing but trouble since you’ve arrived. In all the searching, hunting, and tracking I’ve been forced to do, I—”

“Forced?” Interrupted the Stranger. “Are you not doing these things because it is your job?”

Braeburn noticed a crowd was gathering, the townsponies grouping up wearing robes of their own, big, thick, and too much for the heat. Whatever was happening, it wasn’t normal, and could only end badly. Braeburn tensed himself for a fight.

Braeburn raised his voice. “There’s no dang shadowy pony skulkin’ about your cattle, your pigs, or the trees. The apples are fine, there’s no disease, the water isn’t poisoned, and the only reason you think there is, is cause of this guy right here!” Braeburn pointed at where the Stranger was standing, but he was gone, as if he hadn’t ever been there. Instead, it was just Braeburn and the angry crowd, glaring at him from all sides.

Some even carried weapons.

“Sheriff, we have some complaints,” an older pony said. “You’ve never taken us seriously the moment something bad happened, and…” he stopped and drooled, saliva leaking from his mouth to the dust at his hooves. The others all did the same, almost in unison. “…we want you to retire!”


“You’re not yourselves right now!” Braeburn could see the Stranger running away out of town. His black robes billowing behind him as he left Braeburn to his fate.

A whack on his flank drew Braeburn’s eyes back to his present situation. Another whack, this time on his withers from a board a unicorn near the back was wielding. They groped and grabbed, pulling him, trying to drag him down.

Braeburn bucked and kicked. He was a member of the Apple family, and it’d take more than a town of ponies to make a horse like him heel. His hooves cracked into somepony’s face, and his head smashed into somepony else’s skull. Two went down, but the whole town remained.

They were out for his blood, but he was sure they were cursed. If they didn’t have to die, he wasn’t going to kill them. He jumped on the back of the accusing older pony and leaped from the crowd. Sticks, rocks, and boards struck his hooves as he flew. He got a few cuts, though nothing serious, but he was grossly outnumbered.

Braeburn ran into the saloon and up the stairs. The ponies all followed him, half climbing the stairs after him and the other half crowding through the first floor and out the back. Braeburn ignored them and climbed up the stairs, all the way to the roof. He leaped from the saloon the barber shop, off the barbershop and on top of a cart of barrels.

The ponies followed, swarming heedlessly, injuring themselves as they ran. One pony fell awkwardly, head twisting as he landed on the ground. There was a crunch and Braeburn knew he was dead. His only consolation was that it wasn’t he who’d done it for self-defense, and he’d catch the pony who’s fault it was.

Braeburn ran after the pony in black, the Stranger who’d caused all this mess. He was sheriff for a reason and none of the townsfolk could keep up as his hooves pounded the dusty ground. Scrubs brushed against him and one daring tumbleweed crashed into him while he ran, but soon he’d left every crazed pony behind him. They were scattered to the warm winds, spread out in a long line away from Appleoosa until the last one fell, unable to give chase. Braeburn slowed only then, walking.

He feared he’d lost the Stranger, trudging through the wasteland  but when the sun began to set he had spied his dark shape against the orange glare, and, finally rested, had immediately given chase.

The Stranger was quick, swifter than Braeburn had expected of someone so thin and heavily-covered in the desert sun. As fast as Braeburn was, the pony in black was faster. He could see him, shimmering in the distance in the heat of the evening sun, but no matter how much further the sun sank, Braeburn gained no ground. When the sun finally set, Braeburn lost the Stranger in the darkness. He trudged on, though, weary, thirsty, and disappointed in himself.

He came upon a building then, out in the wilderness. It was alone, with no remains of other buildings nearby, only itself and the endless expanse of dust and boulders in all directions. It had a pump outside, so Braeburn, licking his lips, approached, cautiously.

As he got closer, he heard movement inside. Clanking and banging sounds like metal on wood and mud brick. There were voices, two if he heard properly, and one was angry while the other was quiet. They were in a disagreement about something Braeburn couldn’t hear. He snuck closer, listening against the wood.


“…but you and that stranger fella want us to go one way, while the town is the other! T’ain’t no water out there, Bushel! It’s suicide,” a gruff voice said.

“T’ain’t no food here, Britches. We have to make a decision sooner or later. We got canteens, we got bags, and we can just leave the little thing behind. Nobody’ll miss ‘er.”

Her? Braeburn heard the word and looked around. He didn’t see anything outside, but they had somepony within with them. Somepony they were willing to let die for convenience sake.

Braeburn was nothing if not a sheriff, and that kind of talk meant somepony was in trouble, and his job was to get ponies out of trouble! He crept around to the front door and readied himself. He bent low, turned around, reared up, and kicked in the door with a mighty buck!

The wood splintered under his attack. The dusty environment had rotted the planks from the inside out, creating a barrier to the wind and nothing more. The dry wood rained down on the ponies inside, who turned to face their assailant.

“Who in Tartarus… get him!” the gruff voiced one shouted.

His companion picked up a pickaxe in his teeth and hurled it at Braeburn. The tool spun past over his head, not even nicking his hat, but the gruff one chased after it, sliding on the wooden floor to kick out at Braeburn with a rusty shoe. Braeburn slid to the side and raised his own hoof, dropping it down on the pony’s flank. The impact caused him to stumble and fall, and Braeburn was on him in a flash, pummeling him in the face. A hatchet flew by his head, embedding itself in the wall, but Braeburn didn’t let up.


Braeburn slammed a hoof into the pony’s head, then jumped off and galloped at the other, who was reaching for a railroad spike. He caught the pony in the chest and lifted him up off the floor. He slammed him into the workbench and bent him over it backward, one hoof, two, then three punches to the pony’s face and he was out. Braeburn threw him to the side and stood, ready to fight, but both ponies were down and out.

He relaxed once he was sure they were unconscious. No more fighting, thrown weapons, or ponies. Just himself, the dust, and two breathing bodies. Braeburn took a look around the shed.

It must have been a railroad stopover at one point, or even a mining house. The absence of any rails nearby or a visible mine led him to think it was planned, but never implemented? It had water, which was surprising, or at least it had water at one point. He hadn’t tried it yet. But where was the third pony? The “her” they had mentioned?

A search around the building revealed a trap door underneath a throw rug. Braeburn pulled it open and peered inside. It was dark, so he grabbed a lantern and lit it, then crawled down the ladder, dangling the lantern ahead of himself.

“Hello?” Braeburn called out to the darkness. “Is anypony here?”

“H-hello?” A shift in the darkness and a foal’s face peered out from behind a pile of coal. Orange, covered in coal dust and dirt, with a purple mane.

“I heard the two fellas upstairs mentioning somepony down here. Are you alright, little one? What’s your name?”

“I’m Scootaloo. I was… traveling and fell off the train, and those two caught me. They didn’t ever say what they wanted with me.”

Braeburn glanced at the pile of coal as a single piece clicked down the slope, rolling to a halt at the bottom near Scootaloo’s hooves. He carried the lantern with him, double-checking to make sure it was shut so as not to ignite anything that might be in the air. He was on the lookout for any more of the Stranger’s ponies, but it seemed the basement was as empty as his heart. Only Scootaloo was inside. Scootaloo, and a hole in the far wall.

“I don’t know what they wanted with you either, kid, but they were willing to fight over it. They obey the Stranger, and that means bad news, no matter which way you slice it.”

“The Stranger?” Scootaloo asked. She jumped over the trail of coal and came to stand next to Braeburn. Upon a quick look, she was moving fine, but she wasn’t flying. Might just be scared.

“A pony in black, traveling across the world, going somewhere I know not, for reasons unknown, but he carries with him the worst things of ponykind, and none who get close emerge unscathed.” Braeburn crept closer to the hole in the bricks.

“But you seem to be fine, what about you?” Scootaloo asked, she shied away from the hole, staying closer to the coal.

“I don’t rightly know, little missy, but if I’m the only one that can handle what he has, then it’s my responsibility to take care of him, isn’t it?” Something about the hole in the bricks drew Braeburn in, though he wasn’t talking about it with Scootaloo. It felt like there was some message left behind by the Stranger for him, something in the bricks that was for him and him alone, though why that might be was beyond his ken.


Scootaloo said something, but all Braeburn could focus on what the hole in the bricks. At first glance it appeared to just be some fallen pieces of the foundation, behind which lay nothing more than simple dirt. Dirt filled with roots and grubs and other small creatures surviving below the sun-blasted hellscape that was the badlands. Beyond that, however, was a darkness that was absolute, a darkness that sought to swallow everything that was, both Equestria and more.

In the darkness Braeburn saw strange places. A land filled with carriages that drove themselves, trains that belched no smoke but merely rolled along the tracks through some magical means like the trolleys he’d heard of from Baltimare and Vanhoover. The creatures in this strange land carried themselves on two legs, and only had one set of hooves. They seemed like ponies, if ponies lacked their flowing manes, and there was only one kind of pony, but they appeared to enjoy the same things ponies did.

A flash, and the sight changed to another land, a stranger land, where ponies were more rounded and sang about ladybugs and other things, and some purple slime covered Equestria. Witches were sailing about it on a boat, singing a strangely catchy song about something called the smooze. Braenburn couldn’t take his eyes away from the strange scene. He felt himself step forward, moving toward the hole and the scene of darkness.

Some voice was buzzing behind him. The scene changed again, to a dark and blasted landscape where nothing moved except the wind, blowing dust and dead scrubs across the land. Whatever had happened here had been recent, and now everything was dead. Was it Equestria or not? Was this some future, some past, or some place in the present?


“Mister, stop!” Scootaloo’s voice broke through his distracted reverie. Braeburn came back to himself to see a hoof partway inside the hole. Dark red eyes appeared inside it and something grabbed him, trying to yank him through despite himself.

“Woah, Nelly!” Braeburn shouted. He punched his free hoof at the darkness, but all he hit was dark smoke. Scootaloo screamed as the thing inside the hole grinned, showing smoky grey teeth along with its angry red eyes.

“It’s not real, mister! Just ignore it and come on!” Scootaloo was tugging at his vest, trying to pull him away from it. The mouth opened and bit down on Braeburn’s hoof and he felt it! He felt the pain of the teeth digging into his hoof, but he did as Scootaloo said, he tried to pull away, hoof dragging the dark shape with him.

“Well it damn well hurts like it’s real, kid!”

“That’s because you believe in it, stop believing in it and it’ll go away!” Scootaloo’s teeth stretched his vest while the dark shape tried to yank him into the foreign darkness. He pulled back, hooves digging into the dusty floor. He closed his eyes and tried to concentrate.

But the pain in his hoof and the tugging sensation wouldn’t let him believe otherwise. This thing grabbing him was real, as real as anypony else was. It was the darkness that had taken hold of the villagers made into a cloud of anger and spite. It was real as much as emotions were real, and to fight it, he had to beat it at its own game.

Braeburn remembered the Stranger, whispering in hushed tones to the villagers, turning them paranoid and driving them against him. He had masterfully worked his words to sound sincere, but he had a weakness, even if it hadn’t worked then: The truth.

But the truth was harder to bring to bear on this thing. This thing that didn’t exist. Scootaloo was right that it didn’t exist, not in the physical sense, but Braeburn’s problem was that it did exist for causing him pain. It existed as much as the Stranger existed, as an exercise of the stallion’s will, meant to stop him in his tracks and take him away. If that was the case, what was he trying to take him away from?

Braeburn’s hoof burned with pain as the shadowy creature’s teeth dug in. He stared and imagined the truth, like Scootaloo said. He could believe in the creature, without accepting its reality. The reality was that this thing was a bad idea. It existed as a bad idea, a malevolent idea, an idea that meant to cause him harm without the creator needing to exercise it.

But, as Braeburn stared at it, he saw that it was just that. His leg did not bleed where the teeth pierced him. His skin was not punctured, and the black saliva that dripped from its mouth did not cling to his fur. It was an idea, one that he had accepted. Scootaloo was right.

When he accepted that—that Scootaloo was right and that the thing couldn’t harm him and wasn’t harming him—the dark beast faded away until it was just a shadow of its former self. It was still clinging to his limb, but it no longer stung, wasn’t dragging him about, and was as real as the idea it was made of.

“How did you know, Scootaloo,” Braeburn asked. “You knew it was there, but you also knew it was ultimately harmless. Why and how did you know these things, and how did you come to be here?”


“I told you how I got here. I fell off a train and was captured,” Scootaloo said matter-of-factly. I don’t know why they wanted me or anything like that, just that I was here…” she looked around and waved a hoof at the coal. “Wherever here is.”

“You’re near Appleoosa, somewhat. I’ve been running for about a day now, I think. We’re a few miles outside of it and off the beaten track,” Braeburn took Scootaloo by the hoof, gave the dark hole in the wall one last look, and climbed the ladder out of the cellar.

“So, what are you going to do?” Scootaloo asked. Braeburn had taken down some of the waterskins and was filling them at the pump. The first few pumps produced nothing, followed by warm, dirty water that soon became clean. Only then did he put the skins underneath to fill.

“I’m going to follow the Stranger, wherever he goes. He’s a danger to everypony, and I can only imagine the trouble he’ll cause wherever he goes. Somepony needs to believe me, or I need to stop him with my own two hooves.” Braeburn shook the skins to even out the water in them, then topped them off and capped them shut. He threw them over his back on his new saddlebags he’d taken from the shed and looked to the distance.

“You mean kill him.”

“Well…” Braeburn scratched his neck, trying to deflect the statement.

“I’m not stupid, sir. I can figure things out pretty good.”

“Yeah, alright.” Braeburn gave up, hanging his head in shame of his intentions. “I intend to kill him when I catch him, because I can’t think of any better way to remove such a dangerous stranger. I arrest him and he’ll talk his way out of it, I’m sure.”


“You’re right, but only here. If you arrest him here and throw him in a cell, he’ll get right out.” Scootaloo walked along beside him, wings fluttering. He noticed she never actually took off.

He also noticed that she seemed to know a lot about the Stranger and the odd situation they were in, yet she didn’t know why she had been captured. “Why do you seem to think you know how it’ll all turn out?” he asked her. One hoof led the other and he plodded off in the direction he had last seen the Stranger with Scootaloo following beside him.

“Because I’m not from around here.”

“Yeah, you said you were riding the train somewhere and fell off.”

“While I said ‘fall’, that isn’t quite what happened. I didn’t fall as much as I was pulled off the train.”

“By those stallions?” Braeburn looked ahead into the sun. The Stranger’s silhouette was somehow still in the distance, heading towards the mountains far away.

“No, by something else.” Scootaloo looked ahead as well, toward the Stranger’s silhouette. “By something dark.”

“By one of those things you’re not supposed to believe in?”

“Yes, one of those. I believed in it enough at the time for it to carry me here, and I fell into your world.”

Braeburn finally looked over at Scootaloo with a glare. “My world?”

“Yes, your world. This isn’t the only one, you know. There are others.”

“And… which one do you come from?”

“Mine has cars and trucks and trains and planes. Electricity and lights, without magic and unicorns, and, until today, no dark strangers.”

“So it would seem he’s done more than just trick my ponies, but why would he want you, and how do you know all this?”

“I know it cause I read it.” Scootaloo nodded, sure of herself. “There’s a bookstore back home, and I read what would happen.” She looked down at her hooves as they walked. “I tried to run away, but even running away just led me here. Off the train and into this strange place.”

“If you’re so knowledgeable about the matter, then maybe you can tell me what happens next, if your book is right about everything.” A hot wind blew from the setting sun, washing over Braeburn and making him break out in a sweat. Banking on the kid’s book as something that could tell him what he was supposed to do was a terrible idea, but the Stranger was long gone. He needed every edge he could get if he was to catch the stallion.

“Follow the path of the setting sun, into the baked and painted hills. There will be darkness and light in equal measure, where unnamed things dwell that will attack anything and everything that passes through. They let the Stranger pass because of his promises; promises of darkness avoiding the light that burns them so brightly when they try to venture out. In there, beyond their attacks, you will be tested three times, and you will fail each and every one. You will give up that which you had, that which you have, and that which you would have received. There will be no happy ending for you, Braeburn.”

Braeburn looked at her sharply. “No happy ending at all?” Had he told her his name? He must have at some point. Before the dark thing in the wall, after, during their climb and preparation to leave? He couldn’t remember her ever asking him for it, and he couldn’t remember offering it. Was it one of those things she’d learned in her book, or was it something to do with the stranger?


Scootaloo shook her head. “None.”

“Do I die?”

“You’ve already died, haven’t you? You’ve died before, and you’ll die again, and you’ll die reaching your goal and also getting to it.” Scootaloo’s wings buzzed a moment, reminding him of a cockroach or a beetle. He hated it.

“And what happens to the Stranger?”

“He will never die, but he also won’t get what he wants. He’ll get closer than you, however. What you seek, he will touch, but it won’t answer him. That will make him very angry.”

“And all of this is fated to happen and there’s nothing I can do about it?”

“That’s correct, Braeburn.” Scootaloo gave a cute little hop over a big stone in her path. It was strangely dissonant to the way she was speaking. “You’ll kill me, and you’ll be happy to see me go.”

Braeburn looked at her in shock. He stopped walking and stared at her. She stared innocently back, smiling slightly, unbothered by what she had just said, like she was talking about how soup was on the table, ready to eat.

“No. I refuse. Fate’s never been kind to me and mine, but I won’t kill a child.”

Scootaloo bent down to watch a scorpion scuttle across the baking sands. It climbed over the railroad lines, scaling the scalding metal quickly to drop off the other side. “If it helps, you won’t justify it as killing me, it will be more like… letting me die. You’re just going to be directly responsible for it.”

Braeburn shook his head so hard his hat flew off. He bent down to pick it up and dust it off. He planted it on his head with a “Harrumph! I won’t kill a child.”


“You think you have a choice, but you don’t. There’s no choice in any of this, merely exercising your right to play the part you’re given. It’s already written.” As she spoke, her wings buzzed, and again Braeburn was reminded of a cockroach. Her words certainly made him as angry as seeing one in his larder did. He turned away from her and stared at the sun up ahead.

“How far ahead is the Stranger?” Braeburn asked, eager to change the subject.

“He’s entered the hills already. He planted the two stallions there to delay you, just like he planted me to sow the seeds of doubt.” Was it just him, or was Scootaloo’s voice a little strange.

“Excuse me?” He turned back to stare at her. She looked up at him helplessly.

“What’s wrong, Mister?” Her voice was higher-pitched again, and she no longer called him Braeburn. Was it the influence of the Stranger? Could he do that? If he could, why was he influencing a child instead of Braeburn directly?

He finally answered her, hooves plodding along ahead, into the last sliver of the setting sun. “It’s nothing, Kid. Don’t worry about it. Just… a problem I have with the Stranger.”

“Yeah! He’s a jerk! His goons were mean and smelled funny, and he kidnapped me from my world!”

“You remember your world as being different than this one?”

“Oh, yeah. Full of electricity and carriages that drive themselves and…” Scootaloo started talking about her world again, one that wasn’t this one, but wasn’t anywhere nearby anymore, either. She didn’t mention a book filled with his fate and hers, and her voice didn’t change again, but she was very excited about catching up to the Stranger, and what he was doing in the hills ahead.

Darkness spread over the countryside, blanketing the stones and dust and weeds in glowing moonlight. Braeburn used supplies from the cabin to make a campfire and they squatted around it, trying to keep warm in the chill desert air.

Scootaloo had gone on at length about what was happening with the world and why things were changing so much, but Braeburn had sort of tuned most of it out. Something about a wheel with spokes and different points on the wheel inside and outside and all the way inbetween. It made no sense to him, but it seemed important to Scootaloo.

He was unnerved by the way she switched between calling him “mister” and “Braeburn”. The Braeburn voice was the one telling him all the strange trivia about the wheel and worlds and things, while the mister voice was asking him where they were going, how they were going to handle the Stranger, where he was from, and familiar matters like that.

He liked the “mister” voice much better. Too bad it was there less frequently than the Braeburn voice.

“Is it safe to sleep here, mister?” Scootaloo asked, eyes flicking about the darkness. A howl pierced the night and she flinched.

“Yeah, it’s fine here, Scootaloo. There’s nothing wrong with the sounds you keep hearing, it’s all just natural. They won’t come near the fire, and they’re more scared of you than you are of them.”

“But they can eat me, and I can’t eat them,” Scootaloo said.

“Yeah, but you’re strange. You’re not the normal sort of food they eat, so they’ll try to avoid you until they know for sure. They won’t learn in a single night.”

“What about the ones that have learned over multiple nights?”

Braeburn thought about that and patted the spot next to him on the ground. “Point taken, come on.”


Scootaloo was up before him, staring out into the west where the Stranger had left. Braeburn stood up and looked, and was surprised to see the Stranger’s silhouette, still waiting for them in the distance.

“What the hell?”

“He’s waiting for you, you know. He wants you to succeed and fail at the same time, Braeburn.”

Braeburn was used to it by now, but he still didn’t like it. He couldn’t shake the feeling that the Stranger was somehow controlling Scootaloo, though he couldn’t say how or why that might be. “I can’t do both, I can only do one or the others.”

“You can, and you will. I told you you would fail, but at the same time it will be the greatest success you’ve ever had. It will bring you closer to the Stranger, and he will be delighted about it.”

Braeburn packed up and started walking, Scootaloo following along behind, wings buzzing. “Can I talk to mister again, please?’

Scootaloo’s eyes widened and she suddenly seemed bouncier in her movements. “How long do you think it will take us to reach the hills, mister?” she asked, smiling up at him with wide eyes.

Braeburn couldn’t help but smile back at her, despite her weird mood swings. “A few hours. It’ll be about noon when we arrive at the foothills, then another few hours to climb up them.”

“And what will be at the top?”

Braeburn recalled what she had said, and the fact she didn’t remember telling him reinforced his thoughts that there was something strange going on with her. “We’re not going to the top. We’re going into the mines that travel through the hills, where we’ll come out the other side.”


“And that’s where the Stranger is waiting for you?”

“Waiting for us, yes. He won’t let you go so easily if he worked so hard to bring you here.”

“He’s not after me, the two stallions said so. The Stranger just wants you.”

“Well, you’ll be coming with me.”

“You promise you won’t let me go?” Something in her voice made him look. Her eyes were wide and she looked scared and lost. He reached out to pat her on the head, which calmed her down a bit.

“I promise I won’t let you go, kid.” She walked a little closer to him as he said that, wings fluttering, not buzzing like they had been.

They walked in silence through the heat of the day. Scootaloo looked wilted as the heat got more intense and Braeburn gave her his hat. It sat wide and too big on her head, but her wings perked up. He just sweat, soaking his sticky vest while a hot wind cooled the liquid in his mane.

They reached an oasis and splashed into it after drinking their fill. Scootaloo had the time of her life splashing in the water while Braeburn washed his vest out. He refilled their waterskins and slung them over his damp vest while Scootaloo wore his soaking hat.

The dripping stopped and dried out before the evening came.

The sun set slowly, looming large in the west as the hills and mountains grew. They had reached the foothills.

“We’re here, kid?”

“We’re here, Braeburn.” When she said his name he took his hat back and planted it on his head. She didn’t protest, which was how he knew it was the wrong Scootaloo.

“Knew I’d hear from you the moment we got here. I was having fun with Scootaloo until now, so thanks for that.”

“But I am Scootaloo, Braeburn. Just like everything else in the wheel, there’s many of us, but we’re all Scootaloo.”

“You know what I mean,” Braeburn growled. “I never told you my name and sometimes you call me mister and other times Braeburn. This is the latter, and you know something and aren’t telling. I don’t like feeling used, kid.”

“Everybody is used, Braeburn. Some earlier, some later. Some are left to rot while others are used up all at once, like soldiers. You know Granny Smith?” Scootaloo’s face was straight, but Braeburn felt like there was smile somewhere underneath it she wasn’t showing him. Images of the Stranger came to mind and his cocky grin when he had Braeburn working pointless jobs in Appleoosa.

“Of course I know Granny Smith, and I’m going to assume you knew that.”

“I did. I read all about you, you know.”

“Then what about her?”

“She was used in her life, to learn about Zap apples and to found Ponyville. She was allowed to get old and senile, used up and left to rot. To try and go to seed in the ground and help the next generation. Such was her fate.”

Braeburn watched Scootaloo’s wings buzz. He really hated that noise. “That’s not being used, that’s living life. That’s how life goes.”

“You would believe that, because you are one of the Apple Family”

“Not sure how you know that, either, but I’m not surprised.” He clambered up the hill, and Scootaloo followed. A hot wind blew, dust hitting his eyes. The wind cooled the further he climbed, which he was grateful for. Something somewhat chill compared to the heat of the desert.

“I know because I read about you. I would be getting annoyed at you not listening, but such is your fate.”


A bit of cactus pricked Braeburn’s hoof. He kicked it, and it pricked him again. He grumbled and looked for another route. “I’m getting’ awful tired of all this fate shit. I’m not a machine.”

“It’s not about machines. A machine can break. A wagon will lose a wheel. A phone will lose a cable, and radios will shut down. Machines have no fates separate from the beings they are attached to.”

Braeburn held out a hoof to help Scootaloo up a particularly steep bit of hill, grimacing at himself for helping the thing he was starting to dislike so much. “So you’re saying that if my wagon wheel breaks, I was fated to have my wagon’s wheel break, not the wagon.”

“You’re understanding! Good! But now the door’s ahead. Good luck.”

“The door?” Braeburn turned his head to look and sure enough a door was there, like you would see from a house, set into the hillside. “The hell…?”

“Mister! Help!” Scootaloo was struggling on the rock where he’d left her. With her wings no longer buzzing as hard, she wasn’t generating any lift at all, and had to rely on her own hooves. He had gotten distracted and taken his hoof away. He reached out and grabbed her, then pulled her up.

“Sorry, kid.”

“It’s okay.” She looked at the door. “Is that… a mine? Are they supposed to have doors like that?”

“No, kid. No they ain’t. But…” Braeburn looked out around the hillside. He hadn’t been here before except as he was passing through. He knew there were mines, but based only on Scootaloo’s hearsay and the Stranger’s travels, he didn’t know where to find any of them. If this was the entrance to the mine, he was going to have to take it. If it took him somewhere else… well…


Braeburn stopped thinking about it and pushed the door open. They wanted him to go this way, had been leading him along, so he would just have to be ready when they sprung their trap. A trap laid by the Stranger.

Inside was darkness. Braeburn set a hoof inside and the clack of his shoe on the stone echoed through the tunnels inside. Scootaloo shuffled underneath him to peer inside the door. “What’s goin’ on, mister?”

“This is the path we have to take, kid. This will lead us to the Stranger, or so you told me.”

“I told you? I don’t think I told you anything about this. I don’t know mines at all.”

“Nevermind, kid. Just hold on to my vest and stay close.”

“Okay.” Scootaloo pushed up against him, clinging to his green vest as he stepped inside. He pulled out the lantern he’d taken from the shed and lit it before he left daylight behind. As the flint sparked to life, the tunnels around them were revealed.

Shapes fled into the nooks and crannies of the mine, disappearing around stalagmites and under loose boulders. The sounds of their hooves scrabbling away was almost deafening for a moment, until all was silent once again, as though they had never been there.

But still they moved. As Braeburn took Scootaloo inside, past the hiding places and shadows, the humping bulk of one of the creatures shifted behind something, casting ugly shadow onto the walls of the cave.

Claws scraped as they moved on by, but nothing came out at them. Braeburn didn’t think it was safe to be in here, but somehow he knew he had to keep going. Was it Scootaloo’s words, claiming that he was fated to be here? Here, where he was supposed to fail three times?

“The first test comes. Be ready, mister.”

Scootaloo’s voice and the word ‘mister’ made Braeburn blink. He was expecting the ‘Braeburn’ voice to be the one warning him about the tests. She was a mystery, and a frustrating one. If she was going to make things confusing, he could only expect that he would fail all the tests. What even were they?

His question was answered when the darkness gave way to light. It spilled out of his lantern and brightened the cave, making the creatures in the darkness whimper in fear and pain. Braeburn clenched his eyes shut and winced, the red glow of the light seeping through his eyelids.

He waited, and then he heard a voice.

His opened eyes showed him an idyllic little village, much like Appleoosa, but with waving grasses and grains in the distance, and no baking-hot sun. A mare walked past him and nodded. He nodded back. Voices crowded about happily, enjoying the day in what must have been a lovely and busy village with orchards of apple trees all around, exactly like he wanted Appleoosa to become.

Braeburn took off his hat and held it to his chest. He breathed deeply of the clean and fresh air, free of dust and sand. “Is this heaven? Am I dead?”

“You surely ain’t dead, sheriff, this is just good old Appleoosa, same as it ever was,” An older stallion was next to him, long mustache and limp mane underneath a tall hat, ragged and worn from years of use. He smiled brightly at Braeburn. “You feelin’ alright this mornin’, sheriff? You look a little peaked. Maybe somethin’ in the water? I told old Gruffy to check it the other day.”


Braeburn shook his head and waved a hoof dismissively. “No, no no. I’m fine. Just… happy to see it all.” He looked out across Appleoosa, his Appleoosa, like he wanted it. “It’s exactly like I wanted it.”

“You built it, sheriff. It’s all because of you.”

“Because of me… no, it’s because of everyone.” A young stallion with stubble on his face and awkwardly long legs came out of a corner store carrying a bag on his back. He stumbled over to an older mare sitting in a cart and dumped the bag into her lap, then harnessed himself in. They trotted by Braeburn and the older stallion next to him with a wave.

“If it’s everything you wanted, why do y’look so confused, sheriff?”

“Because it’s…” he tried to think about why, but he couldn’t quite put into words what the problem was. There was a problem, surely, but why was this a problem? Braeburn started walking without finishing his thought. The stallion fell in beside him.

“Where y’off to, sheriff?” Braeburn tried to ignore him, he had things he needed to look at, to check on; parts of Appleoosa that needed to be working in a certain way before it would be perfect.

The first stop was the well. The old stallion had mentioned some trouble with it that might have made somepony sick. If the source of water was in trouble, that should be one of the first things checked. Everypony needed it, and the trees and other farmland would need it too. Whatever aquifer was underground had to be safe to drink.

Braeburn stared down the dark hole of the well’s mouth at the water far below. The well’s cover sat nearby, having been taken off so he could see better. “When did you notice somepony was getting sick? When was it reported?”


“Just two days ago.” The older stallion rested his hooves on the well and his head on an elbow. “Said he heard somethin’ splashin’. Ain’t heard or seen nothin’ since, and nopony wants to go down there.”

“Well, somepony has to do it. Think you’re strong enough to lower me down?”

The stallion laughed. “Sheriff, I’m old, not weak I could whip you around town if I felt like it.” He put his hooves on the crank while Braeburn climbed carefully into the bucket.

“Glad to hear it. I’m in. Down we go.”

The creaking sound of the crank filled the stone walls of the well. Once the stone turned to hard-packed clay it got quieter, but the sound of the water got louder. The clay became interspersed with water-smoothed rock, and then the surface of the water was right below him. “Okay, stop!” Braeburn heard a clack and the brake was engaged. He swung in the air over the water.

“Did anypony say what animal it might have been?”

The old stallion’s head blocked some of the light streaming down from above. “Nope! Though a couple kids said it might be a coyote!”

“Don’t think it would be a coyote.” Braeburn spoke mostly to himself as he scanned the water below. Nothing floated on the top, and even as he trolled the waters with a stick, he found nothing. The aquifer was flowing, so maybe the body had been sucked under? If so, it wasn’t going to be a problem anymore.

After a few more minutes of trolling the waters, nothing had presented itself. He probed deeper and the swift-running water tugged at the stick, yanking it from his hand. Once it was gone he shrugged. “Alright, I lost the stick and if there was something, it’s gone now! Pull me up!”

No response came from above.

“Pull me up!” Braeburn yelled again, but he got no response. The open maw of the well high above beamed down at him, silently judging his actions and his words. “Pull me up!” Braeburn yelled, desperation creeping into his voice.

There was no response until the lid of the well slid into place, the slot for the rope letting in a thin bar of light that stopped on the stone wall some feet above him. It went dark. Pitch dark. Braeburn was alone in it.

The water below him was quiet, but it wasn’t silent. The soft rushing sound of swift-flowing water deep beneath was still present, filling the well with a quiet susurration. Now that Braeburn was down here without a way up, he only had two directions; up the rope or into the water.

The water wasn’t really a choice, it was the one he would have to make when he got too exhausted to hold on or when he fell in after trying to climb. He could wait in the bucket for someone other than the old stallion to come get water, or he could try to climb the rope and get out himself.

That raised the question of why the old stallion had done this in the first place. He was old, but he had come to volunteer all that information about the townsfolk that Braeburn was so happy about. Was he trying to steal his job as sheriff? What need was there for a sheriff in such an idyllic green countryside as…

Idyllic green countryside…

That didn’t sit right. The words didn’t sit right with Braeburn. But why? Was there something about Appleoosa that didn’t fit in place? Some worker or pony or bison that didn’t match?


“Pull me up, please…” Braeburn said weakly. He didn’t expect to be pulled up, and nothing happened. No yell down the well, no sounds of movement, nothing. Just him and the water.

He tried to crawl up the rope. He was used to it, but this was a rough rope, made to last and take the constant pressure of the water and the occasional scrape along the stone wall. As such, it was scratchy, uncomfortable, and difficult to keep a grip as his hooves stung each time he dragged his body upward.

He had to stop and rest a couple times, but when he reached the lid, Braeburn had to struggle to hold on while he pushed at it. The thing was heavy enough to withstand a windstorm, but light enough to ideally let some of the mares move it when they came for water, but now his trouble was that he was both exhausted and pushing at an awkward angle, with only his grip on the rope as the push.

The lid wiggled and shook, but although he pushed and his legs stung, he couldn’t get enough force and just kept sliding down the rope. He resorted to pounding on it, hoping someone other than the old stallion would hear.

“Hey! Help me out! Somepony, please!”

Voices were outside the lid. He hadn’t heard hoofsteps, but outside ponies were talking, talking about something, though he couldn’t understand the words. It sounded like Ponish, but there was a deep undertone to it running through all the words. Ponies were speaking but weren’t saying words. They were talking but weren’t talking to him or even answering his calls. They were mentioning something… to do with him? Him and the stallion that had dropped him down there? It wasn’t until he heard a knife and felt the rope jerk that he realized what was happening.


“Wait, stop! Don’t!” The rope shook as somepony cut it. He felt it start to give, then snap, and after the first it was a cascade of snapping and jerking, until the rope gave way.

Braeburn didn’t cry out as he fell. It would do no good. The lid came off the moment he dropped and dark faces watched him plummet into the water. The bucket struck his head as he went under, and then he was dragged, along with the rope and bucket, into the aquifer beneath Appleoosa.

Darkness covered him. Pitch darkness with no air and no mercy. Braeburn was rolled head over heels, smashing into rock and knocked about by unseen walls. The rope wrapped around his stomach and his hooves kicked, but he couldn’t figure out which way was up. He was helpless, blind, and adrift in the frigid, buffeting water.

Braeburn was standing in the cave, soaking wet, hat on his head, and a long rope in his hoof with a bucket on the end. Scootaloo was standing next to him, shaking him to rouse him. “Mister? You alright?”

Braeburn looked down at Scootaloo while he gasped for air. The cave was chilly with the water he was soaked with, but his body felt hot despite it. “What… what happened?”

“You failed.”

“What did I fail? I remember… Appleoosa, the old stallion, the grassy field and the farmland, and… the well.” Braeburn pulled on the rope wrapped around him. The bucket scraped along the ground. “Why do I have this? What was that and what happened? What was the test?”

Scootaloo flinched from his yelling. “I don’t know! How am I supposed to know? I just know you failed! You went down and you failed!”

Braeburn grabbed Scootaloo’s shoulders. “Went down? You mean down the well? How do you know about the well, you weren’t even there?”

Scootaloo flinched away, trying to pull back but couldn’t from the stallion’s grip. “I don’t know what well you’re talking about! You sat down! That’s all I mean, what’s your problem?”

“And this bucket?” Braeburn shook the rope at her and she cringed.

“That was there when you stood back up, I don’t know! Why do you expect me to know?”

Braeburn grabbed her by the mane and shoved his face into hers. “Because something in you knows what all this is about, it’s been telling me I’m going to fail, and now you said I failed! I know you’re the same thing in there!” He rattled Scootaloo and she started crying.

“I don’t know! I don’t know! I don’t know! I don’t know! Stop! I’m scared!”

Braeburn growled low but let go of the filly. He turned back to the path through the cave and wound up his rope, then held up the lantern to illuminate the darkness. No creatures hissed from the light or made a sound, just silence and darkness.

“Come on.” Braeburn walked away without looking at Scootaloo, who scurried along behind him.

In the darkness was silence, the cave leading them along through winding tunnels both carved and natural. The lantern lit only the path forward, avoiding dead ends and darkness. Braeburn didn’t like it, but Scootaloo had said he was fated to find him way. He had no better ideas, so he walked, following where the light seemed to take him, though he didn’t like it.

“What comes next, Scootaloo?”

“W-why are you asking me like I know?”

“Because I know you do. Let the Braeburn voice out.” He glared at Scootaloo.


“It’s just me, mister. I’m not sure what you want, but I can’t tell you where you’re supposed to go. I thought you knew.” Scootaloo was close at his heels, despite her apparent fear of him. To be fair, he had to admit that dragging her into a dark cave wasn’t the best way to make her feel comfortable, but what else could he do? Where could he take her?

“I can’t let the Stranger get away, kid.” Braeburn turned the lantern to hold it over Scootaloo’s head. “He’s trying to ruin me for some reason, and my home turned against me. He’s the only goal I have left. I guess… I feel like killing him will put things right, even if I know they won’t.”

“That’s not a very smart choice.”

“I am aware, kid. I still have to do it, or else what am I?” Braeburn tapped his chest. “A shit sheriff is what I’d be if I didn’t protect my town from ne’er-do-wells.”

“From what you told me, it sounds like he killed somepony, but you haven’t mentioned any deaths.”

“He didn’t kill anypony, he turned them against me.”

“He did? How?’

“He spread rumors of a bad stallion, dark and spooky that had been spotted. For days I was hunting this stallion down, but I saw nothing except the Stranger where the sightings occurred, always there, always watching, but no shadowy stallion.” The sound of rushing water came to them through the cavern, making Braeburn flinch.

“So you think that just because there was no shadowy stallion you found, that the Stranger started it just to get rid of you?” Scootaloo questioned.

“He wanted something, from me, or he just wanted me gone. He didn’t do anything to anypony else, just me.”


“I think you’re thinking too hard, mister. Maybe he just wanted to make mischief?”

“This was careful, planned, and malicious. He wanted to ruin my reputation, make them question me, but why? What reason could he have for that?”

“Does he need a reason?”

“Most ponies need a reason for the things they do, I can’t imagine why he wouldn’t have one. I’m supposedly fated for—” the scenery changed “—something…”

Braeburn was inside a cave, but not like the one he had just been in. This cave was lit, vibrant and green much like Appleoosa had been. This cave had mushroom, gemstones, and grasses within, with a hole in the ceiling to let the gentle falling rain inside to give them places to grow.

“Now what? The second test, I assume?” A mare’s voice whimpered, and Braeburn was immediately on high alert. If anything warranted a sheriff, it was a mare in trouble.

He found her in a corner, just outside the light. She appeared fine, but there was no signs she was going to be fine. There was no entrance to this cave he could see except the one up above where the sun shone down. He approached her and asked, “Are you all right, ma’am?”

She looked up, startled, but calmed when she saw his smile. “Yes, I’m all right, I’m just… stuck, you see.” She pointed at the ceiling.

“How did you get down here?” he asked.

“I could… ask you the same thing, sir. Coming out of the shadows. Is there another path through the darkness I couldn’t find? Have you a lantern?” She stood up, excited.

Braeburn had no lantern. “I’ve no lantern, ma’am, but I have a rope.” He gestured to the bucket and rope from the well on his hip. “I could try, what was the terrain up there?”

“It was rocky, sir, surely something would attach itself to the stones, and the two of us could climb it!” She was exuberant, but maybe a little too much so. Braeburn wondered if she was as honest as she seemed, or if it was all a gamble to make him think he was helping somepony.

As he uncoiled the rope and set the bucket to swinging, Braeburn wondered if he ought to just save himself and leave the mare here. Wasn’t he being tested?

As the thought came to him he looked around at the minimal cave and the structures and darkness around. There were shadows looming in the corners around spikes of rock and grown deposits, calcified skeletons planted one after another over the passage of decades to hide the edges of this oubliette.

“We can… surely climb out of here, yes. All we need is a little rope, and a little luck.” The corners beckoned to him as he tossed the bucket up out of the hole. Shadows flickered, made deeper by passing clouds and longer by the setting sun.

Braeburn blinked. The setting sun?

As he watched, the shadows slipping into the oubliette from above grew longer, inch by inch every few seconds as the sun dipped low too fast. Far too fast. “Why is the sun setting so quickly?”

The rope hooked nothing, sliding down with a clatter. The mare, who said her name was Summer, watched with dismay as the bucket fell back down. “It’s the day passing us by, sir. Light leaving us, days passing us, time fleeing us bit by gentle bit. Sand plinking through the hourglass with each grain representing our daily choices, all piling up, meaning nothing as the end of the world approaches.”


Braeburn hurled the bucket up through the hole again. It grabbed nothing and slid back down yet again. He started swinging, changing position for another throw. He lets it swing to a halt at her mention of the end of the world. “You think the world is ending?”

“What else would explain it? There’s so much going on, with ponies disappearing into fog, strange creatures crawling out of the hidden places of Equestria, and the song; Oh! The song!” Her hooves came up to her cheeks. “It’s pained is what it is. The seams are unravelling.”

“Seams? Songs? What are you talking about?” Another throw, another failure.

“Mister Braeburn, you’ve been travelling a long while, what do you think is happening? Have you not seen the strange things digging their way out of the holes in the land?” She stood up and move to follow the sunlight as it streamed in through the hole. She stayed always at the edge of it, just touching the shadows on the outskirts. “Haven’t things been… stranger and stranger?”

This time, the throw hooked on something. Braeburn turned to look at her triumphantly, tugging on the rope to make sure it would stay put. “Stranger and stranger? I guess. Weird creatures hiding in walls showing me things, Scootaloo, the caves—” Braeburn stopped and looked again at the mare. Something she had said seemed off. “The… rope is good, ma’am.”

“Oh, thank you, mister.”

“I…” he began, “think you called me Braeburn? Did I give you my name?”

“You didn’t.”

“Ah…” Braeburn clung to the rope with both hooves, standing up as far as he could reach, watching her. “You wouldn’t have happened to have crawled up from the dark places of Equestria, would you have? Cause it sounds like you know a bit about all this.”


The mare smiled at him, still hanging about the edge of the light as it whirled from morning, to afternoon, to evening, lengthening shadow moving away from the rope. She followed them, moving up closer to Braeburn. “Yes.”

Braeburn tensed as she approached. “Yes, what?”

“Yes I crawled up.” She lunged for him when the shadowy edges brought her close. What was previously a beautiful mare was now a sharp-toothed termagant intent on ripping him to pieces. Her hooves sprouted claws, changing to grasping hands as her pale fur darkened in waves across her body. Braeburn leaped up his rope, hind hooves kicking in her direction, metal shoes meeting her face. She screeched.

“I knew it! I knew it! Stranger and stranger! Two separate things, both full of the same shit! Dammit, dammit, dammit!”

Braeburn scrambled up the rope as the shadowy thing below him raked its claws toward him. He kicked at the claws, swinging out of the way. The rope shifted ominously from the motion and he pulled himself up. He never thought he’d climb a rope and fail, only to end up climbing the same rope again minutes later.

Once he was out of the creature’s reach, the beast grabbed hold of the rope and pulled, yanking on it, trying to dislodge it and drop him into the pit with the beast. His weight was the only thing saving it, and his head breached the top.

Darkness, all around. Night had fallen during his attempts to escape, and now all that he had was the darkness, two rocks that held the bucket, and the creature behind him scrambling up the rope. Braeburn dragged himself out of the hole, dashed to the bucket, and kicked it out of place.

“Stay down there, beasty!” he yelled.

The beast did not stay down there.

With a heave and a snarl, the beast up to the edge of the hole, scrabbling at the rocky lip. Braeburn backed away, staring as the beast’s claws clung to the rocky edge, trying to pull itself out of the hole to get him. He ran, not waiting to see if it made it out. He knew what the outcome would be eventually.

He made it some distance through this rocky plateau, but in the darkness what he couldn’t see were the holes that littered the place in all directions. Shadows were all that betrayed their presence, hidden and murky they were, with growls, snarls, and slavering mouths hiding inside each one.

He turned back to look at his beasty, and saw it’s darkly hunched form lumbering after him. It howled and was answered by the rest of the holes around, lowing calls filling the air. More shapes dragged themselves out of their holes and came for him. In a moment, one was upon him, biting and snapping.

His metal shoes struck drooling teeth. Something cracked and flew into the air, clattering to the rocks nearby. He picked it up, in a hoof and turned to the beast, stabbing its own tooth into its head. The skull cracked and one beast fell, but more were on him. Claws flashed in starlight, raking at him, but Braeburn was one cowpoke who knew to avoid the horns of the bull. His hooves shifted and scraped, dancing among their attacks. One beast hit another, and they snarled at each other in rage.

While those two were busy, Braeburn spun around and smacked another with a hoof. Spittle flew, mixed with blood. The creature’s head swung away. Braeburn was on it in an instant, hooves flashing.


“I’m not the sheriff for nothing! I found an entire town, and I can protect it!” Braeburn shouted. His forehooves pounded into the creature’s face, fine shoes tearing into flesh and cracking bone. “I’m not going to sit idly by and let you have your way, I’ve got ponies to protect!”

Is it the ponies you want to protect or just stop the Stranger? A voice whispered by on the wind. Braeburn heard it, despite the roaring of the beasts, but nopony was nearby. That he could see, anyway.

The two beasts turned from each other when their companion went down. One roared, the other charged at Braeburn, galumphing forward with a shoulder up to shove Braeburn down. He staggered from the blow, but caught his hoofing and charged back in.

A hoof, then two, and the creature’s face bled pitch. It jumped back and prowled around Braeburn, its companion joining it, one on either side. Braeburn watched them move in slow, steady pacing. He ran, and they kept next to him, both ready and waiting for the other to pounce first. He needed to goad one.

A jump at one, shouting at it, and the one behind him charged forward at his exposed back. Braeburn tucked and rolled backward, underneath the leaping beast. His hooves came up under its gut, bucking at its ribs.

A crackling sound and it limped away, breath coming in harsh gasps. He’d hurt it, but even though he had he took a hit from the first one, its claws swiped at him, lodging in his shoulder. He punched the paw stabbing him and it broke away, the creature stumbling, but now Braeburn was injured. He limped, watching them both.

They jumped, screeching, at the same time. Braeburn widened his stance, ready to accept the attack… and found himself back in the cave.


“Mister, are you okay?” Scootaloo asked. She came trotting up the moment he appeared, looking with concern at his wound.

Braeburn winced and reached up to his shoulder. He pulled out the beast’s claw, and a fresh line of blood trickled down. A closer look showed the claw to be as big as one of his hooves. It was feline in shape, but those beasts weren’t anything familiar to him. Not bison, that’s for sure.

“I don’t’ know what that was, but I’m assuming I failed?”

“You did, mister.” Scootaloo nodded, holding a strip of cloth to his wound. “You should wrap that up.”

Braeburn growled. “I don’t even know what it was I failed! I failed because I died? What was the test? How is that a test?” Braeburn angrily ripped the cloth out of Scootaloo’s hooves and tied it securely over the injury. His vest was stained, and rubbed the injury painfully, but he wasn’t going to get rid of it. He stood up and picked up his lantern, stomping forward. “Ridiculous.”

	“You only have one more test, mister. Are you sure you can handle it? Do you want to stop?”

Braeburn waved behind them, where the creatures hiding in the darkness were swarming about outside the lantern’s light. Their pool of illumination was all they had for safety. There would be no other way to go but forward. “We can’t turn back. I’ve come too far to let the Stranger get away, and I get the feeling we won’t be allowed to go back. I was fated for this, remember?”

“But what about me? Why curse me with your own foolishness. Why am I here except to try and guide you? You don’t care what happens to me?”

“Of course I care, kid, but I have to worry about myself, too! I can’t have come all this way for nothing or my entire work would have been pointless! I need to make sure I didn’t leave home for nothing!”

“Your home lies behind you, I am beside you, and your future lies ahead. A future of a different sort that has nothing to do with the Stranger, but you’re too fixated to see it, and that’s why you’ll fail.”

Braeburn stared at Scootaloo. Something shifted past in the shadows and he tried to follow it, hooves at the ready. Scootaloo blinked at him when he looked back at her. “Am I talking to Braeburn Scootaloo or mister Scootaloo?”

Scootaloo sighed. “We’re the same Scootaloo, mister. I can’t explain it in a way you’ll listen to.”

Braeburn snorted and kept walking, frustrated and angry. Lies from all sides, or not lies, and merely half-truths. Both were bad enough by themselves, but together they would become nightmarish. Was he truly destined to just fail at everything? Scootaloo had said he would fail three tests, but come out the other side, so he would live, but did he want to live with such failures?

“And what comes next? You’ve showed me success but hatred, light overtaken by darkness, what’s the final step? Going to show me family but death?”

“Yes.”

Braeburn’s head whipped around to glare at Scootaloo. She jumped in surprise. “It wasn’t me! I didn’t say that!”

She was right, it wasn’t her voice. Someone else had spoken, someone in the darkness. The Stranger? Was he here to watch Braeburn struggle and fail? With his lead he could have been all the way across Equestria by now. Was he so intent on Braeburn that he would come back? “Then who did?”


Somepony dashed out from behind a rock up ahead, sprinting into the darkness. Braeburn shouted and chased him, and Scootaloo brought up the rear.

“Mister, slow down! Don’t leave me behind!” she shouted, trying to be heard over his own angry yells.

Braeburn growled as the Stranger pulled ahead, clambering over mining rails and slipping under partially-collapsed tunnels. Braeburn and Scootaloo followed, but they were always behind him. No matter how close they got, he pulled ahead. Scootaloo needed help with the humps, her wing got caught on a bit of wood, her hoof twisted. Every time he thought he was close, Scootaloo stopped him from reaching the Stranger. He touched a hoof, grasped a cloak, but always, always the Stranger got away.

“Keep up!” Braeburn growled at Scoolatoo. They were chasing the Stranger across a rickety old mining bridge for the carts but Scootaloo was having difficulty clambering across the wide spaces between the railway ties.

“I’m trying, mister!”

Braeburn growled again and picked her up, dropping her on his back. He raced ahead, keeping pace with the Stranger. Now that Scootaloo was no longer holding him up, he was gaining ground. He could see the Stranger, just ahead, turning dark corners, taking hidden paths, and ducking around stalagmites. He would have him soon!

They came out of a tunnel into a rushing sound. Braeburn’s little lantern showed a rickety bridge with the Stranger running across it. He raced out after him, feeling his excitement rise. “I’ve got you now! No one outruns an Apple in a straightaway!”

He galloped out, hooves clattering on the wood. The bridge swayed slightly, but that was no obstacle to Braeburn. He could see the dark shape of the Stranger getting closer, closer, and closer still, until he was in the lantern’s light. Braeburn took out the claw from the beast and leaped!


The claw slammed down, but all he pinned to the bridge was a cloak. The Stranger inside it was gone, with only a laugh left behind. The high-pitched sound of a train whistle filled the tunnel and the bridge shook. Scootaloo lost her grip and tumbled off his back, falling off the edge of the bridge.

“Ahhh!”

Braeburn watched her fall, but his eyes were focused on the far end of the bridge. A dark shape was outlined in the tunnel, standing in front of the train’s headlight. It waved to him, mockingly.

“Mister, help!” Scootaloo’s cries made him reluctantly pull his gaze from the tunnel ahead where the Stranger waited. He looked over the edge to see Scootaloo clinging to the beams of the bridge, wings buzzing frantically.

“What the hell, kid, aren’t you a Pegasus?” Braeburn demanded, annoyance creeping into his voice. She’d been nothing but a thorn in his side, mocking him, insulting him, and telling him he’d fail, and now she was a flightless Pegasus?

“I can’t fly! I’ve never been able to fly!”

“Oh my Celestia…” Braeburn cursed. He reached down but couldn’t quite make it. She was just out of reach. He lamented the loss of his rope and bucket now, but he needed out of that pit. He looked back around at what was nearby, seeing on the cloak of the Stranger… the cloak of the Stranger!

Braeburn’s gaze snapped back around to the light in the tunnel that hadn’t gotten any closer. The Stranger still stood, staring at Braeburn as though he were the sole thing blocking the train. The Stranger suddenly dashed off, disappearing from view. Braeburn jumped to his feet, moving forward.

“Mister!”

Braeburn halted and turned to look.

Scootaloo’s terrified gaze turned to disdain. “Go then, Braeburn. There are other worlds than this.” She let go, and was gone.

Without Scootaloo to worry about, Braeburn tore off down the bridge. The Stranger was gone and only that bright light and ominous whistle was coming from the tunnel ahead. This fake train was waiting inside for him, ready to strike at any moment but unwilling to move forward? Braeburn didn’t know, but thanked the stars that there were no tracks.

The whistling continued until he turned the corner, then the train immediately barged past the entrance tearing across the bridge on tracks that hadn’t existed just a moment before. Braeburn stumbled and dropped his lantern, breaking it on the stone beneath his hooves. The oil flared to life, illuminating the Stranger’s face just on the other side of the new wall of fire he had created.

“Braeburn… the one town that holds the pieces together, and you couldn’t keep it together. Couldn’t protect it. Poor little Braeburn.” The Stranger was on the other side of the fire, standing in front of another door like the one he had entered the mines through. The Stranger opened it and bright light spilled through, and then he was gone.

Braeburn leaped through the fire, racing for the door. Before it closed, he slammed his shoulder into it and burst through… to stumble through sand.

He was on a beach, with grey crustaceans covering the edge of the surf, milling about the moist sands. He fell, tripping on seaweed-covered dunes. He tried to catch himself but ended up fumbling to his face, losing his hat. He pulled himself up, grimacing at the harsh, warm sands covering his fur. He snorted, blowing out sand and dragged himself up.


The crustaceans, which looked like lobsters, crackled and rumbled as they moved about. They were helmeted, with long, whiplike tails. Cracks ran down their helmets and abdomens, snaking through their claws, looking for all the world like they were made of stone. A blue sky loomed overhead, but despite searching, Braeburn saw no sign of the Stranger.

He took a step and the sun brightened, overwhelming him.

He saw, from a vantage point high above Equestria, a circle of golden light. From that light a line traveled off into the darkness, headed somewhere he couldn’t see. It beamed outward, and when he flew up to follow it he saw more lights, more circles, and more beams from multiple places all heading toward a singular point in the distance. He got a glimpse of a shadow, a great shape in the distance like the Stranger’s silhouette, looming over the world below. He saw it, then he fell.

He twisted in mid-air and dropped, Equestria laid out before him. He didn’t scream, and didn’t want to, but he felt the wind blowing at his fur as he fell. He saw Appleoosa, his home, glowing golden below him among the rest of the dull, drab world. He aimed for it and plummeted…

And then there was darkness.

The End.