Chapter One: Out of the Stable

The walls of the maintenance stalls were all a very monotonous, dull grey. The particular wall I was staring at had the merit of being a very clean grey. PipBucks were notoriously hardy and reliable, so being the Stable’s PipBuck Technician meant that there were long periods of nothing to do. Being the PipBuck Technician’s apprentice meant that I was assigned all the mundane daily chores while my trainer took extended naps in the back room. Chores like cleaning the walls.

I let myself fantasize, picturing the Overmare agreeing and ordering Palette herself to turn our entire stall into one of her brightly colorful masterpieces. Palette was the greatest painter in Stable Two, and like every skilled artist, that made her a stable treasure. Life in Stable Two inevitably began to eat at your spirit – you were born in the Stable, you lived your whole life in the Stable, you were going to die there, and the course of your life was largely laid out for you to see by your Cutie Mark Party. So the Overmare insisted that a new song be added to the Stable broadcast’s repertoire each week, that public areas were brightly painted and adored with uplifting and motivational murals, that regular parties were planned in the atrium… all in an effort to distract and stave off depression.

Reality came crashing back as I stared at the eternally blank grey. Beautifying maintenance areas was tragically low priority already, and the PipBuck Technician stall was one of the least trafficked parts of maintenance. I felt my ears droop as I started to realize that I’d be staring at this same grey wall nearly every day for the rest of my life.

And there she was. Velvet Remedy, the gorgeous charcoal-coated unicorn with streaks of color in her white mane and with a voice as smooth as silk and rich as finest chocolate, was standing in the doorway of my stall. I felt immediately grateful that I had finished the cleaning and simultaneously ashamed that the room was so beneath her.

I couldn’t believe she was standing there. I’d seen her on the stage above us at late parties; I’d listened to her songs incessantly, recording every new one on my PipBuck so that I didn’t have to wait to hear it again. I’ll admit it now, I’d had a crush on Velvet Remedy for years. Me and at least three hundred other ponies. My mother used to laugh at that. “LittlePip,” she would say, chortling with her friends, “Velvet Remedy’s barn door doesn’t swing that way.” It took me a couple years to understand what my mother had meant by that. And took me several seconds to process that Velvet Remedy had just asked me something.

Wonderful response, LittlePip. So elegant. I wanted to dig my way through the concrete floor and pull the chunks over the top of me.

She smiled sweetly. She smiled at me! And in that amazing voice, “You looked so heartbroken when I came in. Is there anything I can do?”

I was shocked back to my senses. Velvet Remedy must have some reason to be down here. Some PipBuck reason. It wasn’t like she would just go wandering around maintenance, after all. Looking around, I realized that I was the only pony on duty. My teacher was, as usual, asleep in his office.

“Oh… no, it was n-nothing.” I tried to regain composure. “How may I be of assistance?”

Velvet Remedy’s expression was both compassionate and unconvinced, but she lifted a forehoof, raising her PipBuck up to my gaze. A more elegant model than mine, with her initials and cutie mark (a beautiful bird with wings outstretched and beak opened in song) embellishing it tastefully. “I hate to be a bother, but it’s begun to chafe. Could you replace the padding?”

“Oh, absolutely!” I was already levitating the special keys used to unlock a PipBuck from a pony’s foreleg (as an apprentice PipBuck Technician, I had all manner of special precision tools in the pockets of my utility barding). “I’ll have it done in right quick!” The PipBuck came off with a click.

Velvet Remedy chuckled hesitantly, lowering her hoof. “Oh no, that’s all right. Take your time. I’m going to put some salve on this leg back in my room and rest up for the afternoon.”

That’s right! Velvet Remedy was performing at the Stable Two Saloon tomorrow night! I would have to polish it up, make it worthy of being worn above her hoof. If I spent all night on it, I could give it a full tune-up, have it running as smoothly as the day she got it, and still have it back to her before the show.

“All right! I’ll have it back to you by this time tomorrow. You won’t be disappointed. I promise!”

She smiled at me again, and all the grey in the world couldn’t darken my day. “Thank you.” And then she turned to go. I watched as her cutie mark disappeared around the doorway. Then she was gone.

The next day, I was whistling one of Velvet Remedy’s songs as I walked down the halls towards her room. Her PipBuck was hovering along beside me in a field of magical levitation, freshly padded with the best lining I could find, looking shiny and new. I was tired from a long night or work, but in high spirits. Velvet Remedy was going to be so happy with my work!

Turning the corner, I was startled out of my reverie by the mass of ponies gathered outside Velvet Remedy’s room. Damn, I was going to have to battle my way through hoof-print seekers and paparazzi. Levitating the PipBuck higher, I started to shove my way into the crowd.

“She’s gone!” “How could she leave?” The hushed voices and panicked whinnies around me grew alarming. “Why would she abandon us?”

And then the words that stopped me cold. “I didn’t think the Stable door even could open!”

“Don’t worry, everypony!” boomed the voice of the Overmare from somewhere in the crowd. “I have the tag of each and every pony in the Stable. I will personally send out a rescue party. We’ll have our Velvet back by the end of the day. Worry not.”

I felt I was drowning in cold, wet cement. My gaze slowly moved up towards the PipBuck floating above me.

I lowered my head, slowly trying to back out of the crowd, curling the floating PipBuck close. When the Overmare brought up Velvet Remedy’s tag, it would lead everypony not to Velvet but to her PipBuck sitting in the maintenance…

With a thump, I backed into somepony, startling me enough that the levitation field evaporated in a poof and the clean and shiny PipBuck clattered to the floor.

She didn’t speak, her gaze turning to the PipBuck on the ground. Velvet Remedy’s initials and cutie mark clearly visible.

All eyes turned to me. I could feel every pair of eyes. Nobody spoke. The silence bore down like a lead blanket. My mouth went dry. I couldn’t find my voice.

I didn’t need to. I could feel the wave of loathing. Dozens of Velvet Remedy fanponies, and I was the pony holding the reason why their idol was lost to them.

The Overmare’s voice was low and surprisingly gentle. “Take it and go to your room. Swiftly.”

I lay on my bed that evening, poking at Velvet Remedy’s PipBuck as the radio in my own played yet another re-iteration of the tragedy of the day.

I couldn’t believe it. Velvet Remedy was gone. I couldn’t understand. How could she leave? Why would she go?

The door out of Stable Two was closed and sealed. Only the Overmare knew the secrets to opening it, assuming it even could open. Which, obviously, it could.

But why? Nobody really knew what was outside, if there was anything out there at all. Historical books suggested the world outside was blasted, lifeless and poisonous. That was, at least, the common and logical assumption. But a ghost story somepony told at my first (and only) slumber party had given me horrible nightmares and still lurked in the shadows of my head: a tale of a pony who somehow got the Stable door open and stepped outside… only to find out that there was no outside! Just a great nothingness that whisked the pony away, devouring her soul so that she was nothingness too.

Empirically, I knew that wasn’t the case, but the mental image still haunted me.

The two things I did understand was that Velvet Remedy had gotten me to remove her PipBuck so the Overmare couldn’t track her with it, and that I was screwed.

Being the smallest pony my age, and the last to get my cutie mark, did not facilitate building friendships with my peer ponies. Mother honestly didn’t help either. Nor did waking up screaming at my first slumber party. So I was used to being alone. But I’d never had enemies before. I’d been beneath the notice of other ponies, but I’d never had one hate me.

I really couldn’t blame them either, even though it totally wasn’t fair. They were upset and hurt and needed a scapegoat. The news hadn’t mentioned me by name, just “Velvet Remedy’s custom-decorated PipBuck was found in the possession of a PipBuck Technician pony”, but with a whole two of us, it wasn’t hard for everypony to figure out, even without the scene outside her room earlier.

The Overmare was speaking on the radio. “We are all feeling this loss. But I want to remind everypony that Velvet Remedy chose to do this. She chose to leave her home. To abandon us, her family. She betrayed my trust and she betrayed yours, just as she betrayed the trust of the pony who she tricked into removing her PipBuck, ensuring we could not find her. I know many of you are angry or hurt. I urge you to direct that anger where it truly belongs…”

As thankful as I was for her words, it wasn’t going to change the resentment that I would face every day, even if every pony kept it to themselves. It hung in the air like old smoke.

I distracted myself with the errant PipBuck, taking note of an encrypted file. I had spotted it yesterday, figuring it was probably an unfinished new song. I didn’t want to open it then, both out of respect for Velvet Remedy’s privacy and a dislike of spoilers, but I guessed it didn’t matter anymore. The song would never be played.

Opening a pouch on my utility barding, I withdrew an access tool that would allow me to remove the encryption safely and easily. It was a sound file. I played it.

I shot up in surprise at what I had heard. Swiftly, I turned off the radio and played it again.

I didn’t recognize the voice. It was female, kinda sweet, and had a strange accent that didn’t sound like anyone in the Stable. But now I knew how Velvet Remedy left.

I must have sat there for hours, contemplating what I should do. But finally, I made my choice.

I stood there, staring at the huge steel door that sealed Stable Two away from the horrors (or nothingness!) outside. And at the two guard ponies who blocked my way. I had my saddlebags packed with apples and necessities. Even a Big Book of Arcane Sciences for something to read. I had two canteens around my neck. I was ready to go. But the Overmare was making sure there were no follow-up acts.

Insistence and glowering looks weren’t getting me anywhere. My horn was glowing, but they stood their ground, unimpressed. They weren’t going to let me anywhere near the control panel.

“Hey, aren’t you the filly who let our Velvet get lost outside anyway?” one of the guards inquired daringly, taking a bullying step forward. The other guard looked away in disgust. I’m not sure if he was disgusted at me, or if he felt like the Overmare seemed to about ponies wanting to take it out on me. I was kinda hoping it was the former, considering what I was about to do to them.

The metal footlocker above them dropped onto their heads, knocking both out cold. Earth ponies – they never see that levitating-something-up-behind-you trick coming.

I was at the controls, entering the passcode from Velvet Remedy’s PipBuck when the Overmare’s voice boomed through nearby speakers.

My hooves flew up to the main switch for the door, and I prayed to Celestia that the code worked. Then, with all my strength, I threw the switch.

A loud clanging filled the air, followed by a hissing of steam and a great rumble that shook the room. As I watched, the massive bolt that held the door from Stable Two shut slid back. A huge hinge-arm swung down, attaching itself to the door, and with a teeth-hurting squeal, pulled the massive steel door out and away.

Randomly, I found myself thinking in my mother’s voice “Stable Two’s barn door doesn’t swing that way.” The door to Stable Two wasn’t supposed to swing at all. Even though I threw the switch, I was stunned to see it actually open.

“You don’t have to do this… LittlePip, isn’t it?” The Overmare’s voice kicked me out of my stupor. I could hear the hooves of galloping guards drawing near.

For a moment, the unfairness stung. The Overmare was willing to send out a search party to bring Velvet Remedy back. But then, Velvet was special, and I was… not.

Part of me wanted to turn back right there, crawl back to my room and my dreary but safe life.

With a final hiss and clang, the steel door of Stable Two closed irrevocability behind me.

I don’t know what I expected to find just beyond the door, but it certainly wasn’t this long, dark hallway that smelled of rotting timbers and sepulcher air. I was no longer in the Stable. But I wasn’t outside yet either. I was in limbo.

I turned on my PipBuck’s light, and recoiled with a gasp at the skeletons of long-dead ponies which littered the hall. The outside of the Stable door was marred from where ponies had slammed on it until their hooves cracked and shattered, trying to get in.

Moving forward quickly, I discovered that the hallway opened into an old room with stairs leading up to a horizontal door with a shattered lock. The entrance from the outside world into Stable Two had been cleverly disguised as the door to a humble apple cellar. And by disguised, I meant that the person who built it had been building an apple cellar.

Taking a deep breath, I trotted up the stairs, swung open the cellar door, and stepped outside.

Footnote: Level Up.

New Perk: Cherchez La Filly – +10% damage to the same sex and unique dialogue options with certain ponies.