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RogerDodger
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Sedisti Saxo
The rock rolled back down the hill, nearly crushing her, as it did every time she reached this point.
"It has to be me," Derpy said for at least the twentieth time since she'd left Ponyville. "Remember what Rainbow Dash said."
As she pushed her wings harder and faster than she ever had in her life, the dark, twisted treetops of the Everfree Forest became a black-green blur to her left. The wind whistled past her ears, drawing her words away into the creamy orange of dawn. She scanned the horizon with her good eye, looking for the telltale river mouth and standing cairns that marked the entrance to Equestria's Underworld.
"It has to be me," she said again, worrying her lower lip and swallowing back a balloon-like lump that had bubbled up into her throat. "It just has to be."
She was momentarily confused, but she didn't let that stop her. Throwing her shoulder against the rock, she began to move it back toward the slope. This time, she'd been lucky: it hadn't bounced too far on the downward descent. With less distance to retake, she could no doubt make it to the pinnacle this time around.
It was just... She could have sworn this place was different when she started. There had been pillars, white stone ones, like something out of a history book, but now the vista around her was pastoral, with a windmill and barn. The ground had been different too: hard and craggy rather than muddy and yielding. There wasn't any real clear moment in her memory when things had changed; she just couldn't shake the feeling that they had.
She calculated that she had eight pony lengths to go. The slope was only about four ponies high, but it was angled in a way that a more knowledgeable pony would have termed exponential, and the path to travel was far longer than the rise. Much like with the change in scenery, she wasn't sure when she'd gotten so good at figuring angles. It seemed to happen around the time her mane went all limp over her eye, no doubt from one too many slips into the mud. She might have sworn that was the moment when everything changed, too, had she thought about it.
It was silly, of course. Plots of land didn't change shape in the blink of an eye. Temples built on volcanoes didn't suddenly start looking like your childhood home. No matter. Once she got this rock to the top of the hill, everything would be fine and she could go home again. All it required was some dogged persistence, and maybe a little of the old earth pony strength. Sure, moving rocks wasn't the sort of thing she spent a lot of time doing, not now anyway, but she had it, sure as sugar, and besides, she'd eaten an extra cupcake before leaving this morning.
"That was this morning, right?"
As she paused to ask herself the question, the rock slipped, threatening to flatten her. She clammed up and heaved, steadying it though her back hooves sunk into the mud. Just one more step, and then one more after that, she told herself. Think of the rock farm. This is just like when you were a filly.
"I'm here!" Derpy let out a whoop, then sank as quickly as she could to the ground. Not being a distance flyer, she had been unprepared for the trip, and for the next few minutes she lay in the cool grass as the morning sun washed over her, just taking deep breaths and doing everything she could not to move.
"This... Is the place... All right!"
The book had warned about the river, but it was still a tremendous effort not to dunk her head into it immediately. She had spotted at least one white thing that she couldn't convince herself had not been a pony skeleton. They were all the more reminder she needed as to the river's effects on unwary travelers who sought to drink from it.
The trees overhead were the last between her and her goal. The countryside as far as she could see spread out in dusty desert foothills backed by the mountains southeast of Ponyville. It was, she reflected, a county both desolate and lonesome, but she wasn't about to let that deter her. From her back, the two cairns beyond the river looked like a W.
"W is for... Water! But don't drink it. And wendigoes! But they're bad! And, uh... Watermelon!" She frowned. "Now I'm hungry."
She rolled to her hooves and shook the grass off herself. "Silly pony, stop getting distracted! It's not just the river that's gonna make you forget why you came out here!"
Yet she wouldn't even have known about the river had she not been such a silly pony in the first place. Twilight Sparkle and her friends had shrugged off her requests for help finding the tome of Tartarus lore. Fluttershy in particular had given her a pitying look. And when Derpy had located the book and dragged it off to a corner to read, at least one of them had uttered the phrase "She's just being Derpy."
Yet even Rainbow Dash had looked scared after they returned without Pinkie. Seeing such a brave mare look so helpless had been the galvanizing moment for Derpy. If the Elements of whatever they were couldn't come up with a plan to save their friend, then it would be up to Ditzelina "Derpy Hooves" Doo to come through, with her bag of muffins and her crazy bravado and her head full of just a few useful facts about Tartarus that began and ended with the river because she had gotten distracted from the book.
Ahead, beyond the river and the cairn and the golden gates that lay between them, she could just make out the dark cave entrance beyond. Even from this distance, it looked hungry, laying in wait beneath the mountain. That balloony feeling returned.
"It has to be me," she whispered. "It's gotta be me."
Dig in right fore and left hind.
When she had begun, the boulder had rolled. Now it was so caked in mud, as she was, that it more slid through the grime as she pushed. Pony, stone and ground were becoming one. With a slight chuckle, she wondered if maybe she couldn't just wear away the hill and pack it all onto the boulder. Would that let her accomplish her task?
Push with right shoulder.
That was the first chuckle she'd had since she started this. When had she started? And when was he going to get back? He said he'd be right back.
Roll head across stone's surface. Brace with left shoulder.
Work this monotonous really did remind her of being back home on the rock farm, especially since she wasn't laughing or smiling or even talking much. Funny, that; when had she started thinking of the farm as 'home' again?
Dig in left fore and right hind.
It wasn't as though she'd left in shame or anything. Everypony had to get out on their own after a while. She just hadn't ever looked back. She barely thought about her parents or her sisters unless somepony asked for her cutie mark story, and it wasn't like they'd tried to keep in touch with her either. Was she missing something? Should she maybe have gone back once or twice over the past few years to visit that dusty, dingy, dull grey old place?
Push with left shoulder. Only three pony lengths to go.
That the pony in the ferry boat was nothing but bones in a black robe should not, in hindsight, have come as a surprise to Derpy. But, being as she was a mare who was not used to going on grand adventures or encountering anything more dangerous than particularly large spiders, the sight of the moving, talking skeleton severely unnerved her, to say the least.
"Be strong, Derpy," she murmured. "Just remember, you're doing this for Pinkie."
During the attack on Ponyville that had set this whole crazy escapade in motion, Derpy had done what she could to help. She thought it was her bravest moment ever. Under the direction of the ever-fearless, so she thought, Rainbow Dash, she had helped the Weather Patrol construct a cloud wall to herd the hydra into Sweet Apple Acres, away from the main population center of the downtown area. Her task complete, she then flew home in a panic to hug her daughter, hide in a closet, and tell both of them that everything was going to be okay.
It was fine, though; she'd done her part and then she could leave the rest to ponies braver than she. Until this moment, that was as brave as Derpy thought she'd ever need to be.
"Gotta be brave." She gritted her teeth. "Be brave for Pinkie."
She took a step toward the boat as it came alongside the riverbank. Though the waters obviously flowed, the river was glassy, fathomless and quiet as a tomb.
"Wouldst thou cross the river?"
The voice was like a nail scraping against the dry rot of floorboards that had not been trod upon in centuries. She couldn't be certain it had actually come from the ferry pony; she simply heard it. Swallowing, she nodded.
"And how wilt thou pay the toll, living pony?"
Derpy reached a trembling hoof into her saddlebag and pulled out a paper-wrapped package.
"I-I-I brought you a muffin, mister!" She held it forth, and the paper rattled as her hoof shook.
The muffin and its wrapping lifted from her hoof, without the telltale glow of magical manipulation. It sailed silent over to the ferry pony, who observed it with an unwavering gaze.
"I do not eat." The voice was somehow sardonic, and Derpy got the feeling that if the being before her possessed skin, it would have raised an incredulous eyebrow at her. The muffin continued on its path, sailing over the ferry pony's shoulder. Derpy's eyes grew wide.
"Wait, muffin, no!"
Heedless of her prior temerity, Derpy surged forward over the river. The ferry pony's head following her sluggishly, as though the creature's long existence had made it unused to surprise and it now had to remember how, precisely, to react. Despite her earlier exertions, Derpy's adrenaline fueled her dive into and then past the muffin, which she caught neatly before landing on the opposite riverbank.
She let out a small cheer, prancing in place, before remembering herself and turning to give the ferry pony a bashful look.
"Umm, sorry, mister. I guess I didn't need your help after all." Biting her lower lip, she held up the muffin. "Are you sure ya don't want this?"
In response, the skeletal pony and boat sank slowly beneath the surface of the river, making not a sound and leaving no ripples. Derpy watched, rapt, and then blinked a few times after the apparition had vanished. She put the muffin back into her bag and turned toward the gates with a shrug.
"He was funny!"
At one and a half pony lengths, the slope took a sudden upturn. This was the tricky part. But she'd gotten within a pony length of the summit before, and she could do it again.
Sweat plastered her mane against her eyes and she paused a moment to brush it away. Yet even in that moment, she was not motionless. Her rear legs were columns of tension, straining against the inexorable gravity that wanted to send the stone plummeting back down the hill.
She lowered her head and pushed. No rock would defeat her.
That kind of determination might have served her well on the rock farm, had she possessed it then. She'd never cared much for rocks. Moving them from one field to another, the only thing to listen to was her father's incessant chatter about which rocks were doing what, what geodes were ripening, and where a given stone could be placed to get the best sun and wind that day. Though she saw the amazing lodes and crystals that grew inside her family's multitudes of boring, grey rocks, it just seemed like a lot of work for nothing, and she had often wondered what might happen if they simply left the rocks alone.
Such thoughts were best kept to oneself, though. Her father had always taken a hard eye to criticism of the "family way." She hadn't been the only one to resent him for it, even if that resentment had evaporated in her quest to earn her cutie mark. The joy she had felt during that first party had not been something to withhold from anypony.
And yet when she left, she had taken all that joy with her. What did they do without her? Was it the same old joyless drudgery? Had she consigned her sisters to a grey, humorless existence?
She shoved hard and the boulder slid forward, then stopped with force that shook her to the bone. The rise became treacherous in these last few hoof lengths. She gritted her teeth and pushed, putting the entirety of her being into moving the blockage before her.
Her tongue extended from the corner of her mouth. Her shoulders ached. Her mother called her in for dinner, told her to stop lollygagging with the party decorations. Her rear left slipped, but she held fast, drawing strength from the earth and regaining her footing in a heartbeat. She squeezed her eyes shut against the pain. This time, she would make it.
The ground shifted beneath her. Her eyes snapped open and she saw the mud and dirt move. The shape of the hill changed, rising, pressing the boulder back against her. Try as she might, she could not move it that last final inch. With a cry of ultimate frustration that threatened to tear her throat, she willed the boulder to move.
It rocked backward and crushed her.
Before the eerie unworldliness of the skeletal ferry pony, Derpy had felt ill at ease, as though looking at something that should not exist. It was unnerving, but she did not feel unduly anxious, nor in danger. Here, at the golden gates to the underworld, with their molded spines and lightning bolts that hinted at what lay beyond, under the gaze of the gates' guardian, she found herself feeling very small, very helpless, and very edible.
The three heads of Cerberus snarled down at her with a mix of hunger, anger and cruel, mad rage. The black beast's fangs dripped with saliva, its sinews tensed to strike at a moment's notice. Having walked to within range of an easy leap before spotting the creature, Derpy could not be certain that was not now in mortal danger. Luckily, she had a plan.
Think about Pinkie. Pinkie Pie, who was trapped in the underworld for reasons her friends hadn't really been sure of. Something about helping another pony who was trapped there, and the rest of them being forced out by the Lord of Tartarus.
You can do it, Derpy.
Never taking her good eye from Cerberus, she slowly reached to the clasp of her saddlebag and unlatched it. The click drew the attention of two of the heads, and the monster dog growled a warning. It took all of Derpy's willpower not to flee while squealing in fright, which no doubt would have made her a more appealing prey.
"Now now, Mister Nice Giant Nasty Triple Dog, sir," she said, trying to coo as best she could through the fear. "You don't want to eat me, nuh-uh! I'm all strings and feathers, that's what my mama told me. What you want is a nice, juicy muffin!"
She tossed the package upward. The response was immediate. Cerberus's left head shot forward, snatching it out of the air. Crumbs and shreds of paper floated serenely to the ground. The other two heads watched her in anticipation
"And by a muffin," Derpy said quickly, fishing in her bag, "I of course mean three muffins!"
Again, the terrible creature's heads demolished the wrapped muffins thrown at them. And then, perversely, the monster seemed to calm down. The snarling lips softened into what might be generously described as smiles. The right head's tongue lolled out of its mouth.
Derpy was then overcome with terror as all three heads descended on her, snuffling and licking with tongues so rough she was afraid they would strip the feathers from her wings. It quickly became apparent to her that they were not trying to eat her, only her bags.
It was a brief struggle. With a cry of "No, my precious muffins!" Derpy toppled over. Her bags were quickly relieved of their cargo, not to mention copious amounts of canvas. The muffin-shaped metal clips, custom crafted for her, disappeared in the scuffle with a clink. Within moments, she had been divested of her entire stockpile of muffins, her only means of defense against the horrendous creatures that surely lay ahead.
Cerberus, making noises of contentment, licked Derpy's entire body with all three tongues. This not only righted her but made her mane stand on end, and also cleaned off the large amount of mucus that had been deposited on her by three large, wet canine noses. She stood, twitching slightly, feeling rather frizzed, as the terrifying Guardian of the Gates of Tartarus lumbered over to said gates, turned around three times, and lay down.
Derpy shook herself, the drool spiraling off in long, thick strands, and surveyed the ruin of her saddlebags.
"Aww, all my muffins!" She sniffed, then scowled at Cerberus, shaking a hoof at him. "You big greedy-heads!"
All she got in response was a pair of smiles, the third head having settled down to nap already. The others followed suit.
With a deep breath, Derpy stomped past Cerberus to the gates. Up close, she could see that the surface was not actually made of gold, but of numerous tiny filaments that reflected light in just the right ways to appear gold. Those filaments looked like they could cut flesh easily. Thankfully, she did not have to touch them, as the gates swung open at her approach. Her only other welcome was a pile of ashes, grey and dry, that bore a disconcerting resemblance to the outline of a pony on its side. It took every effort for her not to focus on the pale hard bits that stuck up from it as she passed through the gates and into the cave that had looked so much like a hungry mouth before.
The pain was unbelievable.
In the course of rolling that impossible boulder up that impossible hill, she had collected a myriad of scrapes and nicks across her fetlocks, her shoulders, and even her chin. Only now did she realize that those pains had been slight and fleeting, for the wounds had closed almost immediately after she got them, lasting just long enough to be felt.
This pain, in contrast, was a waterfall to the single raindrops of those scratches. The stone broke her skin and crushed her bones as it rolled over her. She felt herself die, only for that release to be wrested from her as the pain began anew. As the boulder settled at the bottom of the hill, her broken body knitted and reenacted in slow detail every ache that it had weathered over the past few seconds, in painstaking reverse detail.
The worst pain she had ever felt in her life had been a break of the left front cannon bone. It had taken weeks of bed rest to heal, weeks that she could have spent growing closer to her mother, her primary caretaker during that stretch. Even though nothing untoward had been said to her, she never could shake the feeling that her recuperation was seen as her shirking her duties on the farm once again.
Sitting beneath the rockslide, her foreleg screaming in pain and tears streaming down her cheeks, she had wanted nothing more than her mother to come and comfort her. After she had healed, she wanted nothing more than to turn her backside on the farm and never return. And right now, she wished more than anything that she could call out to her mother again, and that there would be some hope of being heard by her.
The tears began.
The worst part, past the pain, past the loneliness, past the feeling of utter, crushing helplessness, was that, after her body had pulled itself back together and the pain receded to an aching memory, all she could do was stand and drag herself behind the stone once again.
"I don't want to," she said softly, the tears choking her voice to a whisper. "Please, I'm done, I can't do this. Just let me stop."
There was nopony to hear her. She dug her hind legs into the mud, pressed her shoulder against the stone, and pushed.
"This dark cave is really dark!"
Derpy's voice echoed once off the black, craggy stone walls before being swallowed by silence. She gulped and pushed onward, over a floor that slanted downward just enough that she felt she was being led to certain doom.
"That's not a nice thought," she said with a half-hearted laugh. Her words and her laughter vanished into the cavern walls around her and she hunkered down, wishing fervently for some sort of company. "I wish I'd brought a light."
Stalagmites and stalactites jutted like teeth from the stone and loomed in the darkness, which grew and grew until they too vanished. Just when where she feared she would never see light again, Derpy spied a faint reddish glow ahead. Her step quickened to a trot, and the glow intensified as she approached.
The smile forming on her lips was short-lived, however. As the glow increased into light enough to see by, it became not warm and inviting, but fiendish and intimidating. Again her resolve faltered. The tunnel narrowed like a gullet, the red light at its end flaring.
And all at once, it widened into the lair of a terrible monster.
Squeaking in terror, Derpy spread her wings, instinctively launching into the air at the sight of numerous glistening fangs. She plastered herself against the ceiling, bumping her head. Heart pounding, she watched as the monster before her writhed and gnashed its teeth. And then, slowly, she realized that it wasn't coming for her, but thrashing in place.
The hydra, the very same monster that had terrorized her home not so long ago, was held inside a hollow in the wall behind stony teeth, snared by strange vines that seemed to grow from the rock itself. Try as it might, none of its many necks could break free from its prison.
Strangest of all was the metal sign next to it: a yellow square, set on point, that depicted in minor detail a multi-headed creature with numerous lines passing through it. Derpy realized, horrified, that not only was the hydra trapped by the vines and tooth-like stalactites, but by pointed rocks that speared up through its middle. She averted her eyes.
"It doesn't really serve you right, Mister Hydra," she said, her voice low, "but I can't help you either. Sorry I don't have any muffins to give you."
She slid to the floor, keeping to the wall, and continued around the corner until she stopped at the edge of a cliff. The cavern expanded out in every direction, and her eyes went wide as she took in a scene defined by creatures whose horror was outmatched only by the hideous tortures they underwent.
A pool of lava fed by a falls from beneath her hooves fed three molten rivers. In each one, small creatures screamed and writhed as dark forms poked them with spears, keeping them in the magma. The more she focused on those beings, the less distinct they appeared to be. Larger creatures had been chained, stabbed, torn apart by smaller monsters and suspended from the ceiling, dripping gore onto those unlucky captives below them. By each of these was a small metal sign, depicting precisely what punishment was being meted out. As much as Derpy wanted to tear her eyes away from the tableau spread beneath her, she could not stop staring at the horrible, gibbering beasts of Tartarus.
From behind her there came a sound, the echoing of a hammer striking an anvil. It struck that ruinous anvil directly, as though hungry for a sheet of metal, or anything at all, to pound flat. As the strikes continued, she recognized the meaning in their pattern: hoofbeats. She stood rooted to the spot as she realized that whatever it was came from the same direction she had, despite her having passed nopony else there.
"Why have you come here, living pony?"
The voice was thick and sludgy; it was like sandpaper scratched across the skin of a corpse. That particular form of address, "living pony," sent a shiver of absolute dread through her, a sensation that she was the one who should not be, here in this place. The hoofsteps drew closer, and she dared not look to their source. Then, all too suddenly, the hammer beats stopped, directly beside her, and a clawed red hand reached down and rested on her shoulder. It was surprisingly gentle.
"This is not a realm for the living," the voice said, cold despite the heat rising up from the pits of the damned below. "You must have come for some reason. Speak your peace and be gone."
Derpy's mouth had gone completely dry. She was shaking so hard that the tips of the claws on her shoulder were digging slightly into her flesh. She stammered, the word "I" dropping from her lips like so many marbles down the stairs.
The voice growled, irritable. "Speak!"
"I came for Pinkie Pie!"
The words seemed to be taken from her mouth rather than produced by any force of her will. The being beside her made a soft noise. Still she refused to look at it.
"Look, little pony, at my domain, and tell me what you see."
Derpy gazed petulantly over the depths of Tartarus. "I see monsters," she mumbled, "being tortured. It's horrible." She closed her eyes.
The voice chuckled briefly. "Tartarus is home to some of the worst creatures ever set loose upon Equestria. To keep them here requires great effort. Some can be caged; some must be held with pain, for if their minds were not so occupied they would surely bring ruin to all around them."
"What does that have to do with Pinkie?" Derpy immediately regretted interrupting, for the creature beside her snorted. She shrank back.
"Ponies like you are so kind and naïve," it said levelly. "Yet, once in a great while, one will be born with the potential for great evil. Should that potential be fulfilled, that pony merits being brought here, at the end of their life, to be punished eternally for their transgressions."
The voice became dark. "It was one such pony who dared bargain with me, and then bind me within my own domain. He was recovered and given his own eternal punishment for his transgressions."
The creature let out a long breath. Derpy glanced sideways at it and saw a tower of red, muscled flesh emerging from a black stallion's body where its neck should be. She averted her eyes.
"Pinkie Pie has taken on that punishment as her own," it continued. "She belongs to this realm now and forever." The fingers gripping her shoulder flexed. "You cannot save her, little pony. Best to turn and run before the horrors of this world destroy your mind, or you become lost as she has."
Derpy lowered her head. She'd come all this way, but for what? She couldn't save Pinkie; nopony could.
Then she blinked. She'd come all this way! She'd gotten past the ferry pony and Cerberus! Who said she couldn't save Pinkie, some creepy monster with no sense of personal space?
"No!" She lifted her head and flared her wings, brushing the hand from her side. She turned and caught a fleeting glimpse of a wide, red face, rimmed with black horns, and upturned fangs set in a permanent frown. The sight startled her enough that she was flying off the cliff before she even knew she had meant to.
The Lord of Tartarus watched her go, and chuckled.
Five pony lengths. The last words she'd said to her older sister had been thoughtless and hurtful. She hadn't meant them to be, of course. But she should have known better, known they would be taken as a slight, instead of encouragement as she'd intended.
She slipped on a loose rock and tumbled back to the bottom.
Six pony lengths. She had seen a hat like the one her father had always worn in a Canterlot storefront. She'd convinced herself that she didn't have the bits to buy it. She never went to Rarity's to have one custom made, like she told herself she would.
Her right knee gave out and she tumbled back to the bottom.
Two pony lengths. There had been a promise made to her little sister, to teach her how to play their grandmother's old piano. It remained unfulfilled because she left so suddenly.
Something that sounded like somepony beating a sheet of metal came from behind her and broke her concentration. The boulder simply pushed her through the mud, sliding her back to the bottom of the hill.
She turned her head, staring up at the oddly-placed metal sign depicting a pony pushing a boulder. That hadn't been there before. Its post had been dented by the impact of the posterior of a grey pegasus mare, who she recognized immediately, even if she couldn't believe the her presence here.
"Derpy, is that you?" Pinkie blinked hard, trying to wipe away the mirage. "What are you doing on my parents' rock farm?"
Derpy's eyes rolled around in her head until she shook it. She grinned down from her twisted perch. "Hi, Pinkie! I came to rescue you!"
Pinkie's brows furrowed. "Rescue me...?"
"Uh-huh!" Derpy attempted to free herself from the sign, but it had bent around her posterior snugly, impeding her extrication. She began to push with her front hooves against the sign, grunting. "Twilight Sparkle said that they needed a plan to get you out of here, and then Rainbow Dash said that I was the only mare crazy enough to fly into and out of Tartarus alone, and I knew a plan would take too long to make, so I did that and now here we both are!"
Pinkie stared at her for a long moment. Then, shaking her head, she put her shoulder to the stone and pushed.
"H-hey, wait!" Derpy called. "Don't just keep going! You can stop now, I'm here to take you home!"
"I am home!" Pinkie grunted. "And I can't stop until I've finished this, anyway. It wouldn't be fair to-- To whoever it is I'm helping if I just stopped before I was done pushing this rock!"
"But it's not your rock!" Derpy tried again, without success, to free herself from the signpost. "The pony you're helping is gone, the big creepy guy even told me so! So you've got nothing left to do anymore!"
"Gone?" Pinkie paused, and in doing so, slid back to the bottom of the hill. Then she shook her head, huffing. "Derpy, it doesn't matter. I've got to finish this. I can't leave yet, because I..."
Pinkie's lips moved soundlessly and her eyes scanned the ground. "Because... I don't deserve to. I'm a bad pony, Derpy, and I deserve to be here."
"What?" The force of Derpy's incredulity knocked her to the side, and she popped neatly out of the sign. Surprised, she turned back to it and giggled. "Oh, look at that! I just needed to think sideways!"
As Pinkie returned to the stone, Derpy flew over and floated beside her, all levity removed from her tone.
"Pinkie, what are you saying? You're not a bad pony at all! You're one of those, uh, Element thingies! I don't think you get to be one of those if you're a bad pony."
Pinkie struggled a moment with the desire to keep rolling and the desire to shove Derpy away. As she was still essentially at the bottom of the slope, she just let herself relax and turned to the interloper.
"Derpy, you don't know anything."
The grey mare shrank back from the force of Pinkie's voice. She ignored it and continued.
"I abandoned my family when I was a filly, because I didn't fit in." Pinkie's shoulder slumped. "I couldn't work things out with them, so I just left. And I haven't looked back since. I don't write them, I barely think about them." She closed her eyes, hugging herself. "I'm just so caught up in having fun and being with my friends and throwing parties that I don't have time for my family anymore."
She sniffed and turned to look at the rock farm around her. The windmill creaked dully, rocking back and forth as though there had been a breeze to move it once. If a breeze ever did come to move it again, it might just knock the barn off its termite-infested foundation. In the distance, beyond a soft rise, sat the farmhouse. There was a hole in the roof.
She waved her hoof at the scene, saying, "That's why I'm here," and then turned her shoulder back to the stone. "So I can make amends."
There was a long period of silence as Pinkie got the rock rolling once more. She had traveled an entire pony length when Derpy huffed. "That's dumb and doesn't make any sense!"
"What?"
Pinkie turned her head and the boulder slipped, rolling over her right fore with a sickening crack. She screamed and Derpy cried out in alarm, but the bones began knitting immediately, as they always did. She steeled herself, keeping the leg off the ground until it was healed, and then moved back to the start to begin anew.
"Pinkie, your leg!" Derpy floated into her field of vision, blocking her from the stone.
"It's fine, Derpy." Pinkie couldn't keep the irritation from her voice. "Look, why don't you just fly on out of here and leave me alone? I got hurt because you distracted me."
She moved toward the boulder once more, but Derpy stayed in her way.
"No, Pinkie." She crossed her forelegs over her chest and frowned. "I don't know a whole lot of stuff, but I do know this isn't how you make amends for anything."
"But I..."
"Can you tell me what it is you're trying to do?" Derpy raised an eyebrow. Over her lazy eye, the effect was comical.
Pinkie looked at her askance. "I'm... trying to get this rock to the top of the hill."
"Uh-huh." Derpy looked at her hoof. "And how many times have you done that?"
"Well, none, but I--"
"Mm-hmm." Derpy snorted. "I see that every time you lose your grip, you have to come back down here. So how close have you gotten to the top?"
"What?"
Derpy threw her hooves up, shaking her head like she was dealing with a particularly recalcitrant filly. "You've been doing for a while now, haven't you? You haven't gotten to the top, but you should be getting better with each try! But since I got here, I've seen you do nothing but slip again and again." She leaned forward, pressed her nose against Pinkie's. "So tell me: how close have you gotten?"
"I..." Pinkie's eyes scanned the ground. "I almost made it, once."
"Once?" Derpy clucked her tongue and shook her head. "Just once?"
Pinkie took a step back. "I did, really! But then the ground moved and..." Her mouth went dry. "And the boulder rolled over me..."
"The ground moved? Really?" Derpy snorted again. "You're not just making excuses, are you?"
"No!" Pinkie scowled at her. "I saw it move with my own eyes! It kept the boulder from reaching the top! Otherwise, I would have done it..." She trailed off, her mind racing.
Derpy landed and placed a hoof gently on her shoulder. "Pinkie, it sounds to me like somepony doesn't want you to get that rock up that hill."
Pinkie gritted her teeth, shutting her eyes.
"You're not making amends or being punished, Pinkie. You're being tortured. That's what this place is for. I saw all kind of creatures being tortured when I came here. It's time to stop, Pinkie, you don't deserve this."
Pinkie scrubbed at her eyes. "But how can I ever make it up to my family? Nopony should be forgotten like that."
Derpy rolled her good eye, the other doing... something. "Uh, you go write them a letter and say you're sorry, duh! But you can't write letters here, so we have to get you out first, okay?"
Pinkie smiled for the first time in what felt like ages. "Okay, Derpy."
With a large grin, Derpy took to the air again and led Pinkie away from the farm. But as she got about two pony lengths from the boulder, something stopped her.
"Um, Derpy?"
"Huh? What is it?"
Pinkie pushed forward, but something was holding her back. Panic rose in her throat. "Derpy, I can't leave! It's like there's a wall here!"
"Oh no!" Derpy threw her hooves around her ears, worrying her lower lip. "What do we do?"
Pinkie swallowed. "I think that... maybe I have to get the boulder up the hill first before I can leave."
"But that's impossible! The ground's cheating!"
Pinkie stood and held out her hooves; she was actually able to lean forward and rest against the air. She looked up to Derpy and shook her head, then turned and walked slowly back to the stone.
"I'm not gonna let you do this alone," Derpy said, zipping up beside her and landing. "If you have to get that rock up that hill, then you can count on me to help you!"
"You would do that?" Pinkie felt that smile threatening to return.
"Of course!" Derpy grinned wide. "What are friends for? I'm not exactly gonna leave ya hangin' here."
Pinkie held out her hoof and Derpy bumped it.
"Thanks, Derpy." She set herself, glaring at the boulder. "Now let's get that rock up this hill!"
Overhead, the sky darkened. The windmill began to creak loudly. They each threw a shoulder against the stone and started pushing.
Rain began to fall, lightly at first, but between their hooves and the rolling boulder, the ground was soon a thick morass that impeded their progress more than anything Pinkie had encountered previously. The wind howled in their ears. Pinkie slipped, but Derpy was able to keep the stone in place until she had regained her footing. Derpy's smile filled her with determination and a sense that maybe, just maybe, they could do this.
Ten pony lengths to go. Lightning crackled across the sky and thunder boomed. She would start by telling her mother she was sorry they never talked.
Eight pony lengths. They heard the barn collapse, but neither of them looked at it. She'd find a gift to bring her younger sister, maybe a nice hoof-made dress or a hat.
Six pony lengths. The ground was now a rushing stream of water beneath them and they slipped with each step. If not for the driving rain washing their coats clean, they would both be covered head to hooves in mud.
Four pony lengths. She would tell her older sister she was sorry.
Three. She would tell her father she was sorry.
Two. She would tell them all how much she loved them.
"We're almost there!" Derpy shouted over the rain.
The windmill collapsed in a howl of screeching metal. Pieces of what appeared to be roofing tiles assailed them. Derpy did her best to knock them away with her wings, and saved them from the worst.
Then, with a tremendous, deep roar, the ground began to shift.
"It's cheating!" Derpy cried, though she was barely audible through the maelstrom. She flapped her wings and, though it was obvious that the force of the wind made flight a struggle, she began to push against the upper portion of the boulder.
"C'mon, Pinkie, we have to lift it! Hurry and we can beat this!"
Pinkie looked to the bottom of the rock and hesitated. She'd been flattened beneath it too many times. The torture of being crushed and uncrushed was too much; the pain was too acute and too recent. She closed her eyes.
"Come on, Pinkie Pie, we're almost there! I can't do this alone!"
Pinkie's eyes snapped open. With a roar that shook the earth, she surged forward and jammed her head into the mud beneath the stone's base. The muscles in her back and neck ripped and tore. She screamed, pain and fury mixing as she lifted the entire stone with the might of one born of the earth. All Derpy had to do was guide it to the crest of the hilltop, where it landed with a resounding boom.
The wind and rain ceased immediately, though the clouds lingered. Pinkie collapsed onto the stone, crying with a mix of hurt and triumph that she hadn't thought possible.
"Whoo!" Derpy flew out in front of them, pumping her hooves victoriously. And then she began to sing.
"Pinkie Pie is the best! She passed the rock-rollin' test! Now she can get the hay outta here! And, uh, she'll never have nothin' to fear!"
It was not, in the opinion of a pony who composed songs as a hobby, the best song she had ever heard. Regardless, her crying turned to laughter. She could feel her mane attempting to expand back into its usual shape, though it was so wet and caked with mud that the effort was wasted. With a cry of joy, she slid off the rock and down the muddy incline.
"Uhh, Pinkie?"
Pinkie took a deep breath and opened her eyes, her wounds finally having healed. Lightning streaked across the hilltop and she saw in the flash a great silhouette standing with one foreleg on the boulder.
Derpy flew to her side, huddling against her. "Who is that?"
"The Lord of Tartarus," Pinkie said, her voice quiet with awe.
She could hear him breathing, could feel his eyes staring into her. His hooves shone black in the dim light; his horns gleamed wickedly. He raised a single muscled arm and brought it down on the boulder, which shattered into dust.
"What's he going to do to us?" Derpy whispered in her ear, voice trembling. Pinkie couldn't bring herself to speak; she only wrapped her hooves around Derpy and held her close, protecting her from whatever came next.
In response, the Lord of Tartarus made a single gesture: he pointed to his left. Pinkie's eyes followed him. Where he pointed was a small tunnel, with a pinprick of light at its end.
"You're letting us go?" Pinkie righted herself, staring up at him in disbelief.
The only answer was a snort and a low growl.
"Come on Derpy," she said hurriedly, pulling her friend to her hooves, "let's get outta here!"
They ran without looking back, the gaze of the Lord of Tartarus on their backs the whole way.
The tunnel seemed infinite, and for a long while, Pinkie wondered if perhaps they hadn't been trapped in yet another underworld torture. But ever so gradually, that pinprick of light widened. Soon, she could see easily the craggy rocks around them, and then she had to squint to see anything at all, so bright was the glare.
And then they were through. The trees rustled in a soft breeze. She felt grass at her hooves. Birds sang around them. Derpy let out a whoop of joy and began rolling on the ground. Pinkie couldn't help but join her.
"Derpy, you did it! You flew into Tartarus and saved me! You're totally my hero!"
"I am?" Derpy bit her lip, holding a giggle back. "C'mon, I'm never a hero!"
"But you so are this time!" Pinkie smiled and touched her forehead gently. "And not only that, you talked me out of being all weepy-sad about my family. I didn't even know I was holding on to all those feelings until right then, but boy does it feel so good to get 'em out! I promise you when we get back to Ponyville, writing a letter to them is gonna be the first thing I do! I might even deliver it myself!"
Pinkie sat up, rocking on her backside and laughing giddily.
"Hey Pinkie, why'd you even get stuck down there anyway?" Derpy asked, not getting up from the grass.
Pinkie took a deep breath, savoring the smell of the air. "When the girls and I took the hydra back there, we got a little distracted trying to find the Lord of Tartarus so we could hand it back over. There were so many awful things down there..." She closed her eyes and shivered for a second. "Well, you saw them. Anyway, most of them were monsters, so it wasn't that bad, but then I saw this poor pony pushing a rock up a hill all by himself, and he looked so helpless and lonely, I just had to go say something to him."
She gave a wistful little smile. "He told me his name was Sissy Hooves and he'd been stuck there a long, long, long, long, longlonglong time, because he'd done something bad and tricked the Lord of Tartarus once. So I said okay, I'd give him a hoof with the rock, because I know rocks and stuff because I grew up on a rock farm." She blew a raspberry and spread her hooves. "The next thing I knew, Sissy Hooves told me he'd be right back and he left me there!" She frowned. "I think he lied about needing to go to the bathroom. Does Tartarus even have a bathroom?"
"I think I saw him on the way in," Derpy said quietly. "Or what's left of him, anyway."
"Ewww." Pinkie gagged and stuck her tongue out. "Anyway, he was a meany-pants, leaving me there like that. I thought I was the one who was supposed to be punished! Can you believe it?"
"Maybe if I hadn't seen it myself." Derpy laughed and rolled onto her front. "Hey, Pinkie, speaking of seeing things, what's that?"
They were just outside the gates of Tartarus, Cerberus a safe distance away. Derpy pointed across the river, to where the ferry pony was speaking with a rather familiar group of five ponies.
"Oh my gosh, it's the girls!" Pinkie hopped up and down in one place, her mane finally dry enough to puff up. "Hey girls, I'm okay! I'm over here!"
Fluttershy seemed to be the only one who noticed Pinkie's exclamation, and she began trying unsuccessfully to get the others' attention while they argued with the skeleton.
"Looks like they'll be there a while," she said, looking at the pegasus out of the corner of her eye. "Hey Derpy..."
"Yeah?"
"Since you're my hero and everythin', how 'bout you carry me across the river and stuff?" Pinkie batted her eyelashes.
Derpy let out a large, lengthy yawn. "No offense, Pinkie, but I need new saddlebags and a nap now." With that, she flopped onto the grass and immediately began snoring.
Pinkie laughed. Gently, she scooped Derpy up onto her back and trotted for the river.
"C'mon, hero. Let's get you home."
(Image this story was inspired by.)
"It has to be me," Derpy said for at least the twentieth time since she'd left Ponyville. "Remember what Rainbow Dash said."
As she pushed her wings harder and faster than she ever had in her life, the dark, twisted treetops of the Everfree Forest became a black-green blur to her left. The wind whistled past her ears, drawing her words away into the creamy orange of dawn. She scanned the horizon with her good eye, looking for the telltale river mouth and standing cairns that marked the entrance to Equestria's Underworld.
"It has to be me," she said again, worrying her lower lip and swallowing back a balloon-like lump that had bubbled up into her throat. "It just has to be."
She was momentarily confused, but she didn't let that stop her. Throwing her shoulder against the rock, she began to move it back toward the slope. This time, she'd been lucky: it hadn't bounced too far on the downward descent. With less distance to retake, she could no doubt make it to the pinnacle this time around.
It was just... She could have sworn this place was different when she started. There had been pillars, white stone ones, like something out of a history book, but now the vista around her was pastoral, with a windmill and barn. The ground had been different too: hard and craggy rather than muddy and yielding. There wasn't any real clear moment in her memory when things had changed; she just couldn't shake the feeling that they had.
She calculated that she had eight pony lengths to go. The slope was only about four ponies high, but it was angled in a way that a more knowledgeable pony would have termed exponential, and the path to travel was far longer than the rise. Much like with the change in scenery, she wasn't sure when she'd gotten so good at figuring angles. It seemed to happen around the time her mane went all limp over her eye, no doubt from one too many slips into the mud. She might have sworn that was the moment when everything changed, too, had she thought about it.
It was silly, of course. Plots of land didn't change shape in the blink of an eye. Temples built on volcanoes didn't suddenly start looking like your childhood home. No matter. Once she got this rock to the top of the hill, everything would be fine and she could go home again. All it required was some dogged persistence, and maybe a little of the old earth pony strength. Sure, moving rocks wasn't the sort of thing she spent a lot of time doing, not now anyway, but she had it, sure as sugar, and besides, she'd eaten an extra cupcake before leaving this morning.
"That was this morning, right?"
As she paused to ask herself the question, the rock slipped, threatening to flatten her. She clammed up and heaved, steadying it though her back hooves sunk into the mud. Just one more step, and then one more after that, she told herself. Think of the rock farm. This is just like when you were a filly.
"I'm here!" Derpy let out a whoop, then sank as quickly as she could to the ground. Not being a distance flyer, she had been unprepared for the trip, and for the next few minutes she lay in the cool grass as the morning sun washed over her, just taking deep breaths and doing everything she could not to move.
"This... Is the place... All right!"
The book had warned about the river, but it was still a tremendous effort not to dunk her head into it immediately. She had spotted at least one white thing that she couldn't convince herself had not been a pony skeleton. They were all the more reminder she needed as to the river's effects on unwary travelers who sought to drink from it.
The trees overhead were the last between her and her goal. The countryside as far as she could see spread out in dusty desert foothills backed by the mountains southeast of Ponyville. It was, she reflected, a county both desolate and lonesome, but she wasn't about to let that deter her. From her back, the two cairns beyond the river looked like a W.
"W is for... Water! But don't drink it. And wendigoes! But they're bad! And, uh... Watermelon!" She frowned. "Now I'm hungry."
She rolled to her hooves and shook the grass off herself. "Silly pony, stop getting distracted! It's not just the river that's gonna make you forget why you came out here!"
Yet she wouldn't even have known about the river had she not been such a silly pony in the first place. Twilight Sparkle and her friends had shrugged off her requests for help finding the tome of Tartarus lore. Fluttershy in particular had given her a pitying look. And when Derpy had located the book and dragged it off to a corner to read, at least one of them had uttered the phrase "She's just being Derpy."
Yet even Rainbow Dash had looked scared after they returned without Pinkie. Seeing such a brave mare look so helpless had been the galvanizing moment for Derpy. If the Elements of whatever they were couldn't come up with a plan to save their friend, then it would be up to Ditzelina "Derpy Hooves" Doo to come through, with her bag of muffins and her crazy bravado and her head full of just a few useful facts about Tartarus that began and ended with the river because she had gotten distracted from the book.
Ahead, beyond the river and the cairn and the golden gates that lay between them, she could just make out the dark cave entrance beyond. Even from this distance, it looked hungry, laying in wait beneath the mountain. That balloony feeling returned.
"It has to be me," she whispered. "It's gotta be me."
Dig in right fore and left hind.
When she had begun, the boulder had rolled. Now it was so caked in mud, as she was, that it more slid through the grime as she pushed. Pony, stone and ground were becoming one. With a slight chuckle, she wondered if maybe she couldn't just wear away the hill and pack it all onto the boulder. Would that let her accomplish her task?
Push with right shoulder.
That was the first chuckle she'd had since she started this. When had she started? And when was he going to get back? He said he'd be right back.
Roll head across stone's surface. Brace with left shoulder.
Work this monotonous really did remind her of being back home on the rock farm, especially since she wasn't laughing or smiling or even talking much. Funny, that; when had she started thinking of the farm as 'home' again?
Dig in left fore and right hind.
It wasn't as though she'd left in shame or anything. Everypony had to get out on their own after a while. She just hadn't ever looked back. She barely thought about her parents or her sisters unless somepony asked for her cutie mark story, and it wasn't like they'd tried to keep in touch with her either. Was she missing something? Should she maybe have gone back once or twice over the past few years to visit that dusty, dingy, dull grey old place?
Push with left shoulder. Only three pony lengths to go.
That the pony in the ferry boat was nothing but bones in a black robe should not, in hindsight, have come as a surprise to Derpy. But, being as she was a mare who was not used to going on grand adventures or encountering anything more dangerous than particularly large spiders, the sight of the moving, talking skeleton severely unnerved her, to say the least.
"Be strong, Derpy," she murmured. "Just remember, you're doing this for Pinkie."
During the attack on Ponyville that had set this whole crazy escapade in motion, Derpy had done what she could to help. She thought it was her bravest moment ever. Under the direction of the ever-fearless, so she thought, Rainbow Dash, she had helped the Weather Patrol construct a cloud wall to herd the hydra into Sweet Apple Acres, away from the main population center of the downtown area. Her task complete, she then flew home in a panic to hug her daughter, hide in a closet, and tell both of them that everything was going to be okay.
It was fine, though; she'd done her part and then she could leave the rest to ponies braver than she. Until this moment, that was as brave as Derpy thought she'd ever need to be.
"Gotta be brave." She gritted her teeth. "Be brave for Pinkie."
She took a step toward the boat as it came alongside the riverbank. Though the waters obviously flowed, the river was glassy, fathomless and quiet as a tomb.
"Wouldst thou cross the river?"
The voice was like a nail scraping against the dry rot of floorboards that had not been trod upon in centuries. She couldn't be certain it had actually come from the ferry pony; she simply heard it. Swallowing, she nodded.
"And how wilt thou pay the toll, living pony?"
Derpy reached a trembling hoof into her saddlebag and pulled out a paper-wrapped package.
"I-I-I brought you a muffin, mister!" She held it forth, and the paper rattled as her hoof shook.
The muffin and its wrapping lifted from her hoof, without the telltale glow of magical manipulation. It sailed silent over to the ferry pony, who observed it with an unwavering gaze.
"I do not eat." The voice was somehow sardonic, and Derpy got the feeling that if the being before her possessed skin, it would have raised an incredulous eyebrow at her. The muffin continued on its path, sailing over the ferry pony's shoulder. Derpy's eyes grew wide.
"Wait, muffin, no!"
Heedless of her prior temerity, Derpy surged forward over the river. The ferry pony's head following her sluggishly, as though the creature's long existence had made it unused to surprise and it now had to remember how, precisely, to react. Despite her earlier exertions, Derpy's adrenaline fueled her dive into and then past the muffin, which she caught neatly before landing on the opposite riverbank.
She let out a small cheer, prancing in place, before remembering herself and turning to give the ferry pony a bashful look.
"Umm, sorry, mister. I guess I didn't need your help after all." Biting her lower lip, she held up the muffin. "Are you sure ya don't want this?"
In response, the skeletal pony and boat sank slowly beneath the surface of the river, making not a sound and leaving no ripples. Derpy watched, rapt, and then blinked a few times after the apparition had vanished. She put the muffin back into her bag and turned toward the gates with a shrug.
"He was funny!"
At one and a half pony lengths, the slope took a sudden upturn. This was the tricky part. But she'd gotten within a pony length of the summit before, and she could do it again.
Sweat plastered her mane against her eyes and she paused a moment to brush it away. Yet even in that moment, she was not motionless. Her rear legs were columns of tension, straining against the inexorable gravity that wanted to send the stone plummeting back down the hill.
She lowered her head and pushed. No rock would defeat her.
That kind of determination might have served her well on the rock farm, had she possessed it then. She'd never cared much for rocks. Moving them from one field to another, the only thing to listen to was her father's incessant chatter about which rocks were doing what, what geodes were ripening, and where a given stone could be placed to get the best sun and wind that day. Though she saw the amazing lodes and crystals that grew inside her family's multitudes of boring, grey rocks, it just seemed like a lot of work for nothing, and she had often wondered what might happen if they simply left the rocks alone.
Such thoughts were best kept to oneself, though. Her father had always taken a hard eye to criticism of the "family way." She hadn't been the only one to resent him for it, even if that resentment had evaporated in her quest to earn her cutie mark. The joy she had felt during that first party had not been something to withhold from anypony.
And yet when she left, she had taken all that joy with her. What did they do without her? Was it the same old joyless drudgery? Had she consigned her sisters to a grey, humorless existence?
She shoved hard and the boulder slid forward, then stopped with force that shook her to the bone. The rise became treacherous in these last few hoof lengths. She gritted her teeth and pushed, putting the entirety of her being into moving the blockage before her.
Her tongue extended from the corner of her mouth. Her shoulders ached. Her mother called her in for dinner, told her to stop lollygagging with the party decorations. Her rear left slipped, but she held fast, drawing strength from the earth and regaining her footing in a heartbeat. She squeezed her eyes shut against the pain. This time, she would make it.
The ground shifted beneath her. Her eyes snapped open and she saw the mud and dirt move. The shape of the hill changed, rising, pressing the boulder back against her. Try as she might, she could not move it that last final inch. With a cry of ultimate frustration that threatened to tear her throat, she willed the boulder to move.
It rocked backward and crushed her.
Before the eerie unworldliness of the skeletal ferry pony, Derpy had felt ill at ease, as though looking at something that should not exist. It was unnerving, but she did not feel unduly anxious, nor in danger. Here, at the golden gates to the underworld, with their molded spines and lightning bolts that hinted at what lay beyond, under the gaze of the gates' guardian, she found herself feeling very small, very helpless, and very edible.
The three heads of Cerberus snarled down at her with a mix of hunger, anger and cruel, mad rage. The black beast's fangs dripped with saliva, its sinews tensed to strike at a moment's notice. Having walked to within range of an easy leap before spotting the creature, Derpy could not be certain that was not now in mortal danger. Luckily, she had a plan.
Think about Pinkie. Pinkie Pie, who was trapped in the underworld for reasons her friends hadn't really been sure of. Something about helping another pony who was trapped there, and the rest of them being forced out by the Lord of Tartarus.
You can do it, Derpy.
Never taking her good eye from Cerberus, she slowly reached to the clasp of her saddlebag and unlatched it. The click drew the attention of two of the heads, and the monster dog growled a warning. It took all of Derpy's willpower not to flee while squealing in fright, which no doubt would have made her a more appealing prey.
"Now now, Mister Nice Giant Nasty Triple Dog, sir," she said, trying to coo as best she could through the fear. "You don't want to eat me, nuh-uh! I'm all strings and feathers, that's what my mama told me. What you want is a nice, juicy muffin!"
She tossed the package upward. The response was immediate. Cerberus's left head shot forward, snatching it out of the air. Crumbs and shreds of paper floated serenely to the ground. The other two heads watched her in anticipation
"And by a muffin," Derpy said quickly, fishing in her bag, "I of course mean three muffins!"
Again, the terrible creature's heads demolished the wrapped muffins thrown at them. And then, perversely, the monster seemed to calm down. The snarling lips softened into what might be generously described as smiles. The right head's tongue lolled out of its mouth.
Derpy was then overcome with terror as all three heads descended on her, snuffling and licking with tongues so rough she was afraid they would strip the feathers from her wings. It quickly became apparent to her that they were not trying to eat her, only her bags.
It was a brief struggle. With a cry of "No, my precious muffins!" Derpy toppled over. Her bags were quickly relieved of their cargo, not to mention copious amounts of canvas. The muffin-shaped metal clips, custom crafted for her, disappeared in the scuffle with a clink. Within moments, she had been divested of her entire stockpile of muffins, her only means of defense against the horrendous creatures that surely lay ahead.
Cerberus, making noises of contentment, licked Derpy's entire body with all three tongues. This not only righted her but made her mane stand on end, and also cleaned off the large amount of mucus that had been deposited on her by three large, wet canine noses. She stood, twitching slightly, feeling rather frizzed, as the terrifying Guardian of the Gates of Tartarus lumbered over to said gates, turned around three times, and lay down.
Derpy shook herself, the drool spiraling off in long, thick strands, and surveyed the ruin of her saddlebags.
"Aww, all my muffins!" She sniffed, then scowled at Cerberus, shaking a hoof at him. "You big greedy-heads!"
All she got in response was a pair of smiles, the third head having settled down to nap already. The others followed suit.
With a deep breath, Derpy stomped past Cerberus to the gates. Up close, she could see that the surface was not actually made of gold, but of numerous tiny filaments that reflected light in just the right ways to appear gold. Those filaments looked like they could cut flesh easily. Thankfully, she did not have to touch them, as the gates swung open at her approach. Her only other welcome was a pile of ashes, grey and dry, that bore a disconcerting resemblance to the outline of a pony on its side. It took every effort for her not to focus on the pale hard bits that stuck up from it as she passed through the gates and into the cave that had looked so much like a hungry mouth before.
The pain was unbelievable.
In the course of rolling that impossible boulder up that impossible hill, she had collected a myriad of scrapes and nicks across her fetlocks, her shoulders, and even her chin. Only now did she realize that those pains had been slight and fleeting, for the wounds had closed almost immediately after she got them, lasting just long enough to be felt.
This pain, in contrast, was a waterfall to the single raindrops of those scratches. The stone broke her skin and crushed her bones as it rolled over her. She felt herself die, only for that release to be wrested from her as the pain began anew. As the boulder settled at the bottom of the hill, her broken body knitted and reenacted in slow detail every ache that it had weathered over the past few seconds, in painstaking reverse detail.
The worst pain she had ever felt in her life had been a break of the left front cannon bone. It had taken weeks of bed rest to heal, weeks that she could have spent growing closer to her mother, her primary caretaker during that stretch. Even though nothing untoward had been said to her, she never could shake the feeling that her recuperation was seen as her shirking her duties on the farm once again.
Sitting beneath the rockslide, her foreleg screaming in pain and tears streaming down her cheeks, she had wanted nothing more than her mother to come and comfort her. After she had healed, she wanted nothing more than to turn her backside on the farm and never return. And right now, she wished more than anything that she could call out to her mother again, and that there would be some hope of being heard by her.
The tears began.
The worst part, past the pain, past the loneliness, past the feeling of utter, crushing helplessness, was that, after her body had pulled itself back together and the pain receded to an aching memory, all she could do was stand and drag herself behind the stone once again.
"I don't want to," she said softly, the tears choking her voice to a whisper. "Please, I'm done, I can't do this. Just let me stop."
There was nopony to hear her. She dug her hind legs into the mud, pressed her shoulder against the stone, and pushed.
"This dark cave is really dark!"
Derpy's voice echoed once off the black, craggy stone walls before being swallowed by silence. She gulped and pushed onward, over a floor that slanted downward just enough that she felt she was being led to certain doom.
"That's not a nice thought," she said with a half-hearted laugh. Her words and her laughter vanished into the cavern walls around her and she hunkered down, wishing fervently for some sort of company. "I wish I'd brought a light."
Stalagmites and stalactites jutted like teeth from the stone and loomed in the darkness, which grew and grew until they too vanished. Just when where she feared she would never see light again, Derpy spied a faint reddish glow ahead. Her step quickened to a trot, and the glow intensified as she approached.
The smile forming on her lips was short-lived, however. As the glow increased into light enough to see by, it became not warm and inviting, but fiendish and intimidating. Again her resolve faltered. The tunnel narrowed like a gullet, the red light at its end flaring.
And all at once, it widened into the lair of a terrible monster.
Squeaking in terror, Derpy spread her wings, instinctively launching into the air at the sight of numerous glistening fangs. She plastered herself against the ceiling, bumping her head. Heart pounding, she watched as the monster before her writhed and gnashed its teeth. And then, slowly, she realized that it wasn't coming for her, but thrashing in place.
The hydra, the very same monster that had terrorized her home not so long ago, was held inside a hollow in the wall behind stony teeth, snared by strange vines that seemed to grow from the rock itself. Try as it might, none of its many necks could break free from its prison.
Strangest of all was the metal sign next to it: a yellow square, set on point, that depicted in minor detail a multi-headed creature with numerous lines passing through it. Derpy realized, horrified, that not only was the hydra trapped by the vines and tooth-like stalactites, but by pointed rocks that speared up through its middle. She averted her eyes.
"It doesn't really serve you right, Mister Hydra," she said, her voice low, "but I can't help you either. Sorry I don't have any muffins to give you."
She slid to the floor, keeping to the wall, and continued around the corner until she stopped at the edge of a cliff. The cavern expanded out in every direction, and her eyes went wide as she took in a scene defined by creatures whose horror was outmatched only by the hideous tortures they underwent.
A pool of lava fed by a falls from beneath her hooves fed three molten rivers. In each one, small creatures screamed and writhed as dark forms poked them with spears, keeping them in the magma. The more she focused on those beings, the less distinct they appeared to be. Larger creatures had been chained, stabbed, torn apart by smaller monsters and suspended from the ceiling, dripping gore onto those unlucky captives below them. By each of these was a small metal sign, depicting precisely what punishment was being meted out. As much as Derpy wanted to tear her eyes away from the tableau spread beneath her, she could not stop staring at the horrible, gibbering beasts of Tartarus.
From behind her there came a sound, the echoing of a hammer striking an anvil. It struck that ruinous anvil directly, as though hungry for a sheet of metal, or anything at all, to pound flat. As the strikes continued, she recognized the meaning in their pattern: hoofbeats. She stood rooted to the spot as she realized that whatever it was came from the same direction she had, despite her having passed nopony else there.
"Why have you come here, living pony?"
The voice was thick and sludgy; it was like sandpaper scratched across the skin of a corpse. That particular form of address, "living pony," sent a shiver of absolute dread through her, a sensation that she was the one who should not be, here in this place. The hoofsteps drew closer, and she dared not look to their source. Then, all too suddenly, the hammer beats stopped, directly beside her, and a clawed red hand reached down and rested on her shoulder. It was surprisingly gentle.
"This is not a realm for the living," the voice said, cold despite the heat rising up from the pits of the damned below. "You must have come for some reason. Speak your peace and be gone."
Derpy's mouth had gone completely dry. She was shaking so hard that the tips of the claws on her shoulder were digging slightly into her flesh. She stammered, the word "I" dropping from her lips like so many marbles down the stairs.
The voice growled, irritable. "Speak!"
"I came for Pinkie Pie!"
The words seemed to be taken from her mouth rather than produced by any force of her will. The being beside her made a soft noise. Still she refused to look at it.
"Look, little pony, at my domain, and tell me what you see."
Derpy gazed petulantly over the depths of Tartarus. "I see monsters," she mumbled, "being tortured. It's horrible." She closed her eyes.
The voice chuckled briefly. "Tartarus is home to some of the worst creatures ever set loose upon Equestria. To keep them here requires great effort. Some can be caged; some must be held with pain, for if their minds were not so occupied they would surely bring ruin to all around them."
"What does that have to do with Pinkie?" Derpy immediately regretted interrupting, for the creature beside her snorted. She shrank back.
"Ponies like you are so kind and naïve," it said levelly. "Yet, once in a great while, one will be born with the potential for great evil. Should that potential be fulfilled, that pony merits being brought here, at the end of their life, to be punished eternally for their transgressions."
The voice became dark. "It was one such pony who dared bargain with me, and then bind me within my own domain. He was recovered and given his own eternal punishment for his transgressions."
The creature let out a long breath. Derpy glanced sideways at it and saw a tower of red, muscled flesh emerging from a black stallion's body where its neck should be. She averted her eyes.
"Pinkie Pie has taken on that punishment as her own," it continued. "She belongs to this realm now and forever." The fingers gripping her shoulder flexed. "You cannot save her, little pony. Best to turn and run before the horrors of this world destroy your mind, or you become lost as she has."
Derpy lowered her head. She'd come all this way, but for what? She couldn't save Pinkie; nopony could.
Then she blinked. She'd come all this way! She'd gotten past the ferry pony and Cerberus! Who said she couldn't save Pinkie, some creepy monster with no sense of personal space?
"No!" She lifted her head and flared her wings, brushing the hand from her side. She turned and caught a fleeting glimpse of a wide, red face, rimmed with black horns, and upturned fangs set in a permanent frown. The sight startled her enough that she was flying off the cliff before she even knew she had meant to.
The Lord of Tartarus watched her go, and chuckled.
Five pony lengths. The last words she'd said to her older sister had been thoughtless and hurtful. She hadn't meant them to be, of course. But she should have known better, known they would be taken as a slight, instead of encouragement as she'd intended.
She slipped on a loose rock and tumbled back to the bottom.
Six pony lengths. She had seen a hat like the one her father had always worn in a Canterlot storefront. She'd convinced herself that she didn't have the bits to buy it. She never went to Rarity's to have one custom made, like she told herself she would.
Her right knee gave out and she tumbled back to the bottom.
Two pony lengths. There had been a promise made to her little sister, to teach her how to play their grandmother's old piano. It remained unfulfilled because she left so suddenly.
Something that sounded like somepony beating a sheet of metal came from behind her and broke her concentration. The boulder simply pushed her through the mud, sliding her back to the bottom of the hill.
She turned her head, staring up at the oddly-placed metal sign depicting a pony pushing a boulder. That hadn't been there before. Its post had been dented by the impact of the posterior of a grey pegasus mare, who she recognized immediately, even if she couldn't believe the her presence here.
"Derpy, is that you?" Pinkie blinked hard, trying to wipe away the mirage. "What are you doing on my parents' rock farm?"
Derpy's eyes rolled around in her head until she shook it. She grinned down from her twisted perch. "Hi, Pinkie! I came to rescue you!"
Pinkie's brows furrowed. "Rescue me...?"
"Uh-huh!" Derpy attempted to free herself from the sign, but it had bent around her posterior snugly, impeding her extrication. She began to push with her front hooves against the sign, grunting. "Twilight Sparkle said that they needed a plan to get you out of here, and then Rainbow Dash said that I was the only mare crazy enough to fly into and out of Tartarus alone, and I knew a plan would take too long to make, so I did that and now here we both are!"
Pinkie stared at her for a long moment. Then, shaking her head, she put her shoulder to the stone and pushed.
"H-hey, wait!" Derpy called. "Don't just keep going! You can stop now, I'm here to take you home!"
"I am home!" Pinkie grunted. "And I can't stop until I've finished this, anyway. It wouldn't be fair to-- To whoever it is I'm helping if I just stopped before I was done pushing this rock!"
"But it's not your rock!" Derpy tried again, without success, to free herself from the signpost. "The pony you're helping is gone, the big creepy guy even told me so! So you've got nothing left to do anymore!"
"Gone?" Pinkie paused, and in doing so, slid back to the bottom of the hill. Then she shook her head, huffing. "Derpy, it doesn't matter. I've got to finish this. I can't leave yet, because I..."
Pinkie's lips moved soundlessly and her eyes scanned the ground. "Because... I don't deserve to. I'm a bad pony, Derpy, and I deserve to be here."
"What?" The force of Derpy's incredulity knocked her to the side, and she popped neatly out of the sign. Surprised, she turned back to it and giggled. "Oh, look at that! I just needed to think sideways!"
As Pinkie returned to the stone, Derpy flew over and floated beside her, all levity removed from her tone.
"Pinkie, what are you saying? You're not a bad pony at all! You're one of those, uh, Element thingies! I don't think you get to be one of those if you're a bad pony."
Pinkie struggled a moment with the desire to keep rolling and the desire to shove Derpy away. As she was still essentially at the bottom of the slope, she just let herself relax and turned to the interloper.
"Derpy, you don't know anything."
The grey mare shrank back from the force of Pinkie's voice. She ignored it and continued.
"I abandoned my family when I was a filly, because I didn't fit in." Pinkie's shoulder slumped. "I couldn't work things out with them, so I just left. And I haven't looked back since. I don't write them, I barely think about them." She closed her eyes, hugging herself. "I'm just so caught up in having fun and being with my friends and throwing parties that I don't have time for my family anymore."
She sniffed and turned to look at the rock farm around her. The windmill creaked dully, rocking back and forth as though there had been a breeze to move it once. If a breeze ever did come to move it again, it might just knock the barn off its termite-infested foundation. In the distance, beyond a soft rise, sat the farmhouse. There was a hole in the roof.
She waved her hoof at the scene, saying, "That's why I'm here," and then turned her shoulder back to the stone. "So I can make amends."
There was a long period of silence as Pinkie got the rock rolling once more. She had traveled an entire pony length when Derpy huffed. "That's dumb and doesn't make any sense!"
"What?"
Pinkie turned her head and the boulder slipped, rolling over her right fore with a sickening crack. She screamed and Derpy cried out in alarm, but the bones began knitting immediately, as they always did. She steeled herself, keeping the leg off the ground until it was healed, and then moved back to the start to begin anew.
"Pinkie, your leg!" Derpy floated into her field of vision, blocking her from the stone.
"It's fine, Derpy." Pinkie couldn't keep the irritation from her voice. "Look, why don't you just fly on out of here and leave me alone? I got hurt because you distracted me."
She moved toward the boulder once more, but Derpy stayed in her way.
"No, Pinkie." She crossed her forelegs over her chest and frowned. "I don't know a whole lot of stuff, but I do know this isn't how you make amends for anything."
"But I..."
"Can you tell me what it is you're trying to do?" Derpy raised an eyebrow. Over her lazy eye, the effect was comical.
Pinkie looked at her askance. "I'm... trying to get this rock to the top of the hill."
"Uh-huh." Derpy looked at her hoof. "And how many times have you done that?"
"Well, none, but I--"
"Mm-hmm." Derpy snorted. "I see that every time you lose your grip, you have to come back down here. So how close have you gotten to the top?"
"What?"
Derpy threw her hooves up, shaking her head like she was dealing with a particularly recalcitrant filly. "You've been doing for a while now, haven't you? You haven't gotten to the top, but you should be getting better with each try! But since I got here, I've seen you do nothing but slip again and again." She leaned forward, pressed her nose against Pinkie's. "So tell me: how close have you gotten?"
"I..." Pinkie's eyes scanned the ground. "I almost made it, once."
"Once?" Derpy clucked her tongue and shook her head. "Just once?"
Pinkie took a step back. "I did, really! But then the ground moved and..." Her mouth went dry. "And the boulder rolled over me..."
"The ground moved? Really?" Derpy snorted again. "You're not just making excuses, are you?"
"No!" Pinkie scowled at her. "I saw it move with my own eyes! It kept the boulder from reaching the top! Otherwise, I would have done it..." She trailed off, her mind racing.
Derpy landed and placed a hoof gently on her shoulder. "Pinkie, it sounds to me like somepony doesn't want you to get that rock up that hill."
Pinkie gritted her teeth, shutting her eyes.
"You're not making amends or being punished, Pinkie. You're being tortured. That's what this place is for. I saw all kind of creatures being tortured when I came here. It's time to stop, Pinkie, you don't deserve this."
Pinkie scrubbed at her eyes. "But how can I ever make it up to my family? Nopony should be forgotten like that."
Derpy rolled her good eye, the other doing... something. "Uh, you go write them a letter and say you're sorry, duh! But you can't write letters here, so we have to get you out first, okay?"
Pinkie smiled for the first time in what felt like ages. "Okay, Derpy."
With a large grin, Derpy took to the air again and led Pinkie away from the farm. But as she got about two pony lengths from the boulder, something stopped her.
"Um, Derpy?"
"Huh? What is it?"
Pinkie pushed forward, but something was holding her back. Panic rose in her throat. "Derpy, I can't leave! It's like there's a wall here!"
"Oh no!" Derpy threw her hooves around her ears, worrying her lower lip. "What do we do?"
Pinkie swallowed. "I think that... maybe I have to get the boulder up the hill first before I can leave."
"But that's impossible! The ground's cheating!"
Pinkie stood and held out her hooves; she was actually able to lean forward and rest against the air. She looked up to Derpy and shook her head, then turned and walked slowly back to the stone.
"I'm not gonna let you do this alone," Derpy said, zipping up beside her and landing. "If you have to get that rock up that hill, then you can count on me to help you!"
"You would do that?" Pinkie felt that smile threatening to return.
"Of course!" Derpy grinned wide. "What are friends for? I'm not exactly gonna leave ya hangin' here."
Pinkie held out her hoof and Derpy bumped it.
"Thanks, Derpy." She set herself, glaring at the boulder. "Now let's get that rock up this hill!"
Overhead, the sky darkened. The windmill began to creak loudly. They each threw a shoulder against the stone and started pushing.
Rain began to fall, lightly at first, but between their hooves and the rolling boulder, the ground was soon a thick morass that impeded their progress more than anything Pinkie had encountered previously. The wind howled in their ears. Pinkie slipped, but Derpy was able to keep the stone in place until she had regained her footing. Derpy's smile filled her with determination and a sense that maybe, just maybe, they could do this.
Ten pony lengths to go. Lightning crackled across the sky and thunder boomed. She would start by telling her mother she was sorry they never talked.
Eight pony lengths. They heard the barn collapse, but neither of them looked at it. She'd find a gift to bring her younger sister, maybe a nice hoof-made dress or a hat.
Six pony lengths. The ground was now a rushing stream of water beneath them and they slipped with each step. If not for the driving rain washing their coats clean, they would both be covered head to hooves in mud.
Four pony lengths. She would tell her older sister she was sorry.
Three. She would tell her father she was sorry.
Two. She would tell them all how much she loved them.
"We're almost there!" Derpy shouted over the rain.
The windmill collapsed in a howl of screeching metal. Pieces of what appeared to be roofing tiles assailed them. Derpy did her best to knock them away with her wings, and saved them from the worst.
Then, with a tremendous, deep roar, the ground began to shift.
"It's cheating!" Derpy cried, though she was barely audible through the maelstrom. She flapped her wings and, though it was obvious that the force of the wind made flight a struggle, she began to push against the upper portion of the boulder.
"C'mon, Pinkie, we have to lift it! Hurry and we can beat this!"
Pinkie looked to the bottom of the rock and hesitated. She'd been flattened beneath it too many times. The torture of being crushed and uncrushed was too much; the pain was too acute and too recent. She closed her eyes.
"Come on, Pinkie Pie, we're almost there! I can't do this alone!"
Pinkie's eyes snapped open. With a roar that shook the earth, she surged forward and jammed her head into the mud beneath the stone's base. The muscles in her back and neck ripped and tore. She screamed, pain and fury mixing as she lifted the entire stone with the might of one born of the earth. All Derpy had to do was guide it to the crest of the hilltop, where it landed with a resounding boom.
The wind and rain ceased immediately, though the clouds lingered. Pinkie collapsed onto the stone, crying with a mix of hurt and triumph that she hadn't thought possible.
"Whoo!" Derpy flew out in front of them, pumping her hooves victoriously. And then she began to sing.
"Pinkie Pie is the best! She passed the rock-rollin' test! Now she can get the hay outta here! And, uh, she'll never have nothin' to fear!"
It was not, in the opinion of a pony who composed songs as a hobby, the best song she had ever heard. Regardless, her crying turned to laughter. She could feel her mane attempting to expand back into its usual shape, though it was so wet and caked with mud that the effort was wasted. With a cry of joy, she slid off the rock and down the muddy incline.
"Uhh, Pinkie?"
Pinkie took a deep breath and opened her eyes, her wounds finally having healed. Lightning streaked across the hilltop and she saw in the flash a great silhouette standing with one foreleg on the boulder.
Derpy flew to her side, huddling against her. "Who is that?"
"The Lord of Tartarus," Pinkie said, her voice quiet with awe.
She could hear him breathing, could feel his eyes staring into her. His hooves shone black in the dim light; his horns gleamed wickedly. He raised a single muscled arm and brought it down on the boulder, which shattered into dust.
"What's he going to do to us?" Derpy whispered in her ear, voice trembling. Pinkie couldn't bring herself to speak; she only wrapped her hooves around Derpy and held her close, protecting her from whatever came next.
In response, the Lord of Tartarus made a single gesture: he pointed to his left. Pinkie's eyes followed him. Where he pointed was a small tunnel, with a pinprick of light at its end.
"You're letting us go?" Pinkie righted herself, staring up at him in disbelief.
The only answer was a snort and a low growl.
"Come on Derpy," she said hurriedly, pulling her friend to her hooves, "let's get outta here!"
They ran without looking back, the gaze of the Lord of Tartarus on their backs the whole way.
The tunnel seemed infinite, and for a long while, Pinkie wondered if perhaps they hadn't been trapped in yet another underworld torture. But ever so gradually, that pinprick of light widened. Soon, she could see easily the craggy rocks around them, and then she had to squint to see anything at all, so bright was the glare.
And then they were through. The trees rustled in a soft breeze. She felt grass at her hooves. Birds sang around them. Derpy let out a whoop of joy and began rolling on the ground. Pinkie couldn't help but join her.
"Derpy, you did it! You flew into Tartarus and saved me! You're totally my hero!"
"I am?" Derpy bit her lip, holding a giggle back. "C'mon, I'm never a hero!"
"But you so are this time!" Pinkie smiled and touched her forehead gently. "And not only that, you talked me out of being all weepy-sad about my family. I didn't even know I was holding on to all those feelings until right then, but boy does it feel so good to get 'em out! I promise you when we get back to Ponyville, writing a letter to them is gonna be the first thing I do! I might even deliver it myself!"
Pinkie sat up, rocking on her backside and laughing giddily.
"Hey Pinkie, why'd you even get stuck down there anyway?" Derpy asked, not getting up from the grass.
Pinkie took a deep breath, savoring the smell of the air. "When the girls and I took the hydra back there, we got a little distracted trying to find the Lord of Tartarus so we could hand it back over. There were so many awful things down there..." She closed her eyes and shivered for a second. "Well, you saw them. Anyway, most of them were monsters, so it wasn't that bad, but then I saw this poor pony pushing a rock up a hill all by himself, and he looked so helpless and lonely, I just had to go say something to him."
She gave a wistful little smile. "He told me his name was Sissy Hooves and he'd been stuck there a long, long, long, long, longlonglong time, because he'd done something bad and tricked the Lord of Tartarus once. So I said okay, I'd give him a hoof with the rock, because I know rocks and stuff because I grew up on a rock farm." She blew a raspberry and spread her hooves. "The next thing I knew, Sissy Hooves told me he'd be right back and he left me there!" She frowned. "I think he lied about needing to go to the bathroom. Does Tartarus even have a bathroom?"
"I think I saw him on the way in," Derpy said quietly. "Or what's left of him, anyway."
"Ewww." Pinkie gagged and stuck her tongue out. "Anyway, he was a meany-pants, leaving me there like that. I thought I was the one who was supposed to be punished! Can you believe it?"
"Maybe if I hadn't seen it myself." Derpy laughed and rolled onto her front. "Hey, Pinkie, speaking of seeing things, what's that?"
They were just outside the gates of Tartarus, Cerberus a safe distance away. Derpy pointed across the river, to where the ferry pony was speaking with a rather familiar group of five ponies.
"Oh my gosh, it's the girls!" Pinkie hopped up and down in one place, her mane finally dry enough to puff up. "Hey girls, I'm okay! I'm over here!"
Fluttershy seemed to be the only one who noticed Pinkie's exclamation, and she began trying unsuccessfully to get the others' attention while they argued with the skeleton.
"Looks like they'll be there a while," she said, looking at the pegasus out of the corner of her eye. "Hey Derpy..."
"Yeah?"
"Since you're my hero and everythin', how 'bout you carry me across the river and stuff?" Pinkie batted her eyelashes.
Derpy let out a large, lengthy yawn. "No offense, Pinkie, but I need new saddlebags and a nap now." With that, she flopped onto the grass and immediately began snoring.
Pinkie laughed. Gently, she scooped Derpy up onto her back and trotted for the river.
"C'mon, hero. Let's get you home."
(Image this story was inspired by.)