The alarm bell rang from far up the shaft. I look up, setting my pickaxe down, and into Boulder's - my mining partner's - eyes. For a split second I can't understand what I see there - fear? This is the first time I've ever seen him like this. He has always been so strong, so constant. Even when that first day on the job when I dropped my pickaxe on his foot, he didn't even flinch. All he did was look at me and tell me to watch myself. I respected him for that but as I see that scared look in his big green eyes, I can't help but think of him as a young foal in that moment. I want to cuddle him up in my hooves and tell him that everything was going to be alright.

"Trouble up above." Boulder says as he turns his face away from mine.

Does he know what I saw there? Did my eyes betray me? I stare at him a moment longer before I reply, my throat thick with dust and grit.

"You wanna go on up?"

"I reckon we oughtta." He says.

I know that he knows something that I didn't. For one, he doesn't put on his harness to pull the cart back up the shaft. That's pretty weird, considering that he's usually a stickler for mine rules and protocol. But I follow his lead and leave the cart at the bottom of the shaft, even though I know that the foremare will give us both a tongue-lashing once we got up to the surface. I trust him.

We walk in silence up the shaft, every step of his equaling two or three of mine. That wasn't unusual for the two of us as we were both pretty quiet on our own, but I can feel the tension in the air. There was something that he wasn't telling me.

"Where's everypony else?" I ask as I try to catch his eye again, my voice echoing off the rocky walls of the mine. There was something else echoing down the mine shaft, but I couldn't quite tell what.

He shrugs and gives me no further answer. Somedays, it was hard to be the mining partner of a silent giant of an earth pony - but not many. We are nearing the surface. The light from the entrance shines on us intensely, and I have to squint to see anything at all. As my eyes adjust, my other senses take on the brunt of the work.

I can hear a large mass of ponies, all shouting and stomping. I can smell them too. There is the scent of dust, grime, and grit about the crowd. They smell like me - a miner. Once my eyes can finally see again, they confirm this. Ponies surround the foremare's office. If I had to describe it, it was like an angry hive of bees swarming an enemy or a pack of timberwolves circling fallen prey. Another pony - high above it all - might've been able to give you a better idea of what they were like on the whole, but I can only pick out bits and pieces. There's the schoolteacher - Mr. Applegate - right beside us, his mouth foaming and his eyes crazed. I take a step away from him and bump into Boulder. When I look up to see his face, I realize that he knew. He has the face of one of them - one of the angry herd.

"What's going on?" I shout above the grumbling and screaming of the crowd, but Boulder was either couldn't hear me or didn't care if he could.

Boulder moves further into the mob of ponies, and I - being the good little mining partner that I was - follow him in deeper. I see all sorts of ponies - not just miners but the town baker, Miss Starshine the seamstress, even a group of foals that looked like they were hanging onto one another for dear life as so to not get separated and trampled in the crowd. The herd rolls and rocks, and I find it difficult to keep up with Boulder.

"Boulder!" I scream. "Boulder!"

But he doesn't answer me, and all I get for my efforts is a kick in the side from one of the greengrocer's assistants. How I lost a pony of that size in a crowd, I'll never know, but Boulder might as well have disappeared in a puff of smoke for all the success I'm having at finding him. I struggle to move to the front of the crowd, kicking and punching and biting my way through the herd. There's so many ponies here. The whole town must of come out. Eventually, I make it. I am at the head of the crowd, and where she is - the foremare. She's trussed up, tied to the door of her office by lengths of rope, and under guard by a group of burly ponies who look at me and stamp for me to move out of the way. Her horn is glowing in a rhythmic pattern - On, on, off, on, on, off - but I'm not sure that any other pony notices. The foremare has a gag in her mouth that I knew was a large lump of ore. Her face is shiny with drool and sweat. Her eyes bulge wildly. They settle on me for a moment and plead with me:

Help me. Please, help me.

I just stare back at her. I don't know what to do and even if I did, I wouldn't be able to do it in front of a crowd of angry ponies. All I can do was look away. I feel like a coward, like the scum of Equestria. But what can I honestly do for her? I-

The crowd begins to shake violently. The ponies shout louder and louder, together. Someone was leading them in a chant. But who? None of the ponies I had seen in the crowd looked like a leader of any kind, but maybe I had been wrong. Maybe-

"Get them horn-heads off our land! Get them horn-heads off our land!"

The whole herd seems to be joining in. A few of the ponies next to me give me glares for not doing so. I had to find Boulder, get back home, and get out of here. But how? Where was he?

And then I saw him.

Boulder.

He's on top of the foremare's office, standing tall. As the madness around him increases, he stands there and watches it all. I run towards him, breaking through the small group of ponies protecting the foremare. But everything's moving so slow that I just barely started towards him when I see his lips move. He...he's chanting too? I stop dead in my tracks. But Boulder had always been so sensible, so stoic, so...so...perfect. It hits me. Not only is he chanting along, no. He's leading the chant itself! Boulder is...a revolutionary. That can't be! Revolutionaries are punished severely - jailed, hung, quartered. Boulder would never risk that.

And then he saw me. For the first time in a long time, Boulder smiles at me. I don't have the courage to smile back.

"Get them horn-heads off our land! Get them horn-heads off our land!"

I want to cry or scream or do anything other than just stand there. But I can't. I'm frozen - in time, in place. He's bending down and extending a hoof to me. I take it automatically. "Always trust your partner", that's the miner's code. I guess I just had to trust mine.

Boulder begins to lift me up onto the foremare's office, and I feel something rush through me. It's as if my neck had been replaced with an icicle. I can feel it zip down my spine and right through my tail. Something terrible is going to happen, and I want no part of it.

I let go of Boulder's hoof and fall back onto the ground. He looks at me and shouts something that I can't hear, but I refuse to meet his gaze. I run into the crowd at full gallop, knocking over several ponies in my way. I have to get home, have to warn Papa, have to-

There's a crack, like a bolt of lightning splitting a tree in half, from the direction I just came from. I feel a ripple move through the crowd. But I can't stop. All around me, ponies stop chanting and begin to run as well. Something big just happened at the foremare's office.

Boulder.

No. I shake my head to enforce the point. Boulder isn't what's important right now. I have to get home, have to warn Papa, have to keep running. If Boulder is truly a revolutionary, then he knows the price of his actions. The enforcers will come and-

There's another crack and another ripple. More and more of the mob is scattering now, galloping as fast as they can. There is a pain in my chest - the aching, burning feeling that came naturally with running. But there's also something deeper than that. I don't have time to sort out my feelings right now. Ponies are screaming, calling out for each other, but I have to keep moving. Something warm is splattered on my face, but I have to keep moving. A pony screeches at me, screaming at me that it was all my fault, but I have to keep moving. I keep running and running and running and running until-

Another crack and all I can see is white. It's more beautiful than the sun after a long day's work in the mines. It's brighter too. There is a ringing in my ears that I can't shake off. I watch as ponies run around me, some of them on top of me, all of them shouting soundlessly. Their hooves bite into my back and my flank and my belly. Something is trickling down my sides, but I can't turn my head to look. My eyes feel heavy, so heavy. A hoof smashes into my head and it's over...

...I wake up in bed, my room. Well, our room - our only room. The world is spinning around me. Bile rises in my throat, and I puke all over my sheets.

"You know you'll have to clean that up, right?"

That's my papa. He always knows exactly what to say to make my day worse.

Great. Just the way I wanted to start the day. With vomit all over me and realizing Papa was watching me sleep.

I try to get out of bed, but a sharp pain in my side stops me. That seemed to trigger something, because then suddenly every part of me starts to hurt too. I fall back on my pillow with a 'plop', and I feel like puking again.

"C'mere. Let's get that nasty sheet offa ya. You gotta get up anyways."

"Thanks, Papa." I mumble.

It's only when the sheet had been taken off do I know the full extent of my injuries. I have bruises all over my coat. The gashes on my stomach are all neatly wrapped and tended to, but they look like they need to be changed - the blood is seeping through. I remember the hoof that struck me on the head ,and I feel around up there just to check.. Yes, there is indeed an enormous bandage right at the crown of my head, but it feels dry at least. That's one problem I won't have to worry about - dying of blood loss from my head wound. I twist slightly, gasping in pain, to take a look at my cutie mark. Just like the rest of me, it's battered and bruised but those two crossed pickaxes are still intact. I look to my father. He might not be able to work anymore after the accident, but he always has something to say. For the moment though, it is mostly curse words.

"What the hay did you eat, 'Slide?" He grumbles with a snarl before he tries to take the whole sheet off of me without getting any puke sloshed into his mouth. "I sure as hay didn't feed you nothing blue."

I couldn't help but laugh, which hurts a lot more than I expect. I end up wheezing in pain. Tears form in my eyes, and I can't breathe.

I can't breathe! I can't breathe!

Somepony help me, I can't breathe!

My vision begins to fade, the room starts to go black, and I can feel myself getting ready to puke again.

There's a sharp blow to my chest, and I can breathe again. I look up at my father and give him my silent thanks.

He just grunts and says, "That'll tea'cha ta laugh at me."

With the sheet gone, I suddenly am able to feel the chill in the air. Wasn't it summer? It was boiling hot in the mines yesterday and... Boulder.

"Papa," I say, "Where's Boulder?"

He looks at me with those flint grey eyes - judging me - and says, "You don't need to worry about that, 'Slide. All you need to worry about is getting better, alright?"

I let my face crumple in disappointment at my father's stubbornness, but what could I really expect? He's always been this way, even when I was just a filly. It took him years to get over the fact that I wanted to be a miner, and he still hasn't even begun to even think about me not wanting to get married and have a family. He's all the family that I need, and he should know that already. Besides, in his condition, he needs someone to take care of him full-time, and sooner or later I won't be able to afford to pay Mrs. Moonbeam to look after him. Speaking of which...

"Papa," I say, "Where's Mrs. Moonbeam? Isn't she supposed to be taking care of you today?"

"Sent her home."

I take a look around the fine 'ol family estate. It's absolutely filthy, and my puke isn't exactly lonely when it comes to nasty smells. Dishes are strewn everywhere, food has been left to rot, and

"Have you been pissing in here, Papa?" I say plainly.

If he isn't going to fancy up his talk, then neither am I.

"Maybe."

It takes him a moment to answer. That's not like my papa. I know that he's hiding something from me, but what? Is it what happened to Boulder? A terrible thought strikes me: did the enforcers come and take him away? I begin to shake.

"Papa-" I begin, but my papa hushes me. Somepony's at the door.

Quicker than I could have ever imagined my papa could move, he throws the sheet back onto me and gives me a glare before he turns around to answer the door. I get one last look at him before the sheet settles over my face.

"Yes?" I hear my papa say in the tone he only reserves for the foremare or Mrs. Moonbeam.

"You are hereby ordered to report to town square immediately by the order of the illustrious Honcho." Somepony I don't recognize says.

There is a shuffling sound, and I shift the sheet slightly to take a quick peek. My papa is bowing - actuallybowing - before a stern looking blue unicorn in shining golden armor.

"Yessir." he says.

He's never called another pony "sir" for as long as I'd been alive, I can tell you that.

After the unicorn leaves and my papa closes the door, he rushes over to my bedside and whispers to me.

"This is your only chance, 'Slide. Ya gotta leave town now. Just for a few days 'til this whole thing blows over."

I'm dumbstruck. Leave town? What happened after the riot? Had things really gotten so bad that-

"What did I just tell you, Mud Slide?" My papa raises his voice a little and changes his tone to one that I heard often in my fillyhood. "Get up, get out, and get packing. I've made you a little 'care package'"- he waved a hoof towards a relatively clean basket sitting by the door-"that'll get you going for a while. Saved up my rations for that one, so you better not waste it."

"Mister Cobalt! Mister Cobalt!" The same unicorn pony is starting to try to bash down our door by the sound of it.

"I'm coming!"

He hobbles over to the door and mutters, so quietly that I can barely hear him, "Just wait an hour and get the hay out of here."

Once he slams the door shut, I realize a new part of my life is just beginning.

I thought that the waiting was the hardest point, but now that I'm actually sneaking out of town, I find out that I was wrong.

With all the ponies at town square, the town seems so quiet, so lonely. There was the candy shop where I lost my first baby tooth to a piece of taffy, and there was the alleyway where Berry Twist and I had our first kiss... And there, and there, and there... There are so many memories tied up in this town, so many ponies I'd met, so many things I'd done. I'd never even been outside of town. All I knew was this town, all I knew were these ponies, all I knew was my life here.

My eyes start to water, but I won't let myself cry. I'm better than that - better than my emotions. Papa always told me that a mare is a bundle of feelings, but I refuse to let that apply to me. I'm much more than that, and I'm too good to cry. It's hard to remember that when you're leaving everything that you've ever loved or known behind you in the dust.

The "care package" my father prepared for me is clasped tightly in my teeth, and I'm wearing a cloak so nopony recognizes me on sight. I've never had to take precautions like this before. I take the back streets, just in case unicorns like the one that came to our house were still out and about. I could hear shouting coming from the direction of town square, but it got fainter and fainter as I pressed on and out of town.

I'm more than just worried about my papa - I'm absolutely terrified of what will happen to him. What are those unicorns going to do to him in the square? How is he going to survive without me to take care of him? Even if the best possible thing happens and I'm able to come back to work in the mines again, will everything just go back to normal - to the way it was before the riot? I'm not a little filly anymore. I know that noteverything will be the same, but I've got to hold out some hope that I'll be able to come back home. I've justgot to.

I walk past that final house, trot past that final wall, and gallop into the unknown.