Victory

by Zeck

Rating: teen
Tags: Dark, Gore, Original Character, My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic, Adventure
Length: 35967

"This one represents victory!" What, exactly, is the story behind the statue in Celestia's garden, and what victory is it celebrating?

Fifty ponies volunteered for a mission to travel deep into a cursed forest. Their mission is to find a way to end the war against the griffon kingdom and stop the bloodshed that is soaking their new homeland of Equestria. Fifty ponies took the word of an aging unicorn that hope rests somewhere deep in the heart of the forest, and that if this mission fails, Equestria will fall.
Now, only seven of those ponies are left. They must hold off a force several times their own size and battle the dangers of the forest. All while fighting with broken and scavenged equipment, little rest, less food, and private thoughts of racism that threaten to return them all to the ways of thinking that destroyed their old homeland.
Only one thought keeps these ponies together: If they fail, Equestria will crumble with them, and the ponies that survive will wish they hadn't.

Published 2013-09-30 05:40:02 UTC
Last updated 2013-12-30 05:58:20 UTC

Prologue

Endless Skies was starting to have serious doubts about his life. Mainly, he was doubting its continued existence. Still, he wasn’t dead yet. Better still, he was still up in the air, and that was a fact that the creature directly in front of him was sorely going to regret.

The dark blue pegasus put on another burst of speed and slammed headfirst into the griffon in front of him. He had aimed low, and while the impact sent bells ringing through his head, his helmet protected him from any serious harm. He even managed to feel a small sense of pride as he felt his blow sink into the griffon’s stomach.

The griffon let out a weak squawking noise as air was forced from its lungs. Endless Skies pulled his head back and immediately brought his front hoof up and connected with the beast’s face. The feathery head whipped to one side, a bit further than was natural, as the hoof slammed against one of the eagle eyes. The fact that Endless Skies was wearing armor on his hooves no doubt made the blow twice as painful.

The griffon hovered in the air for a moment, a dazed and sickly look on its face, before it started to list to one side and begin to fall. But Endless Skies wasn’t done yet. He knew the griffon was out of the immediate fight, but as long as it was still breathing, it was a threat to the few ponies who remained. He was going to make sure that it stopped breathing.

That, and he still needed a weapon.

The pegasus flew behind and below the griffon as it started to fall. He came fast, pushing his two front hooves out in front of him as he soared upward. A moment later, his hooves slammed into the griffon’s back and he was certain he heard the sound of a wing breaking. He pushed the body back up into the sky for a second, then flew up so when he turned he was facing the creature.

To his surprise, the griffon appeared to still be conscious. A look of fear flashed through its eyes, but Endless Skies’ pity for the beings had been spent long ago. He reached out and put his front hooves under the griffon’s forelegs and held it there for a second, then slammed his head into the beast’s face, making sure the brim of his helmet connected solidly with the griffon’s beak. Then he reached down with his mouth, gripped the hilt of the griffon’s sheathed down and pulled it out. Twisting his head, he slashed the blade across the white feathers, then brought it back around and shoved it into his enemy’s neck. He twisted his head slightly, trying to get the blade to sink deeper even though he knew the wound was fatal.

After a moment, he pulled the blade back out with his mouth, then slammed both of his hind legs into the corpse’s stomach and watched as it sailed away and fell into the forest blow, a small spray of red following its descent.

Endless Skies hovered in the air, watching as the body vanished beneath the treetop below. His own body was shaking and anger was clouding his vision. He bit down harder on the sword in his mouth until the sensation of his teeth sinking into the hilt snapped him out of his battle fury.

“You’ll die for that, pony!” a voice shouted at him. Endless Skies didn’t even bother to turn to see who was yelling. Three years of fighting had taught him to act instantly, and never react. He rolled to the side just as a sword swung past his body in an attempt to cleave him in two. He came out of his roll and looked to the left as the griffon’s over-zealous swing sent it tumbling through the air. A rookie mistake to be certain, especially when fighting in the air. On the ground, the griffon could have rolled away and gotten up well outside of Endless Skies’ striking range, but in the air, there was no ground to use. And when another dimension was added to the battlefield, a rookie mistake often proved deadly.

Endless Skies flapped his wings once, shooting forward and aiming for the griffon’s exposed wings. He’d use the sword in his mouth to sever the griffon’s wing and—

Pain exploded through Endless Skies’ head and his vision went dark for a second as the griffon went into a forward roll and brought its hind leg up in a kick that slammed squarely into the pegasus’ exposed chin. His head whipped up, and much to his frustration, his jaw flew open and the sword escaped from his teeth.

“Ha! What are you going to do without a weapon, you filthy—”

Endless Skies used the exact same tactic as his enemy just had, only instead of rolling forward, he flipped backward, using the inertia from blow to accelerate his backflip. He reached out with one of his back legs and smiled as he felt it slam into the griffon just as he was finishing his taunt.

“You forget that I just took out your friend without a weapon,” Endless Skies said as he completed his spin, making sure that he was a safe distance from griffon so that he’d have a split second to recover from the kick to the head. “All you’ve done is made it so I have to beat you to death instead of a quick death by the sword. The only thing that’s different is that your death is going to hurt a lot more now.”

The griffon was cradling its face as it shouted back through its talons. “We’ll see about—”

Endless Skies was already moving though, and he didn’t give the griffon a chance to finish its empty threat. The pony tackled the griffon in air, leaning in with his shoulder as their bodies made contact. He brought his left front hoof forward next, slamming it into the griffon’s stomach and then rushing up to knock the sword out of its talon. As the blade tumbled away to the forest below, Endless Skies reached out with his front hooves, pushing the griffon’s head to one side and part of the armor on its shoulder to the other side, and bit down as hard as he could.

Feathers filled his mouth, followed quickly by small traces of blood. As a pony, his teeth weren’t meant to tear flesh, and that hadn’t been what he was trying to do. No, he was trying to—

A sickening crack! rang out and Endless Skies felt something pop in his mouth. His teeth certainly weren’t meant for tearing, but the power behind any pony’s jaw was not something to be taken lightly. A fact that this griffon was no doubt realizing as its entire left foreleg became nothing but dead weight.

Endless Skies released his bite and slammed his right front hoof into the griffon’s broken shoulder. The beast screeched in agony and struggled to stay airborne. The pegasus pulled off his helmet with his hooves and swung it as hard as he could. It slammed into the griffon’s head once, twice, three times before the beast fell like a stone, vanishing into the forest below.

“That’s…that’s two,” Endless Skies heaved as he glared at the spot where the creature had fallen. “Only…only a…” he trailed off as the hopelessness of his situation again came crashing down around him. He had no idea how many griffons were left. He knew there were more than these two, and he knew that, no matter how hard he fought, there was no possible way he could best them all. Eventually one of them would get lucky, or he’d get tired and make a mistake. He had been flying as fast as he could for the past five minutes after all. That, combined with the past three days—which had to have been the most trying of his entire life—and he knew that the odds of him surviving much longer were slim at best. He had only been able to win these last two fights because he had caught the first griffon completely off guard and the second had made some serious mistakes.

“If only I still had my lance,” he said as he tried to put his helmet back on his head. The effort was wasted though, as it had been dented too much from being used as a club. He sighed and let it fall to join his lance somewhere in the forest. He had hated to leave his weapon behind, but he took some small comfort in the fact that it was still pinning a griffon’s corpse to a tree somewhere.

A screech echoed through the air and Endless Skies eyes went wide. He’d lingered too long! He needed to move now before any more griffons showed up. The longer they spent chasing him, the further away from the camp they got. He had already flown a fair distance from the rest of his ragtag group, but it wasn’t nearly as far as he liked. It would only take a few minutes of flying and the griffons would be right on top of the camp.

No, he needed to draw them further away but still keep them in the forest. If he went too far, they would no doubt realize what he was trying to do and abandon the pursuit.

But would that be such a bad thing? He would escape with his life and live to fight another day. Besides, he had sacrificed more than enough for this suicide mission. He’d lost two of his closest friends to the dangers of the forest alone, and watched as dozens of other ponies met horrible ends at the tips of griffon claws or weapons. No one would blame him now if he took off as fast as he could for the edge of the forest and left the remaining ponies to their fate. He’d bought them enough time, more than enough time in fact, to set up their defenses, even if it was a lost cause. Six of them against who-knew-how-many griffons? It was going to be a blood bath, and his death wasn’t going to change that. No, he should just leave those foolish earth ponies and stuck up unicorns and—

Endless Skies stopped the thought the second he realized what had gone through his head. That type of thinking had destroyed the ponies’ homeland. The mistrust and contempt among the three tribes had frozen their land in an eternal winter, and had nearly done the same thing to their new home. According to records, it wasn’t until the three tribes had set aside their differences and realized how much they all had in common that Equestria had been saved from the same magic that had destroyed their original home.

And now Equestria was being threatened with destruction, and the only way it would survive would be if the three tribes worked together. He wasn’t going to let his last moments be clouded by the way his grandparents, and to a lesser extent his parents, had spent their lives thinking. Earth, pegasus, or unicorn pony. It didn’t matter. In the end, they were all ponies, and they were all being threatened, which meant they all had to stand together.

Besides, Endless Skies thought with a grin, there’s still a pegasus with them too. Can’t abandon my own tribe.

“There he is!” a voice shouted. Endless Skies looked to his right—berating himself as he did for wasting precious seconds looking instead of moving—and decided that twenty-five years of life was all he was going to get.

Six griffons were flying toward him, their weapons drawn and their eyes narrowed. The sun caught on their armor, sending little flickering lights into Endless Skies’ eyes. He knew he could try to run, but that would only delay the end for a few moments, and he doubted those moments would make a difference to the others now. No, if he was going to die, he was doing it facing the enemy, and he was going to see if he could take at least one more with him.

“Come and get me, you feathered freaks!” the pegasus shouted, tapping his chest armor with his hoof as he hovered, waiting for the griffons to close the gap. As the seconds ticked by, he suddenly became aware of how tired he was and how heavy his armor seemed. He had the sudden urge to take it off, even though the idea was insanity itself.

Without warning, pain unlike anything Endless Skies had ever imagined flood through is body. Air shot from his lungs and he couldn’t get it back no matter how hard his gasped. His eyes bulged and threatened to leap from his skull as they flew open. Sweat instantly broke out across his entire body and his began to shake, and then he felt a sensation that was alien to him, and yet strangely familiar at the same time.

It took his mind a moment to realize that he was falling. Not diving, not dropping under his own will, but falling, tumbling through the air like a rock. He tried to flap his wings, but the same pain flooded his body. He screamed and then felt branches smashing against him and twigs scratching his coat and face.

A particularly solid branch slammed into his back and his body folded around the limb, sending a new definition of pain to his brain. He heard something break and wasn’t sure if it was the branch or him, and then he was falling again for just another second.

Endless Skies didn’t realized he had hit the ground until he opened his green eyes and saw darkness around him, save for the small patch of damaged trees directly above him. Everything hurt in ways he didn’t think were possible. He closed his eyes, trying to get his body to stop screaming at him, and just lay there, struggling to stay conscious for what seemed like an eternity.

It would be so much easier to just slip away…

He fought the thought with every ounce of strength he had left, and when the pain in his body finally faded to a deafening roar instead of blinding, he opened his eyes again. His breath came in short, painful gasps and he could feel tears swelling in his eyes. He winced and forced his head to turn to the side, already suspecting what had been the cause of his crash.

An arrow was lodged in his wing. The back in had snapped off, likely due to the fall, but the majority of it was still stuck in him. That was it then. Unless the griffons thought the fall had killed him—he couldn’t understand why it hadn’t to be honest—there was no way he was going to be able to evade them now. Any minute they would find him and his life would be over.

“I’m…not dying…on my back.” The pegasus moved to sit up and instantly cried out. Pain tore through his body again as broken bones, bruises, gashes, and countless other injuries made themselves known. He nearly collapsed back to the ground, but he forced himself to sit up through the pain.

“Okay…okay,” he heaved as sweat and blood ran down his body. “Now, I just need to…stand up.” He stood and found that his back right leg would not support his weight and the other three were barely managing to keep him up. His breathing became nothing more than shallow, hurried gasps as he looked at the nearest tree and hobbled toward it. Each step was worse than the last, and when he finally reached the base of the tree, he felt as though he had been lit on fire for the past several days.

No longer able to stand, Endlesss Skies fell toward the tree, turning just enough so that it was his back that rested against the truck and not his chest.

Darkness threatened him again, and he was barely able to hold it off a second time. He was dying. He knew that much. And unless this creepy forced produced miracle healing creatures the same way it produced monsters, there was nothing that could save him. Still, the thought of dying alone in such a cursed place, while not frightening, was still a bit depressing. He had hoped to die in battle, not slowly slipping away and in immense pain.

As his life faded, Endless Skies looked around the forest that would be his tomb. It was not a cheerful place by any stretch of the imagination. Darkness hung from every branch and shadows seemed to bleed out of every corner. The trees were twisted, forming eerie imagines that flittered out of sight whenever he tried to focus on one. Sounds were muffled mostly, or perhaps that was just his hearing failing, but every once in a while a low growl or a snapping twig would echo from somewhere close and the pegasus braced himself for one of the creatures of the forest to burst forth and drag him away.

There was magic to this place, magic that was unlike anything Endless Skies had ever seen. Something powerful resided in this forest and gave everything within it an unnatural energy that hung thick in the air. Of course, that was the whole reason he and forty-nine other ponies had dared to venture into the place. That old unicorn had promised that, at the heart of the forest, there was a way to end the griffon threat forever. What that thing was, Endless Skies had no idea and he regretted that he wouldn’t get the chance the find out.

Another twig snapped, followed by the sound of flapping wings and rustling armor and branches. Endless Skies closed his eyes and waited for the killing blow.

“Stay with us, pegasus,” a voice said. “Don’t die just yet.”

Endless Skies opened his eyes and saw several griffons standing around him, many with arrows trained on him. At the front if the group stood a larger one with a black head of feathers instead of the usual white. Endless Skies assumed that griffon was the leader.

“And…I suppose you…feathered freaks…are going to stop that?” Endless Skies asked, doing his best to grin but wincing so bad that the expression completely failed.

“We could,” the lead griffon said. An evil grin crossed the griffon’s beak and Endless Skies knew that whatever the price was that they were going to ask, it was going to be too high.

“I’m…listening,” he replied, then slouched a little lower against the tree, the action not entirely a ploy. “Better…make it fast though. I don’t think I’m…going to be around much longer.”

“Where are the rest of you filthy work horses?” the leader demanded, digging its front talons into the ground. “We’ll find them eventually, but you could save us a lot of trouble. Tell me, and we’ll save you.”

Endless Skies hated himself because for two seconds he contemplated that deal. The verge of death apparently made the brain do crazy things. “And what…will happen to the others?”

The lead griffon shrugged. “What do you care? We know about the history between your three tribes. You all play at harmony and unity, but the truth is that you ponies were driven into our lands by your petty jealousy and suspicion. So don’t pretend with me that you care what happens to the others.”

That got Endless Skies’ blood to boil and he felt a renewed sense of strength flooding his limbs. Equestria had been uninhabited when the three tribes had settled the land. When the griffons had arrived later, claiming the ponies had invaded their lands, the ponies had apologized and offered to work out a compromise. Equestria was big enough to share, and the ponies weren’t about to ruin their new land by being selfish with it.

The griffons had responded with blood and steel. Ponies that were captured were worked to death and treated as slaves. Those that resisted were killed. It had been like that for four years, with the ponies slowly losing ground. This quest had been their last real chance to turn the tide.

And there was no possible way Endless Skies was going to allow the mission to fail because of something he did.

“You’re right,” he said as he closed his eyes, hoping the hide the anger that was burning in him now. The sheer arrogance that had come from that beast’s beak was almost too much to take. “I don’t care. Help me, and I’ll lead you right to them. I’ll even tell you how many of them are left.”

The leader considered Endless Skies words for a while, then finally nodded to another griffon who had a bow trained squarely on Endless Skies. “Try anything funny or betray us in any way, and you won’t get the chance to regret it,” the leader said as the other griffon slug its bow and walked toward the wounded pony. The pegasus was disappointed that the leader wasn’t the one coming to help him up, but he really hadn’t expected that to happen. To make up for the disappointment, Endless Skies decided that this griffon was probably the one who had shot him, and it was about to pay dearly for that.

Endless Skies counted the seconds as the griffon drew closer. A small part of him—a very small part—felt bad for what he was about to do, but it was quickly buried under all the anger, sadness, and pain that these beasts had caused.

Three seconds left.

He tilted his head slightly to the side, seeing if he could move his neck enough. It burned, but he decided he could.

Two seconds.

He worked his jaw, making sure his mouth could still open and close and his teeth still had some bite.

One second.

He raised both his front hooves out in a gesture that implied that he needed help up. The griffon reached out with its front claws and not-so-gently dug its talons into his forelegs. The last ounce of pity he had felt for what he was about to do vanished as fresh blood flowed from his new wounds.

Zero.

Endless Skies jerked his head to the left and nearly screamed in agony and abandoned his plan as pain shot through his body. He mouth found the arrow lodged in his wing and bit down, his teeth sinking into the shaft. He pulled as hard as he could with his mouth, the pain becoming nearly unbearable as the arrow ripped from his flesh, its tip dripping with his blood.

At the same time as he arrow came free, he pulled back with his hooves, knocking the griffon off balance and sending it tumbling toward him. He twisted his head back and pushed forward with the arrow as the griffon fell. For a brief moment he felt resistance, and then the arrow sank into the feathery white neck.

Endless Skies felt blood spurt across his face. He jerked his head again, making sure the arrow was lodged in the beast’s neck, and then glared up at it. Their eyes met and the pegasus felt a sense of pride as he saw fear swallowing the eagle eyes that looked down at him. The same look he had seen in the eyes of so many ponies of the time of this war. The eyes darted around his face, questions and horror shifting through them so fast that he was having trouble keeping up, and then the light began to fade from them. They dimmed, and then rolled back into the griffon’s skull and the creature became dead weight.

As the griffon fell, Endless Skies pushed it to the side so it wouldn’t fall on top of him. “Oop—”

Pain once againt shot through Endless Skies’ body, only this pain made everything else pale in comparison. His chest felt…he wasn’t sure what it felt like, because he had never felt anything like—

Another bolt of pain canceled out the thought. He tried to scream, tried to throw his head back and cry out, but his entire body was stiff. It refused to listen to him. He lungs refused to bring in air and his eyes refused to stop watering. Something caught in his throat and started to choke the last few seconds of life from him.

Endless Skies’ head sagged forward and came to rest against his chest. As the last light faded from his eyes, he was just conscious enough to register two arrows sticking out of his chest. He coughed one last time, and then the pain began to fade. He closed his eyes as his hearing became dim, only able to pick up his slowing heart. His mouth became too heavy to keep closed and fell open as a vague sense of blood trickled down the corner.

“Stupid workhorse,” a distant voice said.

Kicked…your…flank, his mind shouted back as it crept into darkness.

He felt his body sag as all his weight came to rest on the two arrows pinning him to the tree, and then everything was gone.

Author's Note

And then there were only six ponies...

This story has been bouncing around in my head for a long, long, looooooong time. All the way back when I was working on my first one, Who Am I? I've always wondered what the story was behind that statue that Cheerilee points out to the CMC. I combined that with a few ideas that I got from reading the Elements of Harmony and my own imagination and...here you go.

Took me forever to get this thing rolling though. I wrote out this first part and hated it. Couldn't figure out what was wrong with it for a long time, then it hit me: Endless Skies did nothing but lay against a tree and die. The rest of the chapter was him thinking about the war and exposition stuff as he waited for death. Boring, unless you're reading a lore book, which you're not. So I had to rewrite it and I think this turned out better.

Keep in mind that this is titled 'Prologue' because it's just to set the scene and give basic info. The next chapter will be the real story and much longer. I hope you stick around to read it all.

Feel free to leave a comment or tell me where I made a typo please. :-)

Battle

Flicker huddled around the fire, trying to pull her cloak closer. It wasn’t particularly cold, and sitting close to the fire was managing to banish even the smallest hint of a chill from her body, but she couldn’t help it. She wanted to snuggle deep into the cloak and vanish. She wanted to be back home, safe in her own bed with a fully belly and nothing to worry about.

“Like that’s going to happen,” she said as she stared into the flames. She watched as they danced in a chaotic rhythm that always ended with the tips vanishing in the evening sky. At least, she assumed it was evening. The forest was so overcast with trees that she had a hard time telling if the sun was still up.

Her stomach growled at her and she decided it was evening after all. Clearly her body had decided it was dinnertime. She dug into her saddlebag and rummaged around. All she found was a single apple. She briefly debated whether she should share it, or perhaps only take a few bites and save the rest, but her stomach decided against those options.

Besides, if she didn’t eat it soon, she probably wouldn’t get a chance to.

The unicorn bit into the apple and closed her yellow eyes as the juices and flavor flooded her mouth. This was the first real food she’d had in two days. The band of soldiers she had set out with had packed plenty of supplies, but on their first night in the forest, they had been attacked and nearly all of their food had been eaten.

“Stupid bugs,” Flicker mumbled as she recalled seeing countless winged insects swarm out of the trees and devour nearly everypony’s food in a matter of moments. And that had only been the start of their problems.

Monsters roamed this forest. Creatures that defied logic and nature. The ponies had been prepared to battle any griffons that had followed them, but not the terrors that had awaited them in the forest. Giant serpents dwelled in the rivers, some of them with more than one head. Creatures that looked like they had been mashed together, both large and small, had attacked the party on several occasions. She still shuddered at the thought of watching one of her fellow unicorns turn to stone simply from the stare of one of the forest’s beings.

Even the trees were against them. Pieces of them had broken apart and formed wolves which had decimated the pony force. By the time the griffons had finally found them, their number had been reduced by nearly half. The battle had been vicious even by the war’s standard, but the ponies had suffered the loss in the end.

“And for what?” Flicker asked as she took another bite of the apple floating in front of her. She looked at the five cloaked figures sitting around the fire with her. “Well? Nothing to say?” The figures continued to stare silently into the fire, the shifting light hiding their faces in shadow.

Flicker heard a twig snap somewhere close by. She briefly hoped it was just a piece of wood snapping in the fire, but she knew her luck wasn’t that good. It was time to get started.

She took a deep breath, trying to fight the urge of how utterly stupid she felt right then.

“So what should we do?” she asked, looking around the circle of figures gathered at the fire. “We’re down to just the six of us. Seven, assuming that pegasus comes back.” She twirled her hoof in the air as she took another bite of the apple, trying to savor every second. “What was his name again? Endless Skies, right?”

Another twig snapped, and this time Flicker listened carefully. It hadn’t come from the fire. She was certain it had come from behind her, and very close. She fought the urge to spin around and fire a blast of magic into the dark forest.

“But let’s be honest,” she continued instead. “He’s a pegasus. I’ll bet he took off as fast as he could the moment he thought he was free and clear. You can’t count on their kind for anything when it counts. Oh sure, they like to brag about how they’re a proud race of warriors, but that hasn’t stopped the griffons from utterly crushing their armies.”

Flicker winced as she spoke the words. Not because she knew that Current was listening, or even because she believed she was speaking ill of the dead. She was certain Endless Skies had died fighting. Well, almost certain.

No, she was wincing because a small part of her believed the words. Even after fighting alongside pegasus and earth ponies in dozens of battles, or even just working together in harmony in Equestria for several years, a part of her mind was still stuck in the old ways of thinking. It was screaming at her to get up and run, that the other five ponies weren’t going to follow the plan and had left her to die.

Worse, a growing part of her was starting to believe it. She looked around the fire, her eyes looking past the five cloaked figures and into the forest beyond. Were they still there, like they had promised? Or had she been a sacrificial piece, left behind while the other five had moved to a different location to try and set up a better defense?

Just like what we did with Endless Skies…

Flicker felt guilty about the fact that the pegasus had been sent on a scouting mission, even though everypony knew the truth: he had been used as a decoy in order to lure the griffons away and buy as much time as possible. The fact that he had willing volunteered, knowing full well that he was going to be bait, did little to ease her guilt.

Flicker swallowed and pressed on. She couldn’t dwell on Endless Skies’ fate. She would very likely be sharing it in a few moments anyway.

“Still,” she said to the figure to her left, “at least the pegasi know how to fight. Earth ponies can’t fly and they certainly can’t use magic. What good are they on this mission? Sure, that cook made great food, but then he went and got himself killed by that…what did Starswirl call it? A Manticore? The only thing they’re good for in this war is being frontline troops to delay the enemy while we unicorns do the real fighting.” She turned up her nose at the last few words, trying to capture the arrogance that her tribe had been known for among the other tribes. She closed her eyes and took a final bite from her apple, and then floated the core into the flames and watched it burn.

The figures around the fire said nothing to her remarks. They simply continued to stare at the fire.

I hope they know I’m not serious, she thought as she watched the core turn black. That thought scared her even more than dying. The idea that the last remnants of the band would abandon her because of something she said, thinking that she hated them all, was unbearable. She had to fight the urge to shout out that she didn’t mean any of it.

Another twig snapped, terribly close this time, and Flicker had to fight the urge to jump. She was fairly certain that the noise had been deliberate this time, and as she strained her ears, she thought she heard the sound of wings flapping.

Hoping against hope, she asked without turning around, “Is that you, Endless Skies?”

“Was that his name?” a voice asked. Flicker felt a tear run down her cheek. She didn’t recognize the voice, and that likely meant that their number had been reduced to six.

Slowly, she looked around at the figures sitting around the fire, taking note of where all the weapons were. She took a deep breath and then turned around, fully expecting to catch an arrow in the chest and a sword through her stomach.

“Oh, it’s the beasts,” Flicker said as her eyes fell upon the griffons behind her. “I would offer you all something to eat, but I’m afraid we’re dangerously low on food. Some sort of insect devoured most of it.”

“They’re called parasprites,” a griffon said as he stepped forward. For a moment, Flicker thought he was wearing a hood, but then she realized it was because his head feathers were black. That, combined with the fact that he seemed to be a few sizes larger than a normal griffon, made Flicker believe that she was speaking with their leader.

“Parasprites, you say?” she said, careful not to make any sudden movements less the griffons mistake it as a threat. Every second she was alive was another second that this crazy plan came closer to success. “Disgusting creatures. Ate most of our food on the first night and we’ve been running on rations since. I just ate my last apple myself.” She licked her lips. “Best I’ve ever had, let me tell you.”

“Yes, we noticed,” the leader said. “You were rather unkind to offer any to your...friends. I’m certain they must be hungry too.”

Flicker blew her orange mane up and let out what she hoped sounded like a cruel laugh. “You’re kidding, right? I am a unicorn! As if I’d share my last meal with those brute pegasi or filthy earth ponies. I am not some lowly commoner.” Flicker had to force herself not to smile as she ran her hoof down her yellow neck. She had heard the stories from other soldiers, about how griffons liked to try to get ponies to turn on each other. She hoped that she could lure this griffon into a false sense of safety and then—

“Nice try, unicorn,” the leader said, practically spitting the name at her. “But the last pony who played that trick took one of my archers with him. We will not fall for it a second time.”

So much for that. “Well, it’s good to hear he died fighting at least. One less griffon we have to worry about.” She braced herself, preparing for the worst and satisfied that she had managed to get in a slight jab. She was also happy to hear that Endless Skies hadn’t abandoned them, even though it had meant his death.

“He died a warrior’s death, I will concede to that,” the leader said. “But enough about that. Let’s cut to the chase, shall we?”

“I’m ready if you are,” Flicker said, readying her magic to pick up her weapons and fight.

“You can’t be serious,” the leader said, throwing his head back in a laugh. Flicker felt her flesh prickle as she watched that hideous beak click with each laugh. “The six of you against all of us? You must know that I have archers trained on each one of you. One word and all of you will be dead before you can even cast a single spell.”

“Can’t blame me for trying,” Flicker said, still not releasing her magical grip on the weapons. She knew her horn was glowing is yellowish color, and she was positive that the magical grip on the sword next to her was visible to the griffons, but she hoped the light of the fire masked the other items she was grasping. “Besides. How do I know you’re not bluffing? I only see two archers. No matter how good they are, there’s no way two of them can kill all six of us fast enough.”

“So there are only six of you left,” the leader said with a grin.

“Well, there are six of us here, as you can plainly see,” Flicker said, quickly covering her mistake. She waved her hoof behind her, indicating the cloaked figures around the fire that had said nothing so far.

“Indeed.” The leader said, eyeing her intently. He was smart, Flicker had to admit. If he took just three steps forward, she was certain she could kill him before he saw it coming. However, he wasn’t coming any closer, which meant that he would be able to see any attack coming with enough time to block or dodge it.

Still, that also worked to her advantage. As long as he and the rest of the griffons stayed back, the figures around the fire remained cloaked in shadow and the constantly shifting light from the fire made it impossible to see their faces. That was why Flicker had chosen herself to be the bait for the trap. She was the only one who could keep the griffons back far enough for the plan to work.

“Very well, pony,” the leader said. “Here they are.” The griffon raised one of his wings and Flicker went stiff with horror. She had fully expected that to be the last thing she ever saw before she was pierced with arrows, but it didn’t happen.

Instead, six more griffons stepped, or flew, forward. Each one had a drawn bow and was aiming at Flicker and the other figures. Eight. Eight archers. Assuming the lead griffon had been foolish enough to reveal all of them. She doubted that very much, but she knew there were at least eight.

“Okay, I believe you,” Flicker said. “So, what’s next? If you had planned to kill us, you could have easily shot all of us from the cover of the forest and not revealed yourselves. If you had wanted to taunt us and then kill us, I’m fairly certain you’ve accomplished the taunting part. And yet we still draw breath. I must admit, I am curious as to why.”

“This.” The leader waved his talon around, indicating Flicker, the campsite, and the rest of the forest. “Why are you here?”

Flicker shrugged. “It seemed like a good camping spot. We needed to rest.”

“That is not what I meant, pony,” the griffon said, showing the first sign of true anger. “What is your kind planning? Why did such a large force come into this cursed place? A dangerous power sleeps here. Are you ponies fool enough to believe you can control it? It will destroy you all!”

Flicker sighed. She could see that the plan was coming to its end. Lies, diversions, and general stalling would no longer hold this griffon’s attention. Still, she had one last trick up her sleeve.

The truth.

“All right, you caught us,” she said. She smiled as the griffon leader blinked once in shock, at a loss for words.

“Explain,” he said darkly.

“We came into this forest because one of the most powerful unicorns, Starswirl the Bearded, claims that there’s a weapon deep in these woods that can turn the tide of the war.”

“You are fool,” the griffon said, “There is a power here that your kind cannot possible fathom, let alone control.” Flicker wondered if he was correct because she saw genuine fear in the griffon’s face for a moment. Not the fear that comes when facing death, but the fear of something standing behind death. Like looking at a monster, and then seeing an even bigger monster looming up silently behind the first one. His reaction would certainly help explain why everything in this forest was so hostile and…strange.

“Perhaps,” she said, ignoring the look. “Speaking of the forest, is this were you beasts came from? I mean, your kind is a mix of different animals, and everything in this forest is a mix up of different animals.” She stopped for a moment and tilted her head, pretending to think. Then she kicked the dirt with her hoof. “Is that like stomping on holy ground for your kind or something? Are Manticores like your kind’s cousins or something?”

“The only reason you still breathe, unicorn,” he spat the word again, this time sending actual spit through the air, “is because you are giving me more information. If you are all finished, your death is assured. If you have more to share, you keep breathing. Your choice.”

“Apologies,” Flicker said, kicking the ground deliberately one last time and locking eyes with the griffon as she did. “And thank you for confirming that this entire adventure and all those who died wasn’t for nothing.” She smiled as it dawned on the griffon’s face that he had just let slip something important.

“As I was saying,” she continued. “We came here looking for some sort of weapon. Only Starswirl knows what it is, and he wasn’t about to tell any of us. Said it was too dangerous for any pony to know because then a griffon might find out and try to stop us. Guess that didn’t work out too well.”

“What is this weapon?” the leader said darkly, his eyes narrowing.

“It appears you’d be more familiar with it than me, judging by your reaction,” Flicker said, tapping herself on the chest and acting hurt. Still, she suddenly felt as though she and the griffon were talking about two different things. “All I know is that it has something to do with some prophecy in one of Starswirl’s books. Clover the Clever would probably know what it was too, but she’s busy fighting on the main front.”

“So you’ve all been sacrificed for some ancient unicorn’s dusty books?” The griffon shook his head. “That’s almost enough for me to take pity on you.”

“No thank you,” Flicker said, her voice hardening slightly. “I’ve seen your kind’s pity.”

“What was the plan here?” The leader asked. “You set up camp in an obvious spot where you had to know we’d find you. You light a roaring fire that is painfully visible, and you sit around it without placing traps or lookouts or anything. I’d be concerned that this might be a trap, but only six of you against all of us? Don’t make me laugh.”

“I hate to make you laugh, but you’re right,” Flicker said with a grin. “This is a trap. You’ve fallen for it pretty bad too.”

“How so?” the griffon asked with a chuckle. “A single unicorn and a random amount of earth and pegasus ponies?”

“What makes you think I’m the only unicorn here?” Flicker asked as she tightened her magical grip on her weapons.

“Because you’re the only one who has readied any magic,” the leader said as he pointed to the other figures behind Flicker. “Your kind is the biggest threat in combat. I ordered my soldiers to target any unicorn first. A foe who can decimate an entire unit with a magical blast from a bone in their head is not to be taken lightly.”

“A good strategy,” Flicker said, taking a twisted sense of pride in the fact that her enemy found her to be such a threat. “But pegasus ponies are the warriors. They’re the best fighters out of the three tribes.”

“In the air,” the leader replied. “On the ground, they are not much better than an earth pony. If any one of your friends suddenly take flight, my soldiers have orders to shoot him before he can flap twice.”

“You don’t think highly of earth ponies then?” Flicker asked.

“On the contrary, earth ponies are my favorite,” the leader said with a grin. “Inept on the battlefield most of the time, and thus easily captured. But their strength! The mines can get ten times more work out of an earth pony than a unicorn or a pegasus. Any griffon that brings back an earth pony slave is paid handsomely. I’ve become quite wealthy because of that.”

“You know, I was supposed to keep you talking for as long as possible,” Flicker said, clenching her teeth so hard that they were starting to hurt. Her magical energy was building up to the point where it would explode if she didn’t do something. This…creature saw her and the other tribes as—

No. He saw ponies, all ponies, as nothing more than slaves. Tools to be used until they broke, and then tossed aside. He would suffer for that. Flicker would make certain.

“That was the whole point of the trap,” she said through clenched teeth. “We’re supposed to delay you for as long as we can. Starswirl and…the others have already found the weapon’s resting place and just need time to get to it. Every second I was able to keep you here was a second longer for him to complete is mission.”

“What?” the griffon said, his eyes growing big with anger.

“I was not finished!” Flicker shouted, stunning the lead griffon into silence and making several others jump slightly. “You’re right. Earth ponies are terrifyingly strong. Pegasi are frighteningly dangerous in the air. And a unicorn, fully prepared and ready for battle, can hold off a force ten times her size. Multiple unicorns can hold off armies. Yet you only see us as slaves. You make me sick. I will rip you apart before this fight is done.”

“I doubt that,” the leader said, regaining his bluster. “Your pegasus ponies are grounded or dead. You are the only unicorn present. And an earth pony’s strength means nothing if they can’t get close enough to use it.”

“Oh, but they can,” Flicker said. Her voice went cold and she stood up on all fours, raising her sword in front of her. “Have you ever seen what happens when an earth pony kicks something as hard as they can? I’m sure some of you beasts have. It’s not pretty, is it? Shattered bones, ruptured organs, I’ve even heard tales of limbs being torn off. And a pegasus in the air is fast. One who has mastered the art of air combat is truly a horror to behold if you are his enemy. Two of you could be dead before you even knew he was there.”

The griffons were getting nervous now. Flicker saw the archers’ eyes darting between her, their leader, and the figures behind her. Several griffons were backing up slightly, watching the trees sometimes but mostly focusing on her and the figures behind her. Good. She’d gotten to them. That would make them jumpy.

“Enough!” the leader said. “Kill them. Kill them all!”

Flicker raised a shield around herself and heard two arrows bounce off of it and then she heard the sound of others whistle by her and the sound of their impacts clinking off of metal.

“What a coward,” the leader said after the sort volley ended. Perhaps there really were only eight archers in the group. The volley had been awfully short. “I know you could have raised that shield to save all your friends, yet you only protected yourself.”

Flicker just narrowed her eyes more and grinned.

“Sir!” one of the archers said. “Look!” He pointed toward the figures behind Flicker and the unicorn smiled as the leader’s eyes went wide with horror. She knew what he was looking at. The figures behind her were still sitting perfectly still, with perhaps an arrow or two stuck in them, but most of the arrows were probably broken on the ground.

“Surprise,” Flicker said as she used a quick flourish of magic to yank the cloaks off of the five figures, revealing them to be nothing but stones that had been stacked up to look like a pony sitting. “You ever seen what happens when something kicked by an earth pony hits a griffon’s head? It looks like this!”

“Sir, what—” The archer griffon’s sentence was cut off instantly as a rock smashed against his head. He sank to the ground, most liking dead or dying from the blow. The other archer standing close to the leader looked as his fallen comrade, then up into the forest and caught another rock straight in the face. His head snapped back too far and Flicker thought she saw pieces of the griffon’s face go flying off, but she couldn’t be sure. She was sure he was dead though.

Two down, six more to—

Two griffons dropped their bows and began clutching at their throats, an arrow sticking out of each of their necks. A third suddenly found himself pinned to a tree by a spear lodged in his stomach. He looked down at it in shock for a moment, and then his body went limp. That left just three archers. If those three could be taken out in the next half second, Flicker could finally make her move.

As if Current had read her thoughts, a dark green flash streaked through the night. One archer fell to the ground, clutching his shoulder and screaming in pain. His wing hit the ground a moment later, along with his bow, which had been sliced in half. The next griffon gripped his throat as a red dash opened along his white feathers. He struggled to stay airborne for a few more seconds, then fell to the ground, slowly choking on his own blood.

The final archer screamed in shock and pain as two blades were driven into her stomach. A lone pegasus flew before her, lifting her into the air for a moment and then tossing the corpse off the blades and to the side. The pegasus looked back at Flicker, nodded quickly, and then was gone nearly as fast as he’d appeared.

“After them!” the leader shouted, and Flicker heard the rustle of bushes and the snapping of twigs as her fellow ponies took off into the forest, with the griffons giving chase. “I will deal with her.”

“Are you sure you wish to fight me by yourself?” Flicker asked. She raised the rest of the weapons she had carefully positioned around the stone figures earlier. Axes, swords, and spears rose into the air around her, all of them encased in her glowing yellow magic. “As I told you, a prepared unicorn can hold of a force ten times her size. And not only am I prepared, but I’m a soldier. I know how to fight.”

Flicker took deep pride as she watched the black feathered griffon struggle with the implied insult of him being too weak to face her on his own against his desire to continue living.

In the end, his judgment won out over his pride. Made sense, she decided. He was a leader of soldiers. He hadn’t gotten to be that way by being dumb in combat. Then again, he had been foolish enough to reveal his archers’ locations, so he wasn’t that bright.

“Seven of you, with me,” the leader shouted, and Flicker saw the seven closest griffons break off their pursuit of her comrades and carefully surround her, their weapons drawn

She took comfort in the fact that not a single one of them had a bow. If they wanted to kill her, they’d have to get close. And she was going to make that very, very difficult to do. She slowly twirled the sword in front of her with her magic and smiled at the lead griffon.

“Let’s cut to the chase, shall we?” she said.

* * *

Spinner had kicked a single rock and then took off into the forest. He hadn’t even stuck around to see if he had hit his mark. As soon as the other ponies had launched their attack, he had followed suit and vanished deeper into the cursed woods. He had no idea where he was going, no clue what his plan was, and no thought in his head other than one.

Run.

And run he did. Flicker had been right in the fact that earth ponies were the strongest, and right now he was using that fact to his advantage. A pegasus might be faster in general—especially in the air—but on the ground and dodging trees, roots, rocks and who knew what else, an earth pony was unbeatable.

And yet the griffons were somehow keeping up. He could hear them behind him, letting out birdcalls and yelling random threats at him. It baffled him that they were able to keep pace, but they did have one advantage over him. They could see in this darkness. He had to peer ahead as hard as he could to avoid crashing into a tree or tripping on a root, but the griffons’ eagle eyes allowed them to see extremely well. Or maybe not. Did a griffon’s eyes work as well at night? Were they nocturnal creatures?

It didn’t matter. All that mattered was staying ahead of them. All their archers were dead, wounded, or their weapons broken, so he didn’t have to worry about taking an arrow in the back, and the thick trees prevent them from really opening up their wings and getting the drop on him. If he just kept running, he’d stay alive. The griffons might be able to keep up with him for a bit, but there was no possible way they had the same endurance as an earth pony.

He wasn’t a coward. He kept repeating that phrase to himself like a mantra as it fueled his steps. Running had been the plan. They were to wait in hiding near the campsite until the griffons found them. After that, Flicker would try to lure out as many archers as she could, and then they were supposed to strike fast and hard, removing the griffons’ long-range attack capabilities. After that, they were all supposed to take off into the forest and split up the remaining enemy force. If they were caught, they were supposed to take as many as they could with them. If they managed to lose the pursuers, they were supposed to attempt to circle back to camp. Running and stalling the griffons for as long as possible was all part of the plan.

So why did Spinner feel like a coward as he tore through the dark forest as fast as his hooves would carry him?

Because he wasn’t running for the sake of the plan, and he knew it. As much as he hated to admit it, he knew he was running for his life. He had regretted coming on this suicide mission the moment they had set foot in the forest three days ago, but it had been too late to turn back then. The only reason he was still alive, when so many other brave ponies were dead was because he was a coward. When the first griffon attack had come, he had been too terrified to move. He had fought them before, but this forest had gotten to him and nearly shattered his mind. The creatures that lurked within the woods were not natural and had abilities that were beyond even unicorn magic. This place was twisted in ways he couldn’t begin to understand, and it had gotten to him.

He had spent the first attack huddled on the ground, and had felt nothing but relief when the corpse of a pegasus had landed on top of him, hiding him from the rest of the fighting.

Then the fighting had ended, and when he heard that the unit was moving out, his fear had made him cry out for help because he hadn’t wanted to be left alone in the forest. When he had seen that only himself, five other soldiers, Starswirl, and the two cloaked figures with him were all that remained of their force, he had slowly dissolved into a state of panic. He’d been fighting that panic over the past few days, but he could tell it was a losing battle.

Now that panic drove him, forced his hooves to carry him faster and further from the campsite. The fear provided energy to his limbs that had been lacking ever since most of their food had been eaten, and even as his stomach roared at him and his head felt light from lack of nourishment, his body continued to press on. He would run all the way out of the forest if he had to. He would reach its edges and collapse there, and if the griffons were still behind him, he would gladly face them there, but not in this forest. Not in this twisted, evil—

Spinner’s hoof caught on a rock and the dark blue earth pony crashed across the forest floor. His armor bit into his body as he rolled across dirt and upturned roots. The sound of metal hitting stone rang in his ears as his head hit a rock and threatened to make his vision go dark. He felt pain race down his neck as a wound opened on his chin and blood began to soak his blue coat. He finally came to rest against a tree and closed his eyes as the panicked energy left his body. What replaced it was utter exhaustion.

“Ow…” he said as he lay in the dirt, his head still ringing slightly from the impact. He groaned and picked himself up. He felt weak and his legs barely managed to keep him upright. His stomach growled at him as it threatened to devour itself. Fight was hard work. Running for his life was hard working. Doing it on an empty stomach was proving to be nearly impossible.

“I’ve got to keep moving,” Spinner said as he forced his hooves to start moving again. “I can’t let them catch me.” He managed to stagger a few steps before he was able to break into a gentle trot, but it was nowhere near the speed at which he was traveling before. For a brief moment, his mind offered the thought that perhaps he had managed to lose his pursuers and he could find a safe place to rest and perhaps even something to eat.

That thought was shattered when he heard the sound of a sword being drawn from its sheathe. Spinner frozen instantly. Damn! How had they managed to keep up so well?

“We’re only going to say this once,” a voice said. “Turn around slowly and surrender.”

Spinner turned around, expecting to see at least two dozen griffons behind him. To his relief, he only saw six. Under better circumstance, he would have half a hope that he could get out alive, or maybe even best them all. But trapped in the forest, exhausted from lack of sleep, and barely able to stand because of hunger, he knew he was staring death in the face.

Or worse, his mind thought as he recalled what that leader griffon had said to Flicker before the fighting had broken out. Spinner shook his head. He was not going to be captured and taken to the griffon kingdom to die a slow, painful death. He’d rather die a thousand times in this cursed place than suffer that fate. Okay, maybe not a thousand times, but still.

Spinner made a choice right then. He looked down at his right front hoof, and then his left. Both of his weapons were still attached to his hooves. He looked up at the griffons and narrowed his eyes, then brought his right hoof to his mouth. He bit down on the latch on his armor that kept the circular disk attached to his foreleg and the weapon fell off and landed on the ground.

“You’re kidding, right?” one of the griffons asked with a laugh. “Tell me you’re kidding.”

Without breaking eye contact with the griffon who had spoken, Spinner repeated the process with his left foreleg, only this time, he caught the ring on his front hoof and let it hang there, gently spinning it in a circle.

“What do you think?” he asked, struggling to ignore the growing pain of hunger in his stomach. Oddly enough, the fear had all but disappeared. He was still terrified of the forest, but he had pushed it to the back of his mind, where it would sit and whisper to him until this battle was over.

“I knew earth ponies were dumb, but you’re pushing the limits of what I can believe,” the griffon said. “Chakrams can only be used by unicorns. If that’s all you have, then we’ll be making a nice profit off of you.”

“What’s your name?” Spinner asked, trying to sound intimidating but failing because of his hunger.

“Hersah,” the griffon said, “but you’ll soon be calling me Mistress.”

“And what makes you so sure of that?”

“There are six of us and you only have two of those little toys,” Hersah said as she indicated the chakrams with her sword. “Worse for you, you can only throw one at a time. And if you miss, that’s it. You don’t get a second chance. Even if both of them connect, there’s not way you can take down all of us. Make it easy on yourself and give up. I promise to treat you like a nice pet.”

“Come and get me,” Spinner said, twirling one of his chakrams slightly faster on his left hoof. “It shouldn’t be too hard for you to beat me. Like you said, I can clearly only throw one at a time, and by the time I get the second one ready, I’m sure you’ll have closed the distance.”

“You’re fun—whoa!” Hersah twisted her head to the side as Spinner sent one of his chakrams flying past her head. It sank into the trunk of a nearby tree and Spinner felt a small tug on his hoof. “Well, what now? Two shots, and you missed one.”

Hersah took to the air and started to slowly advance, her sword pointed straight at Spinner’s chest. The pony did his best to look terrified, which wasn’t all that hard to do because he was nearly scared out of his mind. But he managed to maintain control and simply waited for Hersah to fly a bit closer.

“That’s it?” Hersah said as she flew to within a few feet of Spinner. “You’re not even going to try and fight back? Maybe you’re not worth—ARGH!” Hersah collapsed on the ground, her sword falling from her claw and her other foreleg clawing at her back. She tried to flap her wings, but they refused to answer. Terrified, her eyes turned up to Spinner’s.

“You’re right,” the earth pony said as he glared down at the wounded griffon. “Chakrams are a unicorn’s weapon. They can wield and throw several of them at a time with their magic if they’ve trained enough. Better still, they can use their magic to bring them back. Like I just did.”

“But…but how?” Hersah gasped, the fear growing in her voice as Spinner continued to glare at her. “You’re…you’re and earth pony. You…don’t have magic.”

Spinner stepped forward, bent down, and patted Hersah’s neck. She winced with each touch, and Spinner had to admit that he got a small amount of pleasure out of watching the griffon squirm. “This is going to hurt a bit.” He put is hoof through the hoop that was lodged between Hersah’s wings and pulled.

Hersah let out a scream that was half eagle, half agony as the disk came free from her flesh. Spinner watched as the blood flowed out of her and then looked at the dark red fluid on his ring. It dripped down on the griffon’s white neck as he held it over her. He watched as her eyes flicked between his face and the weapon coated in her blood, and each time a drop of blood landed on her neck, she blinked. It would be so easy to just cut her throat right then. Her wings were useless, and he was fairly certain she wouldn’t be able to walk for a while. Killing her would put the odds closer to his favor.

“Simple,” Spinner said as he swung the chakram once, splashing some of the blood from it onto the ground. “Wire and thread. See?” Spinner bit down on the armor on his front left hoof and found the nearly invisible wire that connected his chakram to his hoof. He pulled with is teeth and the comforting sound of the wire extending rang in the air. “Unicorn weapon smiths forged the wire for me. Used some of my blood and their hair in it, as well as the chakrams themselves. I can’t control them nearly as well as a unicorn can, but I’m still brutally effective with them. As you no doubt know now.”

Spinner looked up and noticed that all the other griffons were still staying back, their weapons drawn but not raised in a threatening manner. He looked back down at the griffon that lay at his hooves.“You’re going to want to get that looked at,” he said. “Of course, I can’t help but notice that none of your companions have come forward to help you either. Some friends. Maybe I should just kill you then?”

“No!” one of the griffons shouted.

“Please,” Hersah said at the same time, and Spinner was surprised to see a tear falling from her eye. Did these beasts actually have emotions?

“I’ll make you a deal, Hersah,” Spinner said, leaning down to whisper to the griffon but not taking his eyes off of the other five. “Tell your…friends, to give me something to eat, and I’ll let them take you out of here. If they hurry, you might be able to fly again.”

“Rasa, give this pony some of those apples you have,” Hersah said instantly. One of the griffons removed a satchel he was carrying and tossed it to Spinner. It landed right next to him and two apples fell out. He wasn’t a big fan of the fruit, but right then, they looked delicious. He bent down and picked one up with his mouth, eating nearly the whole thing before he raised his head again to check on the other griffons. None of them had moved. He ate two more apples before taking the satchel and slinging it over his neck. He reattached one of his chakrams, but left the other one loose just in case.

“Okay, I’m going to back away and you can come get her,” Spinner said as he chewed another apple. “Try anything and—”

A howl tore through the forest and Spinner froze. The apple that was in his mouth dropped to the ground and he found that it was impossible to make any part of his body move. He’d heard that howl before, on the first night they had spent in the forest. If there were more then—

The howl was joined by another howl, and then another. Soon the entire forest was echoing with the sound. Spinner looked to the five griffons and noticed that they were rooted to the spot as well, their heads whipping back and forth as they tried to spy where the howls were coming from.

“We…we’ve got to get out of here,” one of them shouted and took flight, flying into the darkness of the forest.

“No, wait!” Rasa called after the griffon. His called was answered by a blood-curdling scream and then nothing. Moments later, a low growl came from behind Spinner and the air began to reek. He spun around and backed toward the griffons. He only stopped when he nearly tripped over Hersah, who was still laying on the ground, bleeding. He felt her claw close around his hind leg and he nearly kicked her head off in surprise.

“Please…don’t leave me to them,” she begged. Spinner had half a mind to kick her anyway and take off, but he knew it was already too late. Her scream earlier had been what had attracted these creatures, of that he had no doubt. And even if he tried to run, he would only suffer the same fate as that other griffon. If he wanted to get out of this alive, then he’d need to…

“Listen up,” Spinner said, barely able to believe the words that were about to come out of his mouth. “Form a circle around Hersah. We fight back to back. Temporary truce. Agreed?”

“I won’t stab you in the back until this is over,” came one answer.

“We survive this, and I won’t stab you in the back at all,” said another.

“Deal,” Rasa said.

“None…none of them, will harm you, pony,” Hersah said weakly. “You…have my word.” Spinner bit back the reply that would have shown how much that meant to him. Right now, he’d need all the help he could get if he wanted to survive this. He was about to ask the fifth griffon if it agreed to the truce, but it was too late.

The first Timber Wolf leapt out of the woods and came charging at Spinner. He screamed and swung his free chakram as hard as he could. The ring connected solidly with the wooden monster’s chest and it howled in pain before breaking apart into pieces of wood. Spinner yanked his foreleg and the chakram came spinning back, landing nicely around his extended foreleg.

“You’re pretty good with those things, pony,” one of the griffon’s said.

“You haven’t seen anything yet.” Spinner brought his right hoof to his mouth and quickly undid the latch on his other chakram. It crashed into the dirt and his heart began racing in his ears. Dozens of glowing green eyes were looking at him from every direction in the forest. This was it. It wasn’t going to be hunger or even griffons that ended his life. He was going to be mauled to death literally by the forest itself.

Still, he wasn’t going to go without a fight.

Spinner took a deep breath, his dark blue fur pressing against his chest armor as he inhaled, and pushed off the ground with his front hooves. He took a single step back to balance himself, careful not to trip over Hersah, and flicked his right front hoof. The other chakram sprang up onto his other foreleg and he began spinning it viciously.

“You’re kidding,” he heard Rasa say from behind him.

“Nope,” Spinner said. Earth ponies were at an extreme disadvantage in combat. They had no magic to hold weapons, and no wings to free their front legs for use. As such, over the past two years, more and more of them were learning how to fight standing on their hind legs. It wasn’t easy, but Spinner had trained for many months to learn the form, and he was fairly competent at it now.

Two more Timber Wolves jumped toward him. He sent one of his chakrams out in a sweeping arch, decapitating one of the beasts and lodging it firmly in the side of the other. He allowed his body to continue on in a spin and brought his left foreleg around in a back sweep, sending his other chakram straight out to catch a third Timber Wolf square between the eyes. To his relief, the head split completely in two and the rest of the body fell to the ground, motionless. Four down, countless more to go.

Spinner whipped his forelegs and both his chakrams came flying back to him. He looked to his right and saw a Timber Wolf leaping toward one of the griffons. The feathered creature wasn’t going to be able to avoid to attack in time, so Spinner twisted his body and forelegs in another whipping motion, sending both of his weapons straight toward the beast. They splintered the creature’s side and it vanished in a howl of pain and a rain of wood.

What would my commanding officer say if you could see me now? He had just saved the life of a griffon, and he was fighting to save the lives of all the ones around him too. He had shown mercy to one that was bleeding as his hooves. War made ponies do crazy things apparently.

Spinner nearly threw up as a Timber Wolf’s breath blew in face. The stench was overpowering and made his eyes water and his head swim. He choked back vomit and turn to his right just in time to see jaws opening to bite his head off. He froze, waiting for the brief moment of pain before death, but at the last second the Timber Wolf exploded.

“We’re even now,” one of the griffons said. Spinner just nodded and recalled his chakrams again. Maybe he would survive this. Maybe he wouldn’t end up as a corpse to feed the foliage in this cruse forest.

“Ah! No! Get off!” Spinner whipped his head to the right in time to see the griffon that had just saved his life being dragged away into the trees by two Timber Wolves. He flung both of his weapons at the creatures and managed to severe the leg of one of them, but it was too late. The griffon vanished into the woods and let out a final scream that was quickly drowned out by more howling.

“We have to get out of here!” one of the remaining griffon’s shouted as he shoved another Timber Wolf back with his shield and then plunged his sword into its chest. “We stay here and we’re all—” He was cut off as another beast jumped and caught him in its mouth, nearly biting him in two as it bit down and ran off with the griffon’s body.

“Rasa, we have to go,” the second to last griffon said. “If we leave Hersah, it should buy us enough time to get away.”

Spinner waited to hear the protest from Rasa. Another Timber Wolf lunged at him and he did a set of twirls and spins that not only destroyed the first Timber Wolf, but also destroyed two others in the whirlwind of circles.

“Rasa, please…” Spinner heard Hersah beg as he spun another chakram out, knocking a Timber Wolf on the head and forcing it to back away a few steps.

“Rasa, leave her!” the griffon shouted. “Look! They’re already starting to regenerate. We need to leave, now!”

Spinner’s eyes darted toward the nearest pile of shattered wood and his blood ran cold. It was moving. It was twitching violently and slowly pulling itself together with wisps of green magic. He watched, horrified, as the wood reassembled itself into the terrifying shape of a Timber Wolf. It barked at him and leapt forward. What was wrong with this forest?

Without thinking, Spinner sent of his chakrams crashing into the beast’s midsection. Once again, it exploded into a shower of wood, but an instant later Spinner’s outstretched foreleg felt like it was on fire. He screamed as a Timber Wolf bit down on him, crushing his armor and sinking its wooden fangs into his flesh. He slammed his other chakram down on the beast’s head as hard as he could and it fell away in pieces, but the damage was done. Unable to maintain his balance because of the pain, he fell forward and caught himself with his one good foreleg.

“I’m sorry, Hersah,” Spinner heard Rasa say. The earth pony looked over his shoulder just in time to see the last two griffons take flight and vanish into the forest. How…how could they just leave her like that? Leave him?

The sound of crying snapped Spinner out of his disbelief, mainly because it was a sound that did not belong in the middle of a pack of vicious Timber Wolves. The earth pony looked down and saw the wounded griffon curled up in a ball, her wings covered in dirt and blood and her feathers caked in filth. She was shuddering violently and had her claws over her eyes while she shook her head frantically. She looked pathetic.

Every rational thought in Spinner’s mind was screaming at him to do what the other griffons had done. Leave her as a meal for the Timber Wolves to buy himself time to escape. She would do the same to him. She would probably do the same to her own kind if Rasa and the other were any indication. Plus, she had killed how many ponies during the war? And how many more did she sell into slavery, or keep as her own little pets? She deserved whatever this forest had in store for her, and worse.

“What…what are you doing?” Hersah asked.

“I don’t know. And shut up,” Spinner said as he knelt down and lifted the wounded griffon with his muzzle. He flipped and rolled her, none to gently, along his neck until she was draped over his back like a feathery saddlebag. His right foreleg burned as he put weight on it, but he forced the pain from his mind. He tried to pull his chakram back, but the thing refused to move. He looked at his wounded leg—struggling to ignore the open wounds, flowing blood, and crushed armor that greeted his eyes—and saw that the wire to the chakram had been snapped. It was supposed to be unbreakable by normal means, but Timer Wolves were made of magical energy, and that threw a lot of supposed fact out the window. Probably for the best. He doubted he could use the weapon anymore with his foreleg in the condition it was. Still, he hated to leave the chakram sitting on the forest floor.

A roar behind him quickly reminded him that he didn’t have time to dwell on such thoughts. Spinner looked back and sent his other chakram spinning out. Indescribable pain shot up through his body as all his front weight was suddenly placed on his wounded leg. He nearly collapsed under Hersah’s weight, but he managed to stay standing and recall his remaining weapon as it drove back another Timber Wolf.

He caught the ring weapon in his mouth, careful not to bite down on the razor edge, and took off straight ahead. He swung his neck as he pasted another Timber Wolf and the chakram in his mouth slammed into the creature’s head, shattering it. He felt part of the weapon cut deep into the roof of his mouth and it suddenly became difficult to maintain his grip on it as the blood and spit mixed together to make the ring slip around in his mouth.

Leave her! Leave her and run! The thought kept repeating itself over and over as Spinner tore through the forest, struggling to carry the wounded griffon and ignore the pain that shot up through his foreleg every time he took a step. The sound of the Timber Wolves barking and howling behind him drove him forward and gave him a strength that only blind terror could bring. With every step, he feared that his body would give out, and each time that fear came up he had to beat down the thought of tossing Hersah from his back and running off.

It wasn’t until he felt the tapping on his flank that he suddenly became aware of the fact that the Timber Wolves had grown silent. He slowed to a trot and then came to a complete stop, straining his ears to hear any sound of the wooden creatures. All the while, Hersah continued to poke him in the side with one of her talons.

“Would you stop that?” Spinner hissed as he strained his ears to hear the Timber Wolves.

“They’re gone,” Hersah said, her voice weak. “They…they dropped off a while back. There’s…a cave over there.” The griffon raised her claw and pointed to a cave. Spinner hated the idea of going into a dark cave in the middle of this forest during nightfall, but he figured it was probably the safest place to hide if the Timber Wolves came back.

Unless it was a Timber Wolf den, in which case he and Hersah would be dead within seconds of entering.

“Alright,” Spinner said. “Guess we need to patch ourselves up anyway.”

“I’ve…I’ve got some…bandages in my pack.” Spinner looked over his shoulder as he walked toward the cave. Hersah did not look good. Her body looked like dead weight across his back and her eyes were fluttering close. If she hadn’t just spoken, he would have thought she was dead.

Why do I care? he thought. He looked at the wound that ran down her back. It was deep and was still bleeding, turning her brown feathers to dark red. He had done that to her. He had meant to kill her, and the only thing that had saved her from having her spine severed had been the fact that she had been wearing armor and he had misjudged her distance when he had struck. So why in Equestria did he care if this being on his back lived or died now?

“Stay awake,” Spinner said as he entered the cave and gently set her on the cold floor. “Where are those bandages?” She weakly pointed to her bag and Spinner dug through it until he found some bandages, what he hoped was a healing cream, and Hersah’s canteen. He soaked the bandages in the green liquid and dumped some of the water on his wounded foreleg. He used the rest to clean the dirt and dried blood from Hersah’s wound, and then did his best to wrap both their injuries. The griffon moaned in pain several times, but she didn’t protest.

“Better?” Spinner asked as he pulled the last bandage tight with his teeth.

Hersah said nothing for a moment, then her eagle eyes slowly opened. She blinked several times and then sat up as fast as her injuries would allow. She quickly looked around the cave until her eyes settled on Spinner with a hard look.

“Why did you save me?” she demanded.

“Oh, I’m sorry,” Spinner said, his anger beginning to remind him why he had tried to kill this creature earlier. “Next time I’ll leave you in your helpless, pitiful state to be ripped apart by beasts that can’t die!” He glared at her until she looked away and hung her head.

“Sorry,” she whispered. “I’m just…”

“Just what?” Spinner asked, still feeling his anger burning. “Just not used to seeing mercy? Showing it? Do griffons even know what that is? Your friends back there were pretty quick to abandon you, so I’m guessing kindness isn’t a common trait among your kind.” Spinner was about to chew into her more, but his mind stopped as he heard his words. He had done the same thing. He had told himself that he had been following the plan when he had fled into the forest, but he knew that was just to make himself feel better. The truth was, he had abandoned his friends and comrades just as the griffons had abandoned Hersah.

Not this time, he thought. After I’ve healed a bit, I’m heading back to the campsite. Maybe Flicker and some of the others are still there. If not, well…

“Pony, don’t move,” Hersah whispered.

“My name is Spinner,” the earth pony said. “Not pony. And if you think you’re in any condition to—” He stopped when he saw that Hersah wasn’t looking at him, but behind him and up. Way, way up. And the look on her face was one of sheer horror.

Carefully, Spinner turned around.

What greeted his eyes was confusing at first. He thought he was looking up at the night sky. Dozens of stars glittered before his eyes and swirls of cosmic dust flowed among the twinkling lights. It was a beautiful sight to behold, and for a moment he considered just laying there and looking up at the purple sky and its diamonds.

But there were several things wrong. First, he was inside a cave, as his brain was quick to remind him. As such, he shouldn’t have been able to see the stars. Second, the stars were too big, and too close. He could see them too clearly and some appeared to be bigger than his entire head. Finally, he noticed that the stars were moving back and forth. They never moved far, and they always returned to their original spot. The sky appeared to be…breathing? How was that possible?

“What in Equestria…?” Spinner squinted and tilted his head, suddenly wishing he had both of his chakrams still. As he stared, two massive yellow eyes with blood red pupils flashed opened, and the starry sky before him peeled back to reveal rows of razor sharp teeth. A roar unlike anything the Timber Wolves could do split the silence in the cave and nearly deafened the pony.

“I really hate this bucking forest,” he said.

* * *

Great. Just great. Quickeye jumped over a fallen tree, landed, and spun around to face his pursuers. He used his magic to string one of his few remaining arrows and let it fly. Without waiting to see if it hit anything, he turned and continued tearing through the forest, trying to keep up with the other two ponies ahead of him.

He briefly wondered why he was trying to keep up with them. They were useless. There was no other way to put it. They were both earth ponies. They didn’t have a pegasus’ ability to fly, and they didn’t have a unicorn’s magic. Quickeye had seen a few earth ponies in his time that he might have considered soldiers, but the two mares running ahead of him were not.

But it was too late to turn back now. After the initial attack, which Quickeye admitted that both of the mares had showed some impressive skill, he had bolted just as the plan had called for. Without thinking, he had ran after the two mares, his mind deciding that there was safety in numbers. And perhaps that was true. If the griffons had to split their focus between three ponies instead of just him, he might be able to get out of this alive.

As he ran, he glanced at his quiver to take stock of how many arrows he had left. His chances did not look too good. He had seven arrows left, and he was positive that there were more griffons chasing him than that. Well, he was a unicorn, and as Flicker had said, a prepared unicorn could hold off dozens of griffons.

Too bad he hardly considered himself prepared. His skill in combat lay in his keen brown eyes and his skill with a bow. Levitating multiple objects was not something he could do well. Simply holding his bow, stringing an arrow, and then pulling it back far enough to let it fly took nearly all of his concentration. He had tried to learn how to fight like other unicorns—magical blasts in most cases, or even wielding multiple weapons like Flicker had several times during this mission—but he had never been very good at it.

But no pony could match him in the skill of the bow. None. Arrows went exactly where he wanted them to every time, and he could fire double the amount of any other unicorn in the same amount of time. He had managed to take out two of the griffon archers moments before, and would have continued if it hadn’t been for the fact that these two earth ponies had taken off into the forest. And for some reason he simply could not fathom, he had chosen to follow them.

He shook his head at the foolishness of the thought. He could have killed that griffon leader if he had stayed. It would have taken a second at most. Between his archery and Flicker’s mastery of levitation, the two of them could have destroyed that griffon and possibly every other griffon there. But no, he had taken off after these stupid earth ponies and followed Flicker’s horrible plan of splitting up. They stood a better chance of surviving if they stayed—

A tree branch smashed into Quickeye’s face and tore into his flesh. Leaves filled his mouth and he closed his eyes as he pushed the branch aside. His hoof caught something—a root, a stump, a rock, he didn’t know—and he fell forward, crashing onto the forest floor. He felt his magical grip on his bow break as his chin hit the dirt and knocked the air from his lungs. He looked up and saw his weapon laying out in front of him. Not good. The griffons were no doubt right behind him.

As if to prove him right—the universe seemed to love to do that—a screech sounded behind him. He looked over his shoulder and his eyes went wide as a griffon came charging out of the forest. It jumped into the air with its spear and dove toward him. He rolled to the side just as the weapon plunged into the ground where his chest had been moments before.

Not good, Quickeye thought as he scrambled across the ground to escape the griffon. He heard another screech as he managed to finally get back up on his hooves. Definitely not good.

He reached out with is magic and smiled as his white aura surrounded his bow and then it came flying toward him. He pulled another arrow from his quiver and strung it while his bow was still lining up along his eyesight. The second he felt everything settle into place, he released the part of the magic in his mind that was drawing the arrow back.

The arrow was strung on his bow one second and then the next it was imbedded deep in the griffon’s neck. Six arrows left now.

Quickeye didn’t even wait to see if the griffon was truly dead before he got ready to run again. He knew he had hit a vital spot, and if the shot hadn’t killed the griffon outright, the creature would be dead in a matter of moments.

Another griffon screech echoed behind the brown unicorn and he knew it was too close. Without thinking, he spun around and pulled out another arrow. His hooves slid across the dirt and he had to adjust his aim to compensate for his continued motion as well as the griffon that was now flying straight toward him. Still, he had plenty of time. He estimated that he had two whole seconds before the griffon was within striking distance.

Quickeye released the arrow as he continued to slide and grinned as it sank into the griffon’s shoulder. He wasn’t sure if that was a kill shot, but he knew that that griffon wouldn’t be able to chase him anymore. Five arrows left.

As the griffon fell to the ground and Quickeye began to turn away, he saw another griffon come flying at him, much faster than the first two. He pulled another arrow and strung it, but his time to aim had been cut in half. He let the arrow fly, but the shot missed—much to his embarrassment and disbelief—and sailed past the creature.

The griffon swung an axe, aiming to take off Quickeye’s head. The unicorn ducked and felt the wind from the blow pass dangerously close over his mane. He went completely flat and rolled across ground twice, wincing as parts of his armor bit into his sides. Still, he made sure to keep track of his bow and came up in a crouch, each of his four legs bent to keep him low. He rotated his bow so that it was parallel to the ground and strung another arrow in a heartbeat, then let it fly straight toward the griffon’s chest.

To his dismay, the griffon brought its shield up at the last moment and the arrow sank into the wooden shield. Not good. That left him with four arrows, and he had already wasted two of his shots. Why had he followed those worthless earth ponies? He would have been better off if he had stayed with Flicker, his own kind, and—

“Hey, feather head. Over here!” a voice shouted. Quickeye, as well as the griffon, both turned to look at the voice. That proved to be a mistake for the griffon.

The two earth ponies Quickeye had been following were standing side be side. One of them threw a spear as hard as she could, and Quickeye was reminded of one of the few advantages that earth ponies had over pegasus and unicorn ponies.

The griffon blocked the thrown spear with the shield again, but the power behind the throw was so strong that the shield was knocked out of the griffon’s claw. The griffon looked down at the shield in shock, then back up at the earth pony pair and made ready to attack them, but it was already too late. Quickeye had strung another arrow and had already released it. It sank into the griffon’s exposed side and the creature fell to the ground, clutching its side and screeching in pain.

“Get up Quickeye!” one of the earth ponies yelled at him. The unicorn was surprised that the earth pony knew his name, because he had no idea what either of their names were. He stood up and turned to look to make sure no more griffons were about to come charging out of the forest after him. He was disappointed instantly.

Three more griffons came charging at him, two on the ground and one in the air. He figured he could hit two of them before they reached him. He reached for another arrow with his magic and…nothing. He couldn’t feel his magic wrapping around the smooth shafts of his arrows. Panic rising, he looked down at the quiver slung on his side and saw that it was empty.

“How?” he asked as he continued to stare at the empty quiver. He was supposed to have three arrows left. He had made a mental note of it when he had been running. Where could they have gone?

Quickeye suddenly remembered the spill he had suffered minutes earlier. Between that and rolling to avoid getting impaled, it was very possible that some of his arrows had spilled out. He had been in such a panic that he had failed to actually check to make sure they were still there.

“Quickeye, look out!” one of the earth ponies yelled. The unicorn looked up as the three griffons closed on him. His eyes grew wide as he realized he was moments away from death. All because he had been dumb enough to follow two earth ponies who…where now standing in front of him.

What?

Quickeye’s mind struggled to keep up with what his eyes were seeing. Just as the griffons were about to close on him, a red blur appeared in front of him. His mind barely managed to register that he was staring at the flank of one of the earth ponies before a turquoise blur came flying in, vaulting over the red pony and up into the sky. What happened next defied everything that Quickeye had come to believe about earth ponies.

The red pony had stopped for the briefest of moments to allow her partner to jump off her back and then had become a blur of red again. He saw flashes of purple as her mane swirled around her head and her tail whipped around. Her armor clanked loudly, as if it was being hammered like a drum as she spun, dodged and danced around in furious motion before his eyes. He wasn’t even sure what she had done, but one moment the two griffons on the ground had been seconds away from impaling him, and the next they were laying on the ground ten feet away, clearly as baffled as Quickeye was as to what had just happened to them.

It was then that Quickeye noticed something very strange about the pony standing in front of him. She was standing on her hind legs. Not only that, but she had a pole resting on her shoulders and seemed to be using its weight to keep herself balanced. Quickeye had heard stories that some earth ponies had figured out how to stand on their hind legs for extended periods of time, or even fight standing that way, but he’d never seen it in action before. If every earth pony could learn to do what this one had just done, then maybe they wouldn’t be next-to-useless in this war after all.

One of the griffons was starting to pick himself up and Quickeye realized that the red earth pony wasn’t moving to stop him. He was about to say something, to yell at her to not let him up, when the third griffon came crashing down on top of him. Both of the feathery creatures tumbled to the ground, their limbs, armor, and weapons becoming a tangled messed.

Moments later, the turquoise pony landed next to the other earth pony, her own armor pinging slightly as it settled back on her body. An orange silk wrap hung around her neck and seemed to flutter in the air for a brief moment before it too settled on her back, clashing wildly with her aqua blue mane and turquoise coat. She stood on all four of her hooves for a moment, then she too stood up on her hind legs, the scarf spilling down her back to reveal three yellow diamonds in its pattern. Quickeye could not believe what he was seeing. Maybe these two earth ponies deserved more credit than he was giving them. After all, they were still alive when nearly everypony else had been killed over the past few days in this wretched place.

“Quickeye, are you okay?” the turquoise pony asked without turning to look at him.

“Get your head on straight,” the red pony said, not too kindly. “You almost got yourself killed.”

“Excuse me?” Quickeye said. “How dare an earth pony talk to me like that!” The red pony turned around and Quickeye was suddenly wondering if it would really be the griffons that killed him today.

“Look, unicorn, we could have left you to die—”

“But we didn’t,” the turquoise pony said in a much kinder voice as she rested her hoof on the red pony’s shaking shoulder. “And we wouldn’t either. We’re all in this together. Right, Twirl?”

“Right, Sea Tide,” Twirl said as she bit her lip. “Sorry, Quickeye.”

“Apology accepted,” Quickeye said, then quickly added, “I’m sorry too,” before things got out of hoof again. He still needed these two if he was going to make it out of here alive, and his odds were looking slightly better. These two ponies could fight better than most earth ponies he’d ever seen. Twirl was apparently highly skilled with spears and other pole weapons, and while he hadn’t seen what Sea Tide had done in the air, the fact that she had sent a griffon crashing to the ground meant that she was good at, well, something.

They were also both rather attractive in their own way, a thought that Quickeye instantly smashed. They were earth ponies. There was no way he—

“Look out!” he shouted while is mind was still reeling from his previous thought. The other griffon had managed to stand up and was now flying straight at the three of them, his sword raised above his head. Quickeye did the only thing he could think of. He swung his bow with all his magical might at the charging enemy.

The bow slammed into the griffon and instantly snapped in half. Quickeye felt a part of soul break as he watched the weapon fragment and the string go limp. He had had that bow for years. It had become an extension of himself, and he had just sacrificed it for a pair of earth ponies. What was wrong with him?

It worked though. The griffon stumbled in mid flight, and that was apparently all the time Twirl and Sea Tide needed to react. Sea Tide reached up with her front hooves and wrapped them around the pole Twirl was holding. The red pony swung the pole like a club and Sea Tide went flying forward. She tucked into a ball and spun through the air, then just before she hit the griffon, she straightened out. She looked as though she was laying on her back as she kicked her hind legs out. She caught the griffon square in the head and his neck bent back at a horrifying angle. Sea Tide’s forward momentum slowed the moment her kick connected, but she still had enough to push the griffon back and down, forcing him to do a sort of half backflip. She landed with her hooves still firmly planted on the griffon’s face, smashing it into the dirt. There was no possible way he was getting back up.

“Where did you two learn to move like that?” Quickeye asked, baffled. These ponies were doing things on the ground that he had only seen pegasus ponies do with wings.

“Practice,” Twirl said as she set one end of the pole on the ground, wrapped her forelegs around it, and leaned against it to support her weight. “Lots of practice.”

“She’s being modest,” Sea Tide said as she fell forward onto her front hooves and began trotting back over to Quickeye and Twirl. “She taught me how to fight like this, and she learned from pegasi who—”

“Can we tell my tragic backstory when we’re not fighting for a lives please?” Twirl said, anger once again dripping from her voice. There was something driving this pony, but Quickeye wasn’t sure he wanted to know what it was. She was dangerous on a completely different level.

“She’s right,” he said, glad to divert the conversation away from a clearly touchy subject. “We need to get out of here before more griffons show up.”

“But what about Flicker?” Sea Tide asked as she turned to look at him. “The plan was to split up, divide their forces, and then regroup if possible.”

“Listen, Sea Tide. The plan has gone out the window.” Quickeye gestured toward the griffon she had just smashed into the ground and the other two who were still laying on top of one another, either dead or out cold. “We’ve done all we can, but you knew this was a long shot when you joined. Starswirl said as much. If we want to live, we need to get out of here.”

“Living was never the intention,” Twirl said darkly. “We’re buying time for Starswirl and those other two to finish whatever it is they’re doing. If not a single one of us makes it out alive, but he’s able to find whatever it is he’s looking for, and then it’s all worth it.”

Quickeye could not believe what he was hearing. Didn’t these earth ponies get it? Starswirl had sent them off to die so that he could escape with those two fillies. He wasn’t looking in this forest for some ancient weapon. In fact, he very well could be aiding the griffons. He had called for fifty of the best warriors in Equestria and lured them into the most dangerous place in their new homeland. Now most of those warriors were dead, and for what? Some crazy unicorn’s undying belief in some ancient prophecy that was the symbol on the Equestria flag? Did they not see how utterly insane that was?

He was about to point that out when he heard the all too familiar sound of flapping wings. He prayed that it meant that Current had come to their aid, but he knew the odds of that were slim. Slowly, he turned away from Twirl and Sea Tide to look around the forest.

They were surrounded. Over a dozen griffons formed a loose circle around the three ponies, and each one had a weapon drawn and ready. No archers though, so at least that part of the plan had worked.

“I don’t suppose telling you to surrender will change anything,” one of the griffons said.

“Depends. You throwing down your weapons and letting us place you all in bindings might go a great deal toward making that surrender happen,” Sea Tide said with a smile.

“Didn’t think so,” the griffon said. “Kill them. Start with the unicorn. You heard what the captain said. They’re the biggest threat.”

No! Quickeye backed up out of reflex and immediately bumped into Twirl. He didn’t have his bow. He didn’t even have a weapon. There was no way he was going to survive this. There was no way any of them were going to survive this. He watched hopelessly as three griffons charged him, raising their weapons and readying to cut him down on the spot.

Just like before, a flash of turquoise appeared before his eyes. Sea Tide stood firmly between him and the three griffons, once again on her hind legs. She didn’t have a weapon either. What was she thinking? The griffons would kill her and then move right on to him in a matter of seconds.

Sea Tide apparently had a different idea. As the first griffon closed on her, she twisted her upper body out of the way of his sword thrust. As the griffon’s foreleg overshot the mark, Sea Tide hooked her foreleg around the griffon’s outstretched limb and bent it upward. She twisted then, snapping the griffon’s bone and causing him to drop the sword at Quickeye’s hooves. After that, Sea Tide slammed her free front hoof into the griffon’s face and it made a sickening thud as the blow connected, then she brought one of her hind hooves up into the griffon’s stomach. The impact caused him to double over, at which point she reached down with her mouth and yanked his shield from his other foreleg, then slammed her elbow joint down on the griffon’s neck.

The body went limp, but instead of letting it fall, Sea Tide hurled it at the next closest griffon, causing him to trip and fall as his companion’s body crashed into him. The whole thing had taken less than three seconds, and Sea Tide had just neutralized two griffons without a weapon.

“Use those,” Sea Tide said as she spit the shield out of her mouth. It landed next to the sword she had twisted out of the griffon’s claw moments earlier. Quickeye looked at them for a moment, then picked them up with his magic. Close combat weapons were not his specialty. Still, he had learned the basics when he had trained to be part of Equestria’s army, and he knew how to at least use a shield to block and a sword to cut. It was better than nothing at all he decided.

The third griffon flew at Sea Tide as fast as he could, but the earth pony leapt into the air and spun, bringing one of her rear hooves around in a devastating kick that connect with the griffon’s head. He hit the ground and skidded to a stop a few feet away as Sea Tide landed.

Maybe Quickeye would make it out of here after all. Sea Tide had just taken down three griffons in a matter of seconds, and that was nearly a third of their number. He just had to pay attention, remember his training, and let Sea Tide and Twirl handle the real fighting.

He looked over at Twirl and saw that one griffon was already on the ground, crawling away from her with a wing that was clearly broken. The others had stopped their reckless advance and were now eyeing her carefully, aware that they had underestimated their opponent just as Quickeye had.

“Behind you!” Sea Tide shouted and Quickeye spun around just as a griffon brought an axe down. Without thinking, he pulled his captured sword out in front of him, catching the axe on the shaft and stopping the blade mere inches from his face. His mind could feel the griffon pressing down on his weapon, trying to overpower his magic and finish the job, and he could tell that the griffon would succeed if something didn’t change fast.

“Get…off!” Quickeye poured all of his magical strength into shoving back against the axe. At the same time, he remembered the shield he was levitating as well and slammed it into the griffon’s chest. The creature staggered back a step and then used its wings to fly back a few more feet, clearly expecting a counter attack.

Right! Suppose to press the advantage, Quickeye thought as he recalled the basics of combat. Using a sword and shield felt so foreign to him that he had been surprised that he had fought off that first attack. He smiled, more to himself and his own luck than as a taunt to the griffon, and then brought the shield in close to his front and held the sword further out.

“Forget the unicorn,” one of the griffons shouted. “Kill those two earth po—argh!” The griffon was cut off in a grunt of pain, whether from Sea Tide or Twirl, Quickeye didn’t know. He refused to take his eyes off of the griffon before him.

“You’re new at this, aren’t you?” the griffon said with a smirk. Quickeye swallowed, but remained silent. “They can handle your two friends. I’m going to cut your head off myself.” With that, the griffon flew at him again, swinging his axe with such speed and ferocity and Quickeye found himself stumbling backward, trying to dodge and block all the attacks.

Remember your training. Look for an opening and strike back. The griffon’s axe came down again and Quickeye brought his shield up to block it. Only this time, instead of using the shield to catch the full impact of the strike and risk having his concentration shatter, he blocked the blow at an angle and used the shield’s leverage to push the blow to the side. At the same moment he stepped forward and thrust the sword toward the griffon’s chest.

For a brief moment, Quickeye thought the sword strike was going to connect, but the griffon flew aside and the sword passed through air. Quickeye didn’t make the same mistake twice though. This time he pressed his opening, twisting the sword with his magic so that the thrust became a side-sweeping cut. The griffon brought his own shield around and blocked the blow. He shoved the sword back and Quickeye charged him, slamming his shield into the griffon’s midsection. The blow winded the griffon, but Quickeye didn’t stop there. He continued to run forward, pressing his shield against the griffon’s stomach with as much magic as he could muster.

The griffon hung onto the shield as he tried to regain his breath, but Quickeye wouldn’t have it. He slammed the griffon into the nearest tree, crushing him between the shield and the trunk. The griffon let out a small gasp of air and Quickeye pressed the shield one last time with his magic, then pulled it away, allowing the griffon to sink to the ground. Without thinking, he brought his sword around and plunged it into the griffon’s chest. It sank half way before he withdrew the blade, now coated in blood.

“I…I did it,” he gasped, suddenly realizing how winded he was. Close combat was certainly not his specialty.

“No! Let me go!” Quickeye spun around at the sound of Sea Tide’s voice and took in the battle at a glance. Twirl was still on the ground with two more griffons laying unmoving close by. The one that Sea Tide had broken the foreleg of was still laying where he’d been tossed, conscious again but clearly in too much pain to move, but the one she had thrown him into was nowhere to be seen. The other she had kicked in the head was still unconscious or dead. That left only seven griffons that he saw. Another griffon was charging toward him, and six were still surrounding Twirl, trying to get close enough to kill her. She was looking tired, but she showed no signs of giving up.

So where was Sea Tide?

“Twirl!” Quickeye looked up and his blood ran cold. Two griffons had Sea Tide by the forelegs and were carrying her straight up as she struggled in their claws. That wasn’t a good sign. He’d seen them do this before to earth ponies. They carried them up into the sky and then…

The griffons released their grip on Sea Tide and the pony began plummeting toward the ground. She screamed and Quickeye wished he had his bow. He could have easily shot both of the griffons out of the air as the hovered, waiting for Sea Tide to smash into the forest floor. That would at least avenge her.

“Quickeye, catch her!” Twirl shouted. “Please!” Quickeye brought his gaze back down to the red earth pony as she smashed her pole against the head of one of her attackers. The griffon collapsed on the ground and Twirl brought one of her rear hooves down on his spine, hard. He would not be getting back up.

The world seemed to slow down then. Twirl’s spinning motions with the pole became a slow dance of destruction. The griffon charging Quickeye slowed to the point that Quickeye could easily see the beating of the creature’s wings. Sea Tide’s aqua blue mane and tale became rivers as they flowed around her body while she gracefully fell to the earth.

Without realizing what he was doing, Quickeye began moving. He charged the griffon coming toward him, still in slow motion, and brought his sword around. The griffon parried the blow easily, but Quickeye slammed into him with his shield, batting the feathered beast aside as he passed. His eyes returned to Sea Tide and he felt his magic leave his shield and sword. He focused it around Sea Tide, slowing her fall even more, until she simply hovered in the air, surrounded by his white glowing magic. She looked around for a moment and then caught his eye. Tears ran down her cheeks as she smiled at him, but the look on her face quickly changed from joy to horror.

Quickeye looked at her with a perplexed expression. He didn’t understand. Wasn’t she glad that he had just save her life? He could have escaped into the forest after he’d killed that griffon, but for some reason he couldn’t quite fathom, he had stayed to help her and Twirl. So why was she—?

Quickeye’s eyes went wide as his chest exploded.

* * *

Geralt had never wanted to come here. He had grown up hearing the horror stories of the griffons’ birthplace, and why they had left it behind all those years ago. True, the vast majority of the continent was beautiful beyond compare, but the one place where the griffons had come from held too many nightmares for them to want to stay.

Then the pony tribes had come down from the north and began settling in the land. They had named it Equestria and called it home, building villages and beginning to work the land. And Geralt, and many others like him, had been fine with that. The griffons rarely visited their homeland and, as far as he knew, none of them lived anywhere near it. In fact, most griffons didn’t even know the place was their birthplace, and since the luscious land was simply being left alone, the fact that the pony tribes had moved in hadn’t been cause for concern in his mind.

The King and his Council had felt differently. They had claimed it was an unwarranted invasion, an attack on their sovereign rights that could not go unanswered. But Geralt knew the truth. The King, and others like him, hadn’t seen the ponies as equals, or even as neighbors. All they saw was a new source of labor to work the mines, support the kingdom’s industry, and in some cases, a new source of food. Geralt had never tried pony before, and he never intended to no matter how good it supposedly tasted. The thought of eating something that had once been able to hold an intelligent conversation made him sick.

And so the raids had started. Griffons back home that opposed the raids were branded as traitors, and their numbers dwindled over the years until they either fell silent or were no more. Geralt belonged in the former camp, he supposed. He didn’t like the idea of taking beings from their homes and families, but he was a soldier and he did as he was ordered, less he was tried for treason and killed. Still, he had turned a blind eye more than once to a pony’s escape, or his fellow griffons’ underground activities. He had once even stumbled across and entire pony smuggling camp where griffons helped enslaved ponies escape back to Equestria. He had waited three days before reporting it, and by then everyone involved had long since packed up and moved.

No, he had carried no ill will toward the pony tribes, and would be perfectly happy to let them live out their lives in peace. He wasn’t like Captain Tyar, who took sick pleasure in the killing and tormenting of the creatures, or others who saw them as nothing more than tools to be used until they broke. He was just a soldier fighting a war, even if he wasn’t in full support of it.

He had kept feeling that way, even as he lost friends on many battlefields over the course of the years, even as he had followed Captain Tyar into the very heart of this cursed forest to stop the ponies from unleashing some sort of weapon, even as more of his friends had died around him in the woods.

He had bore the ponies no ill will right up until that pegasus had impaled his sister, looked her in the eye, and tossed her corpse aside like a piece of trash, then flew off like a coward.

As Geralt and ten other griffons flew and ran through the forest in pursuit of the pegasus, one thought kept pounding through his head:

I will kill you!

How far was this coward going to run? He had waited until they had all let their guards down, and then struck. Worse, he had gone after griffons who couldn’t possibly defend themselves against such close combat. Geralt had insisted that Sera be an archer so that she would stay out of the main fighting, but this pony had gone straight for her. He could have killed Captain Tyar, or any of the other griffons in the area, but he had killed the last three archers, including his sister. This pegasus was going to pay dearly for that. His death would not be a quick one, and it most certainly would be painful if Geralt had his say.

He just hoped that this cursed forest didn’t kill that flying rat before he did.

“Geralt, maybe we should turn back,” one of his companions said. “We’re getting rather far from the captain now, and you saw that unicorn.”

“Captain Tyar can handle himself,” Geralt shouted as he flew under a branch. He caught another glimpse of light off of the pegasus’ armor ahead and pressed his speed further. Besides, if the captain gets killed, I think the world would be a better place for it.

“But…you know where we are, don’t you?” the griffon replied. Kyrama, Geralt believed his name was. “If the stories are true, we shouldn’t be here.”

“Look, turn back if you want. I’m not letting that monster get away. He—” Geralt stopped as he flew into a clearing in the middle of the forest. It wasn’t beautiful in any sense of the word. In fact, it was even worse than when they had been move through the trees. Without the canopy to cover everything in shadow, the moonlight showed just how ugly the forest truly was. Twisted and rotting trees, sickly colored leaves, bushes that looked more like sores growing out of the ground, and moss and growth that hung from everything like decaying flesh.

Was this truly where griffons had come from? From a forest that twisted and mixed everything together, giving rise to new creatures unlike any others in the world? The thought made Geralt’s feathers ruffle, but only until his eyes fell on the lone figure in the middle of the clearing. Then all thoughts vanished from his mind, save one.

The green pegasus hovered in the air in a position that made him appear to be standing on his hind legs. His front hooves hung at his side, and Geralt could see the blade attached to each hoof. He did not hold them like Geralt held his sword, but instead the blades appeared to be part of his actual armor.

“My name is Flowing Current,” the pegasus said in a calm voice. Geralt looked around and noticed that none of his companions were moving either. Something about this pegasus was…unnerving. Geralt had expected to chase him down, not find him waiting for them.

“Oh no,” one of the griffons whispered. “It’s him.”

“I have killed two hundred and six griffons in the span of this war. Seventeen alone in this forest. I have gravely wounded over twice that many.”

“One was my sister!” Geralt shouted, anger seething inside him.

“Yes,” the pegasus said calmly, infuriating Geralt even more. “The final archer. She looked like you. I am sorry, but such is war. If you all do not wish to become just another number to me, turn back and go home.”

“My sister is not just another number!”

The pegasus brought his front hooves up and crossed them over his chest. “So be it. Come.”

“Geralt, we really shouldn’t,” Kyrama said. “I’ve heard stories about this one. If he’s half as good as they say he is, it’s going to take more than us to—”

Geralt screamed, drew his sword, and flew forward in rage. He raised the two-clawed sword high above his head and brought it down as he closed on the pegasus, meaning to cleave him in two from head to tail.

Current simply flew to the side a bit and Geralt’s blow hit nothing but air. A moment later, a sharp pain cut through his side as the pegasus slashed at him. Geralt flew away, clutching his side with one claw and holding his sword with the other. The wound wasn’t very deep, but it stung. He looked down at his side and saw that his feathers were already darkening with blood.

“Go back to your kingdom, griffons,” Current said calmly without even looking in Geralt’s direction. “This is your last chance. Attack me again, and this forest will be your tomb.”

“We’ll see about that!” Two griffons flew forward, each drawing their weapons and readying to strike. Again, Current remained perfectly still until the last possible second. As the first sword strike came in, the pegasus blocked the blow with one of his hoof blades. He slammed his head into that griffon, and then flew over the blade as the other griffon attempted a thrust at his midsection. As he cartwheeled over the first griffon, he swept his other blade up, cutting a deep gash along the griffon’s face before he plunged the blade into the griffon’s neck. He was dead before he hit the ground.

Current stopped his cartwheel halfway through the air and then dove after the second griffon. The griffon turned around, ready to defend himself, but the pegasus was too fast. The second the griffon completed his turn, both of Current’s blades sank into Geralt’s companion, piercing armor, feathers, flesh, and organs. Current placed his hind legs on the corpse and pushed, sending himself higher into the air while removing the body from his blades.

“Two hundred and eight,” Current said, glancing down at Geralt. What was this pegasus? His speed back there had been faster than anything Geralt had ever seen, yet he and the other griffons had been able to keep up with him in the forest. And he had easily just dispatched two of Geralt’s companions in a matter of seconds, yet he had barely wounded Geralt himself.

“There are nine of you left,” Current said as he hovered back to his original spot. “If you want any hope of defeating me, you must all attack at once. Not all of you will survive, so you must ask yourself: Am I willing to die for my friends so that they can live?”

Geralt looked at the other griffons. He saw a mix of fear, hatred, and determination among their faces, but none of them looked as though they were about to turn and run. That was good. There was no way this pegasus was going to be able to take all of them. So long and he died in the end, Geralt didn’t care if a single one of his comrades was still standing.

“You heard him,” Geralt said. He pulled his claw away from his wound and struggled not to let the pain show on his face. It was easier than he though. His anger was still roaring in his body, dulling his senses to anything but the green pegasus in front of him. “He can’t beat all of us at once. Attack!”

Geralt, Kyrama, and all the other griffons rushed toward Current, screeching and snapping their beaks as they closed on him. Part of Geralt’s mind wondered why the pegasus continued to remain where he was and showed no sign of fear, but at the moment he didn’t care. All he wanted was to separate that pony’s head from his shoulders.

Just as the first griffon closed to striking distance, Current began to move. He moved to the side to dodge a sword thrust, then blocked another attack with both blades from above. Geralt saw his opening as the pegasus’ back was turned to him, so he charged in, meaning to run the pony through. He was met with a swift kick to the face that sent him staggering back. He shook his head to clear it and opened his eyes just in time to see the pegasus loop out of the way of three more attacks and three griffons crash into each other as a result. Two more griffons came at him from above, but one of them dove in faster for the kill than his partner. As a result, Current deflected his blow and sank one of his blades into the griffon’s stomach, then let him drop down onto the griffons who were coming up from below after untangling themselves from their crash.

“Two hundred and nine,” Current said as he closed on the other griffon above him. He started slashing wilding, using a combination of kicks and blade sweeps to drive the other lone griffon further up into the sky.

“Argh! Someone get him off of me!” the griffon shouted as he used his shield deflect three rapid strikes from the pegasus. Geralt soared into the air, but he was helpless as he watched Current spin and slam his back hoof into the griffon’s stomach, causing him to double over in pain. Current raised his blades and swung them down and Geralt was certain he was about to lose another member of his party.

“Back off!” Kyrama shouted as he flew in and blocked the downward strike with his sword and shield. He pushed the blades back and charged forward in the air, slamming his head into the pegasus’ stomach. He then brought is sword down, aiming at the pony’s exposed neck. For a moment, Geralt thought the fight was about to end.

Current rolled in the air, avoiding the killing blow just in time but still taking a strike across his face. A deep gash opened on one side of his face as Kyrama’s sword swept across it. Current looked down and Geralt met his eyes for a brief moment before the pegasus turned back and began fighting again.

Geralt reached the fight and swung his sword, once again aiming to cleave the pegasus in two. Current blocked the blow with both of his blades, and once against started to cartwheel over the sword. Only this time, he twisted half way and kicked out, slamming both of his hind legs into Geralt’s chest and causing his vision to go black and the air to shoot from his lungs at painful speeds. He coughed and struggled to hold on to his sword and stay in the air, waiting for the killing blow he knew had to be coming any second. He forced his eyes to focus and made himself raise his sword in a semi-defensive stance, but he knew it wouldn’t do any good. Not against someone like this pegasus.

As his vision cleared and he realized he wasn’t dead, Geralt looked ahead. Kyrama was fighting Current alone. What had felt like a lifetime of pain had apparently only been a few seconds. Geralt shook his head to clear it, then, ignoring the throbbing in his chest and the shortness of breath, he charged forward to aid his fellow griffon.

He didn’t make it.

Current deflected Kyrama’s sword strike, then moved in close. He wrapped his right front hoof around Kyrama’s neck and pulled him in so close that the two appeared to be almost hugging, then he plunged his other blade into Kyrama’s stomach. Kyrama froze, his mouth open in a silent cry of agony. His sword fell from his claw as he struggled to raise his head to look into the pegasus’ eyes. When their eyes met, Current pulled the blade out and stabbed it in again, then allowed Kyrama’s lifeless body to fall to the ground below.

“Two hundred and ten,” the pegasus said as he turned his gaze to Geralt. Geralt noticed that one of Current’s eyes was closed and blood was flowing freely down his face. Kyrama may have tipped the balance in the griffons’ favor before his death. Geralt wasn’t about to let that sacrifice be wasted.

“Get up here,” he called to the remaining six griffons with him. They all flew up to his position and settled in behind him, one of them still nursing his cheek from when the pegasus had kicked him in the head. “No matter what it takes, we’re bringing this monster down. Kyrama blinded him in one eye. We can use that.”

“Monster? Current laughed, showing the first sign of emotion since the fight had started. “That’s amusing, coming from your kind. The horrors your race has inflicted on the three tribes are beyond description in some cases. And you have the nerve to call me a monster.”

“Shut up!”

“Make me.” Geralt was left speechless with that remark. Current was a top-notch warrior. The fact that he was one of the few ponies remaining alive after spending three days in this forest supported that assumption, and his fighting skills proved it to be true. Yet he had just used a phrase that Geralt hadn’t heard since he had been a child in school. What was wrong with this pony?

“Let us see if you will make your comrade’s sacrifice worth it. I am wounded, but I will not flee. I did not want to flee in the beginning, but that is what Flicker decided was our best hope for buying time. So, come. I am certain I can buy more time by staying here and fighting than I could by out flying all of you.”

Geralt got ready to order the attack, but he didn’t get the chance. Current charged forward first, going into a corkscrew charge with his blades out front. One griffon flew in front of Geralt and blocked the dive with his shield. Or, at least that had been the intention. Current’s speed and the spinning maneuver shattered the wooden shield, and the blades kept going until they both sank into the griffon’s shoulder. He screamed, but then fell silent as Current slit his throat and allowed him to fall from the air.

“Two hundred and eleven,” Current said as he continued to press forward. The other griffons moved to attack and Geralt moved with them, slowing the pegasus’ advance and forcing him to go on the defensive. The pegasus dodged and parried attacks at a staggering pace, but the griffons had figured out his pattern now. When one struck and missed or was blocked, another quickly moved in before Current had a chance to counter attack. The battle became a deadly dance in the air of steel, feathers, and blood.

Occasionally, Current would manage to land a glancing strike, cutting across a griffon’s chest here or clipping a forearm there, but Geralt noticed that he and his fellow griffons were landing blows as well. He smiled as the tip of his blade caught the edge of Current’s back hoof and a small trace of blood appeared on the pony’s green coat. They could win this. They just needed to keep pressing him and watch one another’s backs. This pegasus was skilled, possibly the most skilled Geralt had ever seen, but he was just one pony who was running out of energy, fighting on an empty stomach if that unicorn had been telling the truth, and sorely outnumbered. He might be the greatest warrior to ever come out of the pegasus tribe, but overwhelming numbers could counter that easily.

Another scream tore through the night as Geralt watched the pegasus sever another griffon’s foreleg and then kick him back, leaving the poor soul to crash to the ground below in agony as he clawed at his bloody stump.

Maybe this wouldn’t be as easy as Geralt thought, but he was going to make sure this pegasus was dead, or he would die trying. And he was going to make sure his comrades died trying too if they had to.

Author's Note

Woo-hoo! Loooooong chapter. Told you it would be. Anypony ever watching Naruto? You know that noise the wire makes whenever someone throws a suriken? That whizzing noise? That's the noise Spinner's weapons make. Also, if you're paying attention, you may have noticed something special about Sea Tide's wrap.
Coming up with names for all these ponies--and some griffons--was a bit of a chore, but there you go. I'm certain you've all figured out where they're fighting by now, right?

How many of you read the header on EQD today about the season 4 episode two parter? Crazy similar, but I swear I didn't know about it in advance. I just took the bit of lore that was in the guidebook and ran with it. I promise.

Victory

Flicker was done. She had realized it almost as soon as the fight had started. She was acutely aware of that fact even as she sank an axe into the side of one of her remaining attackers. She didn’t even try to pull the weapon free, but instead let go of it with her magic as the griffon fell away.

She was down to two swords and there were still four griffons remaining, including their leader. She glared at him as she heaved for breath. Blood trickled down her forehead and dripped from her eye. Her legs shook from exhaustion and hunger, and she could barely maintain her grip on her last two weapons.

If only I wasn’t starving, she thought bitterly. There had only been eight griffons against her, and on any other day, that would have been a simple matter for her. She could have defeated them all easily and moved on to help any of her surviving fellow ponies. But she was not at her best, and that fact was now painfully clear.

Still, she wasn’t dead yet.

“It’s over,” the lead griffon said with a smirk. “You’ve lost. Surrender and we’ll make your death painless.”

“Four of you are still standing,” Flicker said and she struggled to hold her two swords with her magic. She needed to lose at least one of them soon, otherwise her magic would give out completely. “Well, three of you are still standing. One of you looks like you’re about to collapse.”

“You…look no better…pony,” one of the remaining griffons said. Flicker had managed to slash deep into that griffon’s shoulder, and the only reason he hadn’t died was because Flicker had been forced to make a quick redirect when another griffon had tried to flank her. That griffon had not faired so well.

“Last chance,” the leader said. “Surrender or—”

Flicker did not wait for the leader to finish. She charged forward, forcing her limbs to ignore the lightness flooding through them and her eyes to see through the encroaching darkness. She slashed forward with one of her swords, the magic aura around it streaking through the night. The captain blocked the blow on his own sword, then flew up into the air as Flicker continued to charge, attempting to run him through with her other blade.

But her target had never been the lead griffon, as much as she wanted it to be. Instead, as her second sword passed beneath him followed quickly by herself, she swung the blade sideways with her magic. It slammed into the shield of another griffon, just as she had expected. She pulled the blade back and struck two more times, forcing the griffon to back away from the group as he blocked the repeated strikes. She just needed him to step back one more time…

Flicker released her grip on her first sword and heard it crash to the ground behind her. She focused all of her magic into holding her last blade and swung it as hard as she could at the griffon’s shield. He blocked it easily, but the strength behind the magical strike was greater than he had expected. The blow knocked his shield to the side slightly, and Flicker lowered her head and charged forward.

The next thing she knew, her neck felt strained and blood was streaming down her face in rivers. She tried to keep charging, but it felt like she had hit a wall. She felt talons dig into her neck and shred her flesh. She yanked her head back and heard a sickening noise inside her own head as her horn pulled out of the griffon. Blood poured into her eyes and flew through the air as she shook her head free in time to watch the griffon fall backward, a deep red hole in his chest.

The unicorn didn’t have time to relish her victory though. A moment later, pain exploded in her left hind leg. She looked back and saw the tip of a sword poking through one end of her leg. She screamed and kicked with her right leg, but the pain from the wound was too much for the blow to have any real meaning. She cried again as the blade was pulled from her and she collapsed on her stomach. She tried to crawl forward, but she screamed as pain raced through her other hind leg.

“I tried to give you a swift death,” came the leader’s voice from somewhere behind Flicker. She couldn’t respond, couldn’t even think, as the pain overwhelmed her brain. She let out a sound she didn’t recognize as the blade in her leg was twisted quickly and then yanked out.

Flicker barely felt two sets of talons grab her shoulders and flip her over so that she was staring up at the tree canopy. She tried to move her legs, but all she felt was unbearable pain. She lifted her head as best she could, her body protesting every ounce of effort that cost her.

The last three griffons stood directly in front of her, the leader flanked by the wounded griffon and the last of his soldiers. She could see the sword she had dropped behind all three of them. She struggled to grab it, her horn glowing a faint yellow as she worked her magic.

“No you don’t.” The leader brought his front claw down hard on Flicker’s chest. She let out a gasp of air as the talons dug through her leather armor and pierced her chest. He dug them in further, flexing them under her skin and causing her body to scream in her mind, but the pressure was too great for air to reach her lungs. All she could manage was to make her eyes go so wide that they felt as though they were about to pop from her skull.

“We’ve mastered this technique,” the leader said as he bent down until his face was barely inches away from Flicker’s muzzle. “We know just how deep to dig to cause as much pain to a pony without killing it. For example, despite how this feels,” pain raced through all new places in Flicker’s body as the griffon gently twisted his talons, “you won’t actually die from that. However, if I twist just a bit more, I’ll severe one of your main arteries and you’ll bleed to death in under a minute. Maybe less, given those leg wounds.”

Flicker looked up at the face smirking down at her. She memorized every curve of every black feather, the stare of those eagle eyes, and the hook on the wicked beak. She decided that wasn’t the last sight she wanted to see before she died. Her magic was useless. Even if her glowing horn didn’t give her away, she knew she didn’t have enough strength to grip anything, much less swing it fast enough. But she still had one option left. She opened her mouth, trying so hard to suppress the agony in her body, and tried to talk.

“What’s that, little pony?” the leader asked. He tilted his head sideways and brought his ear close to Flicker’s gasping mouth. “I can’t hear you. Does this help?”

Flicker gasped as the talons were retracted from her chest. She forced the air that was rushing through her lungs to form words. “What’s…your….name?” she gasped.

“Your death will come at the claws of Captain Tyar, unicorn,” the griffon boasted, still with his head turned sideways. That was good.

“Fun…fact, Tyar,” Flicker gasped as she slowly reached out with her right front hoof until she felt it touch what she was look for. “Magic…isn’t a unicorn’s…only…way to…fight.” Flicker wrapped her hoof around the object she was reaching for, cradling it gently in the groove in her joint.

“What?” Tyar asked.

“My death…may come from you, but you…got this scar…from…Flicker!” Flicker summoned every last bit of energy she had and swung the sword up that she had slammed against the other griffon’s shield. Tyar looked toward the coming blow, but had no time to avoid it. The blade smacked into the left side of his face, its edge cutting into his flesh and eye. Flicker did not have the strength to make the strike anything more than a flesh wound, but she felt a small glimmer of happiness knowing that Tyar would most likely be blind in that eye for the rest of his life.

Tyar looked down at her, rage burning in his good eye and blood dribbling from his face. He didn’t say anything as his talons dug deep into Flicker’s chest. She tried to scream as pain swallowed her. She felt the talons go deeper and deeper, until a small star exploded in her chest. Tears fell from her eyes as she looked up at the monster staring down at her, but they were only tears of pain.

Tyar, his face twisted with rage and forever maimed, leered down at her, but she didn’t care. He would never be able to forget her now. Every time he looked in a mirror and saw his wound, he would see her face and know that she had gotten the last shot in.

As her heart struggled to keep beating, as her blood flowed into places in her chest that it wasn’t meant to go, Flicker wanted to make sure that Tyar would always remember her, even in his nightmares, so she did the only thing she could think of.

As darkness claimed her sight, she grinned.

Geralt was in more pain than he had ever been. For a moment, he stayed on the ground, wondering if it was worth the effort to pick himself up and keep going. Then the vision of his sister’s terrified face flashed before his mind and he stood up.

“Geralt, I think we need to withdraw,” one of the remaining griffons said. “There are only five of us left, and you and Telath are in no condition to keep fighting.”

Geralt glared at the green pegasus with his one good eye. “Neither is he.”

Current was nearing his limit. Geralt could tell. He was grounded now after Geralt had managed to land a blow on his wing and he was covered in wounds. His armor was coming off in several places and his mane was a mess, with chunks of hair missing from everywhere.

Yet the look on his face hadn’t changed. He still stared coolly at Geralt and his fellow griffons. That angered Geralt.

“Your companion has the right idea, Geralt,” Current said. “You are in no condition to continue this battle.”

“You’re grounded now, pegasus,” Geralt shouted as the rage flowed through him yet again. “And you’re outnumbered.”

“Numbers did not make a difference before,” Current said.

“We’re going to kill you, even if it kills all of us.” Geralt tried to take to the air, but was quickly reminded that his wing was bent in a way it wasn’t supposed to bend. “Get him!”

Geralt charged forward, struggling to hold his sword and maintain his balance as he ran across the ground. He saw the other three griffons fly ahead of him and then dive at the pegasus, spears and swords pointed toward his chest. There was no possible way Current would be able to avoid those weapons while he was on the ground.

To Geralt’s disbelief, Current did just that. He stood up on his hind legs and stepped to the side just as a spear came toward him. The weapon missed and he caught its shaft in the hook off his foreleg. He twisted and yanked the griffon holding the spear out of the air, using his body as a shield to block one of the incoming swords. The second griffon stopped just before he impaled his comrade and Current used the lapse to his advantaged. He spun on one of his back hoofs and brought the other one around in a fierce kick that launched the first griffon into the second and sent them both tumbling to the ground.

The third griffon charged in then, using a more cautioned approach as he tried to sever the pegasus’ head from his body. Current easily blocked the strikes with his remaining wrist blade—Geralt and the others had managed to snap the other one off—and stayed well away from any killing strike.

But Geralt saw that Current wasn’t trying to counter attack. For all his fluid grace and defense, he was not striking back. If he had been at the same level as when Geralt and the others had caught up to him, Geralt was certain that he and Telath would be the only two left, and with Telath’s foreleg severed and Geralt himself barely clinging to life, the odds would have not been in their favor.

Geralt reached the battle just as Current was forced to turn his back to the griffon. He stood on his hind legs—ponies weren’t the only ones who knew how to fight standing up—and gripped his sword with both claws and swung it toward Current’s midsection.

Current bent backward at an impossible angle and tucked his wings in so that Geralt’s blade passed beneath his back. At the same time, the pegasus brought both of his hind legs up and kicked out, slamming his hooves into the face of the other griffon. His eyes locked with Geralt’s for a brief moment and time seemed to freeze as Current floated in the air above Geralt’s blade.

The moment passed and Geralt’s swing continued to slice through the air. Current fell to the ground on his back in front of Geralt. The griffon changed his swing and brought the blade above his head, then brought it down as hard as he could. He smiled a little when he saw Current’s good eye go wide in shock, but the pegasus managed to bring his wrist blade up and deflect the strike to the side and roll away.

Something snapped in Geralt then. All the pain from his wounds, the loss of his sister, and the sheer exhaustion he had been feeling over the past few days finally broke something in his mind. He screeched with rage in the peagasus’ face as his blade was redirected, but instead of trying to keep his grip on the weapon, he let it slide free and he fell forward. He formed his front talon into a ball and slammed it into Current’s snout as hard as he could. Blood and spit flew from the pony’s mouth and splattered across the ground, but it wasn’t enough to satisfy the burning hate in the griffon’s body. He pulled back and swung again, the blow smashing into the pony’s wounded eye and his talon coming back with even more blood on it.

“YOU KILLED HER!” Geralt screamed as he threw a third punch, and then a fourth. “SHE WAS MY SISTER!”

“Who?” Current asked as he looked up through his quickly-swelling good eye. “I have killed many griffons. You will have to be more specific.”

“ARGH!” Geralt opened his talons and brought them down, raking them across Current’s face. He felt them tear into the pony’s flesh and he relished the sensation. He was going to tear this peagus apart with his own talons, and he would make sure that this pony would beg for death before—

Geralt’s wing exploded in pain. He froze as agony slammed through his body at an unbearable speed. He managed to twist his head to look and see what was causing him such pain.

Current had shoved his last wrist blade straight up, skewering Geralt’s wing. The griffon watched in slow motion as his blood ran down the blade. All Current would have to do now would be drag his blade up or down, and Geralt’s wing would be severed, and then shortly after that, probably his head.

But why hadn’t Current just killed him right away? Why go for a wound—a painful wound, but still a wound—instead of a killing blow?

“Tell me something,” Current said. He pulled his blade out and sprang up, moving with a speed that shouldn’t have been possible with his wounds. Before Geralt had a chance to realize what was happening, he felt a foreleg wrapped around his neck, forcing him to stand up on his hind legs, Current’s body pressed against his back, and the tip of a blade at his throat.

“How many ponies have you killed?” Current asked as he placed his mouth close to Geralt’s ear. “The rest of you stay back, or his head is going to be rolling on the forest floor in a matter of seconds.”

Geralt looked at his remaining soldiers. The three that could stand looked exhausted, and Taleth looked as though he could die at any moment. They were barely holding their weapons up, let alone their bodies, and this peagasus had still managed to gain the advantage on Geralt.

Maybe they really weren’t going to be able to kill Current…

“You did not answer my question,” Current said, yanking slightly to snap Geralt back to reality. “How many ponies have you killed? How many did you sister kill?”

“I don’t know,” Geralt said, distracted as an idea began to form in his mind. He wasn’t going to let Current get away, even if it meant…

“You don’t know,” Current said in dark voice. “You don’t know. Let me tell you something. If your friend over there, Taleth I believe you said his name was, dies from his wounds, I will have killed two hundred and twelve of your kind. Do you know why I keep track of that number?”

“For gloating purposes?” Geralt asked as he slowly repositioned his left claw.

“Do I strike you as the type of pony who enjoys keeping track of how many lives I’ve ended?” Current said and Geralt felt the tip of his blade push a little harder against his feathers.

“No,” Geralt said, surprised not only at his answer, but at the fact that he believed it.

“I keep track of that number to remind myself that I am responsible for ending their lives. So they are not forgotten, while everything that they were vanishes. It is my way of honoring them, and to remind myself that life is precious, even if I have to take it from someone else. So tell me, how many ponies have you killed? Do you still see their faces every night? Or are they all just faceless corpses to you? I will see the horror on your sister’s face for the rest of my days, just like all the others, because I fully understand what I’ve done.”

“Well you won’t have to worry about that much longer,” Geralt said. He threw his head back and slammed it into Current’s face, then dug his talons as deep as he could into the peagasus’ thigh and bit his beak down on the blade near his neck, holding it in place as best he could. “Kill him now! I’ve got him!” he shouted as he held the blade.

“But you’ll—” one of the griffon’s protested.

“Stab through me! Just kill him!” For a brief moment, none of the remaining griffons moved, then one of them flew forward, aiming his sword straight at Geralt’s chest. He closed his eyes and waited for the killing blow. “Looks like you’re coming with me,” he whispered.

“No, I am going alone.”

Before Geralt could ask what thatwas supposed to mean, the blade was yanked from his mouth—cutting his tongue slightly—and he felt a hoof press against his back. Fearing that Current was about to shove him onto the oncoming blade, he dug his talons in deeper in an attempt to delay the peagasus’ escape. But the shove did not send him forward. Instead, it pushed him to the side. He felt his talons twist deep in the pony’s thigh as he fell to the side. The blade missed him by only a few inches, and then he felt the muscles in Current’s leg go slack.

Geralt fell to the ground, his claw twisting at a painful angle as his talons tore flesh when they came free. He laid still for a moment, then rolled over on his back and looked up.

Current had been impaled on the blade of the griffon who had attacked. His body was completely limp, his hooves and wings dangling from him liking dying fruit on a tree. Blood still flow from his wounds, but Geralt could see it was slowing.

He was dead. Current was really dead.

Why did that suddenly bother Geralt? He had avenged his sister, and if Current had been telling the truth, a powerful enemy of the griffon kingdom was now dead, and he himself was still alive. That was a win, right?

“Finally,” the griffon said as he pulled his blade from Current’s chest. “I still can’t believe he’s dead.”

“Well, he is,” Geralt said, trying to chase away the feeling of unease he felt as he stared at the corpse. “Come on. Go help Taleth and—”

“Don’t bother,” another griffon said, anger dripping from his voice. “He’s dead.”

“What?” Geralt turned around and saw that the wounded griffon was slouched against a tree, his eyes open and head lolled to one side.

“Died from his wounds,” the other griffon said as he glared at Geralt. “Guess he was number two hundred and twelve, huh? Hope you’re happy. We could have saved him if you had let us fall back.”

Two hundred and twelve…

“Carry him back. We’re not leaving him here.” Geralt turned back to the peagasus corpse. “I will carry Current.”

“Why?” the third griffon asked. “Leave him to rot in the forest. He would have done the same.”

“Because,” Geralt said as he knelt down and began to carefully place Current’s body on his back. The pain from the weight was intense, but he could bare it. “Because he is number one.”

One thought went through Spinner’s mind as he slammed against the cave wall: he wanted to go home. He wanted to back to his little house, curl up in his nice warm bed, and go to sleep. He wanted to forget about the war, forget about the suffering, and forget about the blinding pain that was now racing through his back and threatening to cause his vision to black out.

And the giant space bear—what had Hersah called it, an Ursa Major?—hadn’t even been trying to hit him. It had simply been readjusting itself inside its cave in order to take a real swing at him and had ended up glancing him with its front paw.

“Spinner? Spinner, get up!” The blue earth pony shook his head to clear it and looked up. His eyes went wide as they saw razor sharp claws coming to at him. He scrambled off the wall and rolled to the side just as the Ursa’s paw smashed into the ground and its claws tore gashes into the stone that were as deep as Spinner himself.

The beast howled in anger and pulled its paw up to its face, looking for any trace of a smashed pony. Spinner used the brief pause to limp away from the monster bear as fast as he could. He hobbled toward the entrance, each step telling him that if something in his body wasn’t already broken, it would be soon.

“Hersah, we gotta go!” Spinner yelled into the darkness, still trying to figure out why he was worried about a griffon that had literally been trying to kill him not twenty minutes ago. He looked over his shoulder, hoping to see the female griffon following close behind him.

Thankfully she was, but so was the Ursa Major. And at the speed the two of them were moving, the Ursa was going to overtake Hersah in a matter of seconds.

I should just leave her. While the Ursa rips her apart, I can escape. Spinner wasn’t sure why he hadn’t done that in the first place, or why the thought left such a sour taste in his mouth. It was the only logical choice left to him, and there wasn’t a soul anywhere in Equestria that would blame him for leaving—

Hersah’s wound, a wound that Spinner himself had inflicted, caused her to trip and fall on her face. Her eyes looked up and met Spinner’s and the earth pony swore in his mind.

You’re an idiot. A bucking idiot! Spinner yanked the lock off of his remaining chakram and whipped it through the air, aiming for the Ursa’s face. The ringed weapon slammed squarely into the creature’s nose and it let out a roar. It fell back on its rear and clutched its nose with both paws, letting out little whimpering sounds as it gently touched its nose.

“Get up already!” Spinner said as he ran back and helped Hersah stand. He put one of her forelegs over his shoulder to help, his own body protesting every move. He tried to bring his chakram back, but the Ursa had apparently severed the connecting string when it had pawed at its nose. He was now without his weapons, in the middle of a forest that was trying to kill him in ways he couldn’t even explain, half-carrying a wounded griffon, and his own body was on the verge of collapsing. Things could not get any worse.

A roar unlike anything Spinner had heard so far tore through the air. Spinner felt his bones shake inside his body and he was certain his eyes were going to be forced from his skull. He slammed his free front hoof against his ear and pressed his other ear against Hersah’s feathery neck, trying in vain to keep the noise out. His teeth clattered in his mouth so hard that he was certain they were chipping themselves. The sound lasted for what felt like a lifetime, and it was all Spinner could do to keep from collapsing and dragging Hersah down with him.

When the roar finally stopped, Spinner carefully opened his eyes. He blinked several times, hoping to clear the edges of blackness that were eating at his eyesight. His head was still ringing, and while he saw Hersah’s beak moving, he couldn’t hear a word she was saying. He tilted his head in confusion as he looked at her. What did she want? Why was she gesturing so frantically behind them?

Reality came back a half second later and Spinner’s eyes opened all the way. He whipped his head back over his shoulder and saw the Ursa Major charging toward him and his wounded baggage. Rage was pulsing in its eyes as it opened its mouth to reveal those rows of bladed teeth. It would be on them in a heartbeat. There was nothing he could do to save himself. He knew he was staring death in the face, and it was going to be a very painful death by the look of it.

Spinner pulled Hersah’s foreleg off of his should and shoved her toward the cave entrance. She screamed, whether from pain or terror, Spinner didn’t know, but she flew rather far because he had put as much of his earth pony strength into the shove. He started to turn around then, to face the Ursa head on, when his entire body felt like it had been set on fire.

Even though Spinner knew exactly what had happened to him as he sailed through the air, his mind could not process it over the searing pain he was feeling. He didn’t even realize he had hit the ground again until he felt something wet soaking into his legs. He struggled to lift his head, but found that it weighed too much now. He let it fall to the ground and remained still, his body screaming at him. He faintly felt the ground shake as the Ursa Major closed on him. He closed his eyes and waited for death to release him from his agony.

Something slammed into his back and his eyes shot open. He tried to scream, but all that came out was a choking noise and a dangerous amount of blood. He tried to suck in more air, but the pain was beyond comprehension and his lungs could not keep pace. He twisted his head back to see what had happened just as the Ursa prodded him again with its nose, sending a new wave of pain through him. This time, a scream did escape his lips and tears streamed down his face as the nose pressed into the gaping wounds across his back.

The Ursa sniffed him several times, the wind stinging the open wounds, and then let out one final roar right next to Spinner. The sound vibrated through his body and only added to his pain. Why didn’t the thing just kill him already? Was it enjoying watching him bleed out and suffer?

Spinner’s breaths began to come in quicker gasps. His vision began to fade, and the ringing in his ears was dimming, but so was his hearing in general. The pain was subsiding as well, along with every other sensation. All he felt now was the desire to close his eyes and stop.

“Spinner!” a muffled voice said from far away. He tried to raise his head, but it was still too heavy to lift, and now it was becoming impossible to keep his eyes open. He blinked a few times, but finally his eyelids closed.

“Don’t you dare die,” the voice said, louder this time but still muffled. “You’re…you’re going to be fine. Just…just stay awake. Can you do that for me? Spinner!”

Pain flooded back into Spinner’s mind and he snapped his eyes open with a gasp. Hersah was standing over him, shaking him gently with her claws. Each movement was a whole new experience of pain.

“Where…where is the…?” Spinner trialed off and began to close his eyes again.

“It went back home, Spinner,” Hersah said. Spinner felt her claws slip under his neck and raise his head. “It wasn’t hungry. Just wanted us out. Now come on, you have to get up.”

“No…I…I think I’m…done,” Spinner said, even as he struggled to open his eyes. He saw a slit of light and for a moment he thought he was looking at fluffy clouds, but then realized he was staring at Hersah’s white neck. She had such pretty white feathers.

“No, no you can’t,” Hersah said, and Spinner couldn’t quite place the tone of her voice. “Now get up.”

Spinner tried to move his legs, but the pain was too much. He looked over his shoulder and finally saw his back.

Three deep gashes ran across his entire backside, each one bleeding rivers of blood. He thought he could even see bone in a few places, but he wasn’t certain because his eyes were barely working. How he was still alive was beyond him, and he was wishing he wasn’t because of the pain.

“Forget it…griffon,” Spinner said, his head sinking back to the ground. “Even those…bandages of yours…can’t save me.”

“They’re soaked in a special herb mix designed to speed up the healing process,” Hersah said quickly even as her voice became more muffled. “I don’t have any left. You…you used the last of them when you patched me up and—Spinner? Spinner, don’t close your eyes!”

The earth pony felt the darkness beginning to swallow him again and he found himself embracing it. It would finally be all over—

“OW! What the buck are you—ARGH!” Spinner snapped back to reality again as pain woke him up. He felt Hersah pick him up, twisting his wounds and broken body in ways it could no longer go, and then he felt himself being hung over something. He opened his eyes to find himself staring at the ground and Hersah’s legs.

“Griffon, what are doing?” Spinner asked. Each step she took sent liquid pain through his entire body.

“You’re not dying,” Hersah said curtly. “And my name is Hersah, Spinner.”

“Look, I’m not going to be one of your slaves,” Spinner said, anger bringing him back a little further. “Even if I wasn’t…almost dead and useless…I’d…rather die.”

“Too bad,” Hersah said as she continued to walk with him on her back. Spinner closed his eyes again, his body becoming heavier with each step, until once again he was at the brink.

A different voice brought him back this time.

“Hersah? Is that you?” the voice said, so muffled that Spinner wasn’t even sure he had heard it.

“Give me your bandages,” Hersah said. “Now!”

“Why? For that pony? You’re joking.”

“He’s right, Hersah,” another voice said. “Even if you do save him, there’s no way anyone will pay for him now. He’s broken. Best to just let him die and—”

“Rasa, the only reason I don’t rip your throat out with my bare talons is because I don’t have the time. Now give me your bandages, both of you, or I will take them off your corpses.”

Spinner opened one of his eyes as he was carefully lowered to the ground. He was vaguely aware of something cool and slimly being wrapped around his entire midsection again and again, as well as the pain it caused, but his mind had slipped too far for him to even be bothered by the pain.

“Hersah, it’s too late,” one of the new voices said from far away.

“No!” Hersah shouted, hysteria flooding her voice as Spinner’s mind slipped further away. “You…you know how much an earth pony is worth. I’m not losing something so…valuable.”

Like I’m going…to let you…keep me…griffon, Spinner thought bitterly as darkness swallowed his mind. Why had he risked his life—and apparently sacrificed it even—to save a creature that only saw him as a product to be sold?

Twirl had often heard it said that the world slowed down when certain things happened. She had first-hoof experience with the effect actually. Many times during her training or fighting in the war, the world had seemed to move at a slower pace than was normal. Part of that, she was told, was because she was so fast with her pole and fighting style that others simply could not keep up. Another part of it was her brain going into overload as it was flooded with chemicals and emotions.

Right now, she was certain the world was slowing because of the latter reason. In fact, the world hadn’t so much slowed as it had stopped.

The four griffons around her were frozen in snarls and screeches as they tried to attack her. The fifth griffon was making a horrible face as Twirl’s pole smashed against the creature’s head. That was the good part of the situation.

The bad part was that the unicorn who had attempted to save Sea Tide’s life was now staring down at his chest in horror as the tip of a sword poked through his fur. The griffon behind him was still thrusting the weapon in as far as it would go, a sickly sadistic look on his face as he did.

Sea Tide, no longer surrounded by Quickeye’s magic, was falling from a height that would cause her great injury, if not outright kill her. The griffons that had dropped her were still hovering high above, watching as she plunged slowly to the ground.

The frozen moment came to a screeching end and Twirl was brought back to reality as the vibration from her pole smashing against the griffon’s skull snapped everything back up to speed.

“No!” Twirl didn’t even wait to see if the griffon she had hit went down. She continued to spin on her back legs, twirling the pole along her neck to keep her attackers back for a half second, then stopped her weapon and shoved it like a spear, catching one of her attackers in the stomach. She pressed forward and down, forcing the griffon to the dirt in the process, and then used her pole like a vault to jump clear of the fight. She was vaguely aware of the pained gasp that escaped the griffon she had struck, and just before she started to fly through the air, she pushed down just a little hard on her pole, shoving it deeper into the griffon’s stomach.

As Twirl took to the air, she pulled her pole with her, twisting the weapon in the air until she had it in front of her body. The griffon who had impaled the unicorn pulled his sword free, letting the body drop to the ground, and looked up ready to fight, but Twirl wasn’t going to give him a chance. She brought her pole down as hard as she could with her front hooves, fully expecting to have her attack blocked.

It was. The griffon brought his sword up and caught Twirl’s pole with the flat of the blade. But like so many other griffons, he hadn’t counted on the strength of an earth pony. Twirl came down hard, causing his arm to buckle slightly. She landed and twisted closer to him, bringing the pole around in a dizzying motion that most found impossible to follow. She brought it up on the back end of his forearm joint, snapping it with a single blow, then slammed her front hoof into the griffon’s throat. Sea Tide was better at hoof combat, but Twirl knew the basics, and combined with her strength and rage, the blow crushed the griffon’s throat.

The entire fight had lasted for only two seconds. The griffon staggered backward, trying to open his collapsed throat with his one remaining forearm, but to no avail. He fell to the ground, slowly choking.

Twirl took one glance at Quickeye and knew the unicorn was dead. His tongue was hanging out of his mouth and his eyes were locked in fear and pain. Blood was still pooling around him from the wound, turning his brown coat to a darker mud color.

Twirl pushed the image from her mind as the scream of Sea Tide filled the air, and then was suddenly silenced. Twirl looked over, her purple mane whipping in front of her eyes, and saw the turquoise pony crumbled on the ground.

She wasn’t moving.

Twirl wasn’t sure what happened next. She didn’t remember crossing the distance to Sea Tide’s body, but she found herself staring down at her friend through blurred eyes.

“Sea Tide?” she said, her voice barely holding together. “Sea Tide!”

“Don’t worry, pony,” a voice behind her said. “You’ll be joining—”

Twirl spun around so fast and swung her pole with all her strength. The impact broke the taunting griffon’s neck with a loud snap! That caused the other griffons to back off momentarily, and Twirl made a note in the back of her mind that the two who had dropped Sea Tide had landed.

She decided those two would not make it out of the forest alive, even if it killed her.

Twirl reached down and stroked Sea Tide’s face, tears streaming from her eyes now. Her hoof touched the scarf that Sea Tide had insisted on wearing when she and Twirl had volunteered for this mission. It was a bright orange color, with three yellow squares in the middle. She had said she wore it to remind herself why she was fighting, and when Twirl had asked her what that meant, Sea Tide had smiled.

“Each square represents one of the three tribes,” she had said. When Twirl had pointed out that each square looked exactly the same, Sea Tide had smiled and said that was the entire point.

Twirl understood now what Sea Tide had meant.

The earth pony gently removed the scarf from her friend’s neck and tied it to the end of her pole. She look one last look at Sea Tide, and then started to turn away, but something caught her eye.

Sea Tide moved slightly. Her eyes twitched and she winched, but that was all. Still, it was enough to life Twirl’s spirits. Her friend wasn’t dead! And Twirl was going to make sure she stayed that way.

She turned to face the remaining griffons. She counted six of them now. Apparently the one she had smacked in the head and the one she had vaulted over where both still alive, but they weren’t looking too confident. So she really only needed to worry about four griffons. She could hold off four griffons easy.

“I see things are not going as smoothly here,” dark voice said. Twirl, along with the griffons, all looked up. Three griffons descended from the tree canopy, one of them being the black feathered leader. Okay, so she needed to hold off seven griffons. It was still possible.

“Captain Tyar,” a new voice said and Twirl felt her heart sink. She looked to the left and saw four more griffons coming out of the trees. Her heart fell even more when she saw the body of Flowing Current draped over the back of one of the griffons. Current would never allow himself to be captured, which meant only one thing…

“Ah, Geralt,” Tyar said as he landed. He had a bandage wrapped around his head that was covering his eye and stained in blood. Apparently Flicker had put up a decent fight at least. Twirl hoped her death had been painless. “I see you killed that winged monster. Well done.”

Geralt simply nodded and looked back at the body on his back. Current had apparently put up an astounding fight as well, because Geralt looked like he was about to collapse.

“Geralt!” yet another voice shouted, and this time Twirl couldn’t help but let out a yell of frustration. Three more griffons emerged from another area of the forest, and like Geralt, one of them was carrying a pony on her back.

“Hersah! What’s the—”

“Geralt, please! I need your bandages,” the female griffon said as she ran forward, limping and struggling to keep the pony on her back. “I need any medicine you have. Please. He’ll die if we don’t help him.”

Why in Equestria was this griffon so desperate to save the pony she was carrying?

Tyar let out a laugh. “Found another slave then, Hersah?”

Hersah went stiff for a second, then slowly turned around. “Y-Yessir! But…but he put up a pretty good fight. I had to hurt him more than I wanted to.”

“And now you’re in danger of losing your prize?” Tyar said.

“Yessir,” Hersah said, her eyes drifting down to the ground for a moment. “He…he is really strong. He’d make a fine addition, if you’ll allow me to save him.”

“I don’t know,” Tyar said. “He doesn’t look like he’ll make it, but go ahead and try. Would you like this one as well?” Tyar pointed to Twirl and all sixteen griffons turned their heads toward her. She glared back at them, defiant even as her heart sank into her hooves. There was no way, even at her best, that she could defeat sixteen griffons, even if some of them looked to be half dead.

“Yes, please,” Hersah said.

“You must be bucking insane if you think I’m going to be your slave,” Twirl spat, her anger drowning out the despair she had been feeling moments before. “I’ll kill each one of you before I let you take me.”

“Please, um…what is your name?” the female griffon asked.

“Twirl, you feathered freak, and if you think I’m going to let you drag him away to a slow death, you have another thing coming.”

“Please, Twirl. Surrender. I…” Hersah trailed off, her eyes shifting between Twirl, the ground, and the griffons around her. What was wrong with this girl? Did she seriously think pleading with Twirl would change her mind? Not only was this griffon a sick slave owner, but she was also apparently an idiot.

“I’m going to kill you first,” Twirl said. She stood on her hind legs and raised her pole above her head. Sea Tide’s scarf flowed out from the pole like a banner, and Twirl drew a sense of pride from the sight. She was about to die, but she didn’t regret. She chose to believe that Starswirl had completed whatever it was he had set out to do in this cursed forest, and hopefully that meant that other ponies would no longer have to suffer from the griffons.

“No, Twirl! Please, don’t do this!” Hersah screamed, tears coming from her eyes now. “Spinner needs help now! I can’t help him if we’re busy—”

“Trust me when I say he would rather die,” Twirl said as she brought her pole down in front of her, planting it like a flag. “Come and get me, freaks.”

Tyar shrugged. “Very will. Capture her if possible. If not, there are plenty of other ponies we can take.” When none of the griffons moved, Tyar glared at them. “Well, what are you waiting for? Kill her already.”

“Twirl, please…” Hersah said quietly, and Twirl almost believed that Hersah genuinely wanted to help.

The moment passed though as several of the griffons raised their weapons and began to close on Twirl. She noticed that Hersah just stayed where she was, her head hung. Geralt too seemed to be uncomfortable and did not advance, along with the injured griffons. Still, nine of them, including their leader Tyar, were closing on her and she knew she wasn’t going to win the fight. She would make sure she took some of them with her though, and if it came to it, she’d kill Sea Tide herself. She didn’t want to risk her friend being trapped in a life of slavery.

“Enough!” Twirl couldn’t help but roll her eyes at the sound of the new voice. Just how many griffons were left in this—?

The ground exploded a few paces in front of her as a beam of light tore through the earth. She closed her eyes as dirt and gravel slammed into her face. The shockwave pushed against her body and she leaned forward, bracing herself against her pole as she struggled to stay standing. This was a magic attack. And griffons didn’t use magic. That meant only one thing.

Twirl opened one of her purple eyes slightly once the shaking stopped. A gash ran through the ground directly in front of her, separating her from the griffons by a large margin. At the sound of soft bells, she turned her head to the side.

“Griffons, you will leave this place,” a pony said as he walked forward. He was clad in a blue cloak and a wide-brimmed blue hat, both of which looked tattered and ripped, and several bells were missing from the edges of his outfit, but he still carried himself with a pride that didn’t scream arrogance, but confidence.

“Impressive magic, old pony,” Tyar said with a smirk, but Twirl noted that he wasn’t moving any closer. “But at your age, I bet you can’t do that again.”

“Twirl, are you hurt?” the pony asked, completely ignoring Tyar and the griffons.

“I…I’m fine, Starswirl,” Twirl said, still trying to believe what she had just witnessed. She had heard Starswirl was a prodigy among the unicorns, but she had had no idea what that meant until right then. His power was incredible.

She shook her amazement from her mind. “But Sea Tide is hurt pretty bad. I don’t know if she’ll make it.”

“None of you are going to make it!” Tyar shouted. “We’re going to kill all of you.”

“No, you will leave Equestria,” Starswirl said, finally turning his attention back to the griffons. “And your kind will free and return all the ponies you have captured.”

“And who is going to make us do that?” Tyar laughed. “You, old fool?”

“Me?” Starswirl tapped his chest with his hoof, mock shock appearing behind his beard. “Oh no. As you say, I am getting up there in years. You were right. That magic blast took a lot out of me. No, these two will be the ones making you leave.”

Starswirl stepped to the side, his blue cloak jingling softly as it trailed through the air and then revealed two hooded figures.

Two very small hooded figures.

Tyar laughed out loud, and Twirl heard several of the griffons chuckle as well. Twirl herself was at a loss. Did Starswirl really expect these two…fillies to stop the griffons? Was he going senile in his old age or something?

“Um, Starswirl?” the taller of the two fillies asked quietly. “Are…are you sure we can do this?”

“You can, my dears,” Starswirl said softly. “It is your destiny. You were born for greatness, and to fulfill a prophecy that ponykind has been awaiting for years.”

“Enough of this!” Tyar shouted. “Kill the unicorn and the earth pony. We’ll take the fillies back with us. Now go!” Tyar raised his sword and flew into the air, heading straight toward Twirl. The earth pony knew she wasn’t going to be able to react in time because she was still trying to wrap her head around how Starswirl thought children would be able to stop the griffons. Was that seriously the reason she had risked her life? Were these two girls the reasons why so many ponies were now dead somewhere in this cursed forest? Was she about to die because some senile unicorn believed a prophecy in some ancient, dusty book?

Twirl attempted to bring her pole around into a better position to block the upcoming blow, but she knew she wasn’t going to make it. It would only be a second before Tyar’s blade…smacked against a wall of light.

What?

Twirl found herself surrounded by a sphere of yellowish white light. Tyar’s blade slammed into it, but it held with ease and the reverberation caused the griffon to stagger back in the air. He snarled at her and raised his blade again, bringing it down with enough force to cleave a pony in two. Surely that would cause the light shield to break.

Only it didn’t. Tyar’s sword slammed against the light, but the barrier held. Twirl looked over at Starswirl and the two fillies with him. One of them had removed her hood, revealing a flowing pink mane and a glorious white coat. Her light purple eyes were narrowed in concentration, and a golden glow surrounded the long white horn on her forehead.

“You…leave…her…alone!” the young filly said as she continued to hold the shield around Twirl. She had some serious magic power if she was able to produce something so strong at such a young age.

“You little brat!” Tyar shouted, now diving toward the young filly. Twirl wanted to run in and help, but the shield was still up, trapping her inside. She watched helplessly as the griffon closed on the little girl.

“You will leave Tia alone!” the other hooded figure said. She was smaller than the first filly, but she still stepped in front of her. She threw her hood back, revealing a sky blue mane with a royal blue coat, and like Tia, she too had a unicorn horn. It glowed blue and then a blast of light sprang up in front of her.

Tyar barely managed to halt his attack before he crashed headlong into the wall of light. He snarled for a moment, then let out a laugh. “So you found two little unicorns who can use impressive magic. So what? It just means they’ll make excellent servants back in the kingdom. They can’t possibly stop me.”

“Griffon, this is your last chance,” Starswirl said darkly. “Withdraw, leave our dead here, and tell your ruler to never trespass in Equestria again.”

“Never!” Tyar snarled. “The rest of you, attack! We’ll kill the lot of them!”

Twirl’s gaze turned back to the remaining griffons. Some of them where hesitating, and Hersah, Geralt, and the wounded still hadn’t moved, but six of them drew their weapons and charged forward, screeching as they closed the gap.

Tia needed to drop the shield now if Twirl was going to have any chance of helping fight. Twirl turned to the young unicorn to say as much, but she froze before a single word left her mouth.

Tia had removed her cloak. Her coat was silky white and a flaming sun was on her flank, but having a cutie mark at her age wasn’t the surprising thing.

She had wings! How did she have wings and a horn? That wasn’t possible. No pony in history had ever had both. Alicorns were creatures of myths and…and prophecy.

Twirl felt her head swim as she began to realize what she was seeing.

“Sister!” Tia shouted as she flapped her wings and rose into the air. Twirl’s jaw fell open as the other filly removed her cloak, revealing her own set of wings. She started flapping and rose into the air along with her sister.

Both ponies closed their eyes as Tyar and the griffons came at them. Twirl noticed that the confidence had bled away from some of them, but not Tyar. He was still charging forward. He was just moments away from striking down the two girls. Twirl needed to do something now!

She took a single step and then something happened. Six jewels rose up from the two ponies’ cloaks and began to swirl around the girls. Tyar stopped his charge and floated in the air, the rest of the attacking griffons falling in behind him. They all watched as the jewels began to glow and spin faster, until they appeared to be rings of light encircling the two girls.

The girls’ eyes sprang open, their pupils now glowing white with magical energy.

“Leave us, and all the ponies, alone!” the two girls shouted as one, and then a beam of light shot from them. It was so bright that Twirl had to close her eyes and turn her head. She heard a roar as the air sizzled with energy and she felt her fur stand on end as static crackled around her.

The feeling of overwhelming power seemed to last forever, and just when Twirl was certain her body couldn’t take anymore, the feeling vanished and the roaring stopped. Twirl heard nothing but silence, and she was too frightened to open her eyes. She wasn’t sure what she had just witnessed, but she was certain it was something that was not normal. Especially for two little girls.

“It’s okay now,” a voice said and Twirl felt a small hoof touch her foreleg. “They are gone.” Twirl opened one of her eyes and looked down to see the blue filly smiling up at her. Three of the gems, the red, brown, and blue ones, were still slowly circling above her head, sparkling with her magic.

“What…what are you?” Twirl asked. She hadn’t meant to sound so terrified of the child, but she couldn’t help it.

“I’m Luna,” the pony said with a big smile. “That’s my big sister, Celestia, and that unicorn is our teacher, Starswirl.”

“Okay,” Twirl said, her mind slowly starting to calm down. “Um…nice to meet you, Luna.”

“I like your flag,” Luna said.

“Flag?”

“That.” Luna nodded toward the end of the of Twirl’s pole where she had tied Sea Tide’s scarf.

“Oh, thank you,” Twirl said as she brought the scarf closer so Luna could look at it. “My friend made it. She wanted to remember what we were fighting for.”

“Victory over the griffons,” Luna said with a smile that only a child could have when saying something like that. “That’s what Starswirl said. Now we won’t have to worry about them hurting ponies anymore, because we have the Elements of…of…Starswirl, what are they called again?”

Starswirl walked toward Twirl, with Celestia right beside him. “The Elements of Harmony, dear Luna. But I am afraid you cannot keep them. You must return them to the tree.”

“But they’re so pretty!” Luna said as she watched the gems circle above her head.

“The Elements of Harmony?” a voice said in disbelief and all heads turned to see who was speaking. “You took the Elements of Harmony? From the Tree of Harmony?”

“I am surprised a griffon is aware of such things,” Starswirl said matter-of-factly. “You must study ancient lore.”

“Are you insane?” Geralt asked. He, Hersah, and the other griffons who had not attacked were still standing where they had been before.

“You watch how you talk to Teacher Starswirl, or we’ll make the rest of you go away like we did with those mean griffons,” Luna said. Twirl was about to tell him to watch is mouth as well, but the look of terror on his face silenced her.

“Do you have any idea what you’ve done?” Geralt asked as he stomped forward until he as only a leg’s distance away. Twirl kept her staff ready, just to be safe.

“Yes,” Starswirl said. “We have ended this war. Go back to your kingdom and tell your ruler that Equestria is now under the protection of the Elements of Harmony and its two princesses, and if your king doesn’t want his country destroyed, he would do well to return all of Equestria’s citizens, and never attack us again.”

“You don’t get it, do you?” Geralt said, anger dripping from his voice. “The Tree of Harmony was a seal. It kept something locked away since ancient times. By removing the Elements, you broke the seal and released something into this world that is the stuff of nightmares.”

“We already said we would put them back,” Luna said, sticking her tongue out.

“Teacher Starswirl, what is he talking about?” Celestia asked.

“A sacrifice we had to make, my dear,” Starswirl said as he patted the young girl on the head with his hoof. “It is why you must put the Elements back after this war is over. There may still be time to prevent what he’s talking about.”

“A fool’s dream,” Geralt said. “But I will relay your message. I can promise you that griffons will not be coming to Equestria for generations now. Not after what you’ve done.” Twirl got the feeling that Geralt wasn’t referring to the Elements of Harmony’s power.

Geralt turned to the other griffons and nodded, the slowly lowered Current’s body to the ground in front of the ponies. “He fought with honor,” the griffon said quietly, then turned to leave.

“Is he sleeping?” Luna asked as she stared at Current’s body.

“Yes,” Twirl said as she looked at Current’s body. It was bruised and covered in dirt and open wounds, the worst being the dark red hole in the middle of his chest. “He’s taking a very long nap.”

“Like her?” Luna pointed behind Twirl and she recalled the body of her friend on the ground behind her.

“Sea Tide!” She turned around and dropped her pole as she fell to the ground next to her friend. “Sea Tide, please open your eyes. Don’t leave me here. We…we did it. We won.” Sea Tide remained still, and Twirl felt tears forming in her eyes.

“Celestia, Luna, you need to use the Elements again,” Starswirl said softly. “Otherwise, this pony will not wake up.”

“Okay,” Luna said with a smile.

“We will,” Celestia added. The two sisters closed their eyes again and the gems glowed white briefly, then the light flowed down onto Sea Tide. It flowed around her for a moment, then faded, and Twirl held her breath.

“Uh…what happened?” Sea Tide asked quietly as her eyes fluttered open. Twirl leaned forward and wrapped her friend up in a hug. “Ow! Easy, Twirl. I hurt all over.”

“I’m so glad you’re all right,” Twirl said, refusing to let go of Sea Tide’s neck. She had lost so many friends and family over the years. Sea Tide was the only one she had left, and she wasn’t sure what she would have done if Sea Tide had left her too.

“Hersah, come,” Geralt said and Twirl looked up to see the female griffon still standing where she had been, while the others had already started to take their leave. “We still have to get out of this forest, and it’s safer to travel together.”

Hersah didn’t move. She simply stared at Twirl and the other ponies, the earth pony still draped over her back.

“You look sad,” Luna said as she stared at the griffon.

Hersah blinked in shock and took a step back at the sound of the filly’s voice. “I…I, um…”

“Is there something you need, Hersah?” Celestia asked as she walked toward the griffon. Luna quickly followed, and Twirl wanted to reach out and hold her back.

Celestia and Luna walked forward until they stood directly in front of Hersah. The sisters looked up at the griffon and waited patiently, while she stared down at them with her eagle eyes.

“Did you want us to heal you too?” Celestia asked. “You and the other griffons do have a long journey ahead of you, and many of your are seriously injured.”

“Yeah,” Luna added. “We can do it. It’s really easy.”

Hersah’s eyes darted back and forth between the sisters and the other ponies. Celestia had raised a very good point. All of the surviving griffons looked to be in terrible condition. The chances of them making it out of the forest were slim at best, and Twirl couldn’t care less. If they all died, she wouldn’t lose any sleep over it.

“No,” Hersah said. She looked over her shoulder at the other griffons, then back at the sisters and lowered herself so that Spinner’s body gently slipped to the ground. “Could…could you…save him?”

“Interesting,” Starswirl said from beside Twirl.

“Why would a griffon want to save a pony?” Twirl spat. She grunted as Sea Tide’s hoof slammed into her stomach. “Sorry,” she whispered and Sea Tide smiled up at her.

“He…he saved my life,” Hersah said as she looked over her shoulder again and caused two of the griffons to hang their heads. Twirl wondered what that was about. “He saved me twice, actually. I…I don’t…I mean, I feel like…”

“We can heal him,” Celestia said. She looked down at her sister and Luna nodded. The two siblings closed their eyes and the Elements began to swirl around them again, followed by the bright white light from before. Only it didn’t just surround Spinner’s body, like it had Sea Tide’s. It kept growing, until it engulfed Twirl and Sea Tide too.

Twirl felt the tiredness of her body lessen greatly, and aches and wounds she had suffered over the past three days dissolved. She closed her eyes and let the sensation flow through her. She had never felt so warm in all her life. She could stay where she was forever, embraced in the soft warmth.

The light dimmed, along with the feeling of warmth, and Twirl found herself sad as the feeling left. She opened her eyes again and blinked a few times to clear them. Her body still hurt, but it was more like the soreness of recovering from a day’s workout than the exhaustion and pain she had been feeling before.

“Spinner?” Hersah asked. Twirl looked over and saw Hersah hunched next to Spinner’s body, her eyes wide with hope. “Spinner.”

“Twirl?” Sea Tide whispered.

“Yes?”

“Um…I’d like to stand up now.”

Twirl suddenly realized that she had been holding Sea Tide in her hooves ever since she had regained consciousness. She quickly stood up and nearly dropped Sea Tide in the process. She reached down and carefully helped her friend to her hooves.

“Dammit,” a new voice said weakly, and Twirl and Sea Tide looked back toward Hersah, Celestia, and Luna. “I’m not going to be a slave, Her—argh! What are you doing?”

Hersah wrapped her forelegs around Spinner’s neck and was crushing him in a fierce hug. A hug that Twirl recognized all too well, and one she wasn’t sure a griffon should be giving a pony.

“You’re alive!” Hersah said as she buried her beak in Spinner’s neck.

“Yes,” Spinner said, trying to get out of Hersah’s embrace. “Um…what’s going on?” Spinner looked around until his eyes fell on Celestia and Luna, then they went wide with shock. “Who are you two?”

“I am Celestia,” Celestia said, bowing slightly.

“And I am Luna!” Luna added, raising her front hoof. “We saved you. Well, she asked us to, but we would have helped you even if she hadn’t asked us to.”

“I…see,” Spinner said, his eyes turning back to the griffon wrapped around his neck.

“We also healed the griffons,” Celestia said, raising her head to look at Geralt and the other griffons. “We will go with you until you are out of the forest, if you wish.”

“Thank you, Celestia,” Geralt said, bowing. “We…would appreciate that. Hersah, we’re leaving. Are you coming?”

Hersah’s eyes snapped open and she suddenly became aware of what exactly she was doing. She immediately pulled out of her hug and stood up too fast, refusing to meet any of the eyes that were looking at her.

“I, uh…” She clawed at the ground, then looked down at Spinner.

“Spinner will need time to heal,” Starswirl said as he, Twirl, and Sea Tide walked over. “We all will, I think. I’m certain he could use some help.”

Twirl saw Spinner roll his eyes, but he didn’t object. He held out his front hoof and Hersah carefully helped him stand up. He winced and fell forward a bit, whether on purpose or accident Twirl couldn’t tell, but Hersah immediately caught him and steadied him again.

“I think I’m going to stay here,” Hersah said as she looked over at the other griffons. “Just to, uh, make sure Spinner heals properly.”

“I see,” Geralt said. “Well, we all still need to get moving. We don’t want to stay in this forest any longer than we have to.”

“How come they didn’t wake up?” Luna asked. Twirl looked to where the filly was pointing and her heart sank. Current’s body was still on the forest floor where Geralt had placed him, and Quickeye was still collapsed on the ground as well.

“They’re…not going to wake up, my dear,” Starswirl said as he put a hoof around Luna. “They…they made a sacrifice for you and your sister. One that I’m sure they’re proud off.”

“Sacrifice?” Luna asked, looking up at Starswirl with an expression that broke Twirl’s heart.

“It means…they did something very special for you two. Something that they maybe didn’t want to do, but knew they had to do.”

“Oh,” was all Luna could say.

“We’re not going to leave them here, are we?” Celestia asked as she stared at the two bodies. Twirl could tell that she knew what sacrifice the two ponies—and so many others—had made.

“No,” Geralt said to everyone’s surprise. “My troops and I will carry them out. We can take you to where the other ponies are too, if you wish.”

“Please do,” Starswirl said. Geralt nodded and two griffons walked forward and retrieved Current’s and Quickeye’s bodies, then put them on their backs.

“I do not think I like sacrifice,” Luna said as she snuggled against Starswirl.

“I now, my dear,” Starswirl said as he ruffled Luna’s mane. “But I fear you and your sister will have to grow accustomed to it in the coming years. But don’t worry, I’ll be right here for both of you. I promise.”

As the group of griffons and ponies began to move, Twirl felt a hoof hold her back until she and Sea Tide were at the back of the group.

“I feel I missed some very important things,” she whispered. “For starters, what are those two? I’ve never heard of a pony having both wings and a horn. Well, except for the legends about the sun and moon. You don’t think…?”

“I don’t really know,” Twirl said as she watched Celestia and Luna walk ahead of them. “But they found something called the Elements of Harmony, and the power they wielded with them was…well, you saw what they did with Spinner. And you.”

“So does that mean the fighting’s over?” Sea Tide asked as the first griffons vanished from sight into the tree line.

“The griffons would be fools to continue the war now, I think. But as for the fighting…” Twirl thought for a moment. Geralt had said that, by removing the Elements of Harmony, they had released something terrible. Twirl would have dismissed that as a silly scare tactic, save for the terror on Geralt’s face.

“Twirl?” Sea Tide asked.

“Nothing. I think it’s safe to say that the war with the griffons is finally over.”

“Great. I have just one more question.”

“Can it wait? We’re about to be left behind.”

“Why is my hoof-made scarf tied around your pole and laying on the ground?”

Author's Note

And here's the end. I had to make some small adjustments after Season 4 started so that the lore didn't get completely destroyed. I originally wanted the results of Celestia and Luna removing the Elements of Harmony from the forest is what unleashed Discord, but now I'm not so sure. I'll have to wait to see what that shadow pony was before I decide what removing the Elements did.

One of the changes I made was that Celestia and Luna had to put the Elements back after they drove the griffons off. That way, they could go back and get them once they realized Discord needed to be dealt with decades--or even centuries--later.

There's an epilogue which I think you should go read. Don't worry. It's very short. :-)

Epilogue: Luna, Tiberrius, and Silent Wing

Princess Luna stood in the middle of the statue garden by herself. Celestia had lowered the sun thirty minutes ago, and Luna had just finished raising the moon. No doubt Celestia was busy preparing for their guest—or guests, since Luna highly doubted that a certain pony would willingly stay behind—but Luna didn’t want to head inside yet. After the return of the Crystal Empire, her battle in Manehattan, and all the other events that had transpired recently, she needed some time to herself.

She had always found a certain sense of peace in the statue garden ever since she and her sister had first moved to Canterlot and established it as Equestria’s capital. Tonight, she found that same feeling of peace as she stared up at her favorite statue.

Twirl stood before her eyes, the earth pony’s image forever engraved in stone. Luna smiled to herself as she recalled Twirl’s protest about having a statue made out of her, and when Luna had insisted that a cape be added—she had still be a little filly at the time and thought it looked dashing—Sea Tide had nearly died of laughter. Twirl’s jaw had almost hit the floor, but after Sea Tide had regained enough of her composer, she had managed to convince her friend to allow the statue. Luna had been overjoyed at that because her vision of first seeing Twirl, standing between her friend and their enemies with courage and determination, had taken on a nearly mythic image in Luna’s mind.

Luna smiled as she recalled her first set of friends. Twirl and Sea Tide had both served in the Royal Guard with honor for the rest of their lives, and each night both of them had come in to see her before they went to sleep and she began her nightly duties.

Hersah had returned to the griffon kingdom briefly to free her slaves, and any others she could, then fled back to Equestria as more and more of her kind called her a traitor and threatened to kill her. She hadn’t minded too much though, since she had been the first ambassador of the griffon kingdom in Canterlot. At the time the title hadn’t really meant anything, since the relationship between griffons and ponies had remained strained for many decades. It had just been a way to allow Hersah to stay in Canterlot without the threat of ponies coming after her too.

Spinner had been very pleased with the news that Hersah would be staying in Canterlot too.

As Luna stared at the statue of Twirl, her eyes drifted to the flag the statue was holding high. It was modeled after the scarf that Sea Tide had favored for her entire life. Luna had once asked the aqua earth pony what was so special about the scarf and why there were three random squares on it, and Luna could still hear Sea Tide’s answer in her mind.

“It’s us,” the pony had said.

“You mean me and you?” Luna had asked.

“No, I mean the three tribes. Earth, pegasus, and unicorn.”

“Oh. Which one is which? I cannot tell.”

“Exactly.”

Luna had pretended to understand at the time—she had been a royal filly-princess-in-training back then, so of course she knew what Sea Tide had meant—but it hadn’t been until years later that she had truly understood what Sea Tide’s scarf, and thus Twirl’s flag, had really symbolized.

“Good evening, Your Majesty,” a voice said and Luna had to force herself not to jump. Calmly, she pulled her gaze away from the statue that had come to be known as Victory and turned to face her new companion.

“Greetings, Silent Wing,” Luna said with a smile. “You look lovely as always.” Luna always added that extra part whenever the bat pony snuck up on her. Silent Wing liked to try to make her jump, and she in turn loved making the captain of her guard blush.

Silent Wing bowed deeply, trying to hide her face, but Luna still caught a glimpse of color in the pony’s cheeks. “T-Thank you, Your Majesty.”

“Captain Silent Wing,” Luna said sternly, causing the pony to stand upright instantly. “We have discussed this before. You are to address me as Luna when we are alone.”

“Er, yes, Your—” Luna glared at Silent Wing. “I mean, yes, Luna.”

“That’s better,” Luna said, smiling. She was about to continue when she felt a tugging on her hair. She sighed and tilted her head to the right, allowing her mane to come closer to the ground. She winced slightly as the tugging continued up her mane, but in a moment she felt a familiar warm spot on the top of her head.

“Good evening Tiberius,” Luna said as she reached up and rubbed the opossum that was now nestled in her mane. “Did you have a nice rest? Are you ready for tonight’s adventures?”

“Sir Tibbles says he is looking forward to them, Luna,” Silent Wing said with a childish smile.

“Excellent,” Luna said as she felt a gentle nip on the tip of her hoof. Tibbles liked to sleep wherever he pleased during the day, but he still always managed to find Luna once the evening came. How he did it, she didn’t know, but she was glad that her pet was so loyal to her.

“Anyway Luna, your sister sent me to find you.”

“Truly?” Luna asked, turning her full attention to Silent Wing. She was already certain of the reason, but she still wanted to hear it. Excitement began to build in her stomach as she waited.

“Yes. It seems Miss Melody has arrived in Canterlot. She should be at the castle in ten minutes, if you wish to greet her.”

Luna smiled even more. The thought of seeing her friends again filled her with joy. But that joy was quickly dimmed as she realized what the bat pony had just said.

“Wait. Just Octavia? Vinyl is not with her?”

Silent Wing sighed and unconsciously stretched one of her wings. She had suffered an injury when she and Vinyl had first met, and while it had not been Vinyl’s fault, Silent Wing had been forced by Luna to take a week off of her duties to heal. Silent Wing had not appreciated that.

“Yes, the D.J. is with her too. Being…D.J.-ish.”

“Perfect! Come, Sir Tibbles. We must be in the throne room to greet our honored guests.” With that, Luna began walking back to the castle, turning to take one last look at Twirl’s statue. If not for her and forty-nine other ponies, the odds would have been very poor of Octavia and Vinyl coming to see Luna tonight, or even an earth pony and unicorn pony being together.

Luna still didn’t like sacrifice, but seeing Twirl’s statue every day reminded her that sometimes, sacrifices had to be made, and that from those sacrifices greater things could be achieved.

Luna’s thoughts darkened a bit as she thought about the real reason she had invited Octavia to the castle tonight. She and Celestia would need to speak with the cellist in private. Hopefully Octavia would not need to make a sacrifice as great as many of Twirl’s companions had had to so long ago.

“If you do not mind, Luna, I shall return to my nightly rounds,” Silent Wing said.

“Oh no you will not,” Luna said, reaching out with her magic and catching Silent Wing by the tail. “You saved Vinyl’s life, and Octavia’s marefriend. I am certain they would both be overjoyed to see you again.”

Luna heard Silent Wing let out an exaggerated sigh and her spirits lifted. “Yes, Your Majesty.”

Author's Note

How many of you read the comics? How many of you were going mad trying to decide why a opossum was climbing around Luna's mane in her micro series? How many of you thought it was utterly adorable when you saw the reason behind all of this?

I felt there should be a scene showing that Luna knows about the statue in the garden and why it's there, and how it ties into a bigger story that I'm going to write eventually. Yes, this is the same one that I've hinted at in other stories. I'll get to it eventually, I promise.