"FOR THE LAST TIME, SISTER, NAY!" came the Canterlot voice, which possessed the power to outroar ten manticores. Princess Celestia sighed, and let the resulting silence hang in the atmosphere for the next minute. Silent save for Luna's voice from that one roar, which still reverberated throughout the voluminous halls of the castle in resounding echoes. Celestia's ears drooped and she sunk down till she was slumped against Luna's bedroom chamber door.
"Forgive me, Luna. It was... a spur of the moment sort of case. You were looking so haggard as the nights went by, and I was curious about the cause. I only wanted to help," said Celestia, her voice so meek that the still-echoing halls overpowered it.
"Sister?" asked Celestia as five whole minutes of overbearing silence ticked by. The last time she checked, on the balcony of Canterlot Castle, night was only beginning, and her sister was away from her post. More than taking her sister's responsibilities away, Celestia hated making Luna angry; the moon princess was a mare of extreme emotions, at one moment having a cheery disposition, then at the drop of a hat, her rage boiling to castle-destroying levels. And the Nightmare Moon episode was not one she wanted to revisit again.
"Sister, I want to talk. This is... As much as I hate to say it, you're behaving like a foal, refusing to confront me on the matter," said Celestia, after another few minutes of quiet. Celestia braced herself for another vocal explosion. It never came. The door's lock hastily snapped open, and the loud creak of the opening door sounded, causing Celestia to back away from the door, her wings fluttering open and sending her edging back in surprise.
"Fair enough," said Luna, her current voice sounding hoarse and estranged. Her eyes were slightly bloodshot and bright with a sheen of tears, but Celestia dared not to bring that up. Other than that, Luna seemed unscathed, her flawlessly beautiful mane floating about in invisible magical winds. Luna beckoned Celestia in with a tilt of her head, and the Sun princess silently complied, trotting gingerly into Luna's room. Celestia sat her rump down on one of Luna's velvet couches, while her sister found herself at her balcony, gazing out at the moon. Celestia decided that it was going to be hard for the two of them to see eye to eye this night.
"I'm glad, Luna," started Celestia after another long bout of uncomfortable silence, "that you're finally being rational about this. You can say anythi--"
"It was a gibbous moon," interrupted Luna curtly, moonlight bathing her form as she stared, seemingly transfixed, at the full moon in the night sky.
"What?"
"Not what, when. As for what..." trailed Luna, her eyes never leaving the moon. "What did you see when you perused through my dream?"
"Blue eyes. A wooden... hut of sorts. Specks of orange light in the night, like rows. They were moving around in the darkness. It was a hurried movement. Like they were wielded by a group of ponies galloping in circles. A large green cloth around me, afterwards. A bag, a leather bag in my hooves. Then... I think... I saw something, it was a golden staff, and a stallion was balancing himself on it, as of now I cannot remember that stallion's face."
"That stallion you speak of is my father."
"Father is nothing like that! He has green eyes, not blue," said Celestia, a thoughtful frown on her face. For the first time that night, Luna smiled. It wasn't a smile that was warm or loving; it was one that represented sarcasm, coating contempt.
"My father, dear sister. Do you know why I was always so full of angst in the household? Why I was always the black sheep in the family, alienating myself from family matters? I even overheard a joke shared between you and Mother that I might as well had been the child of another," Luna smirked.
"Luna..."
"Don't you deny it!" growled Luna, causing Celestia to jump a little in shock. Luna removed her gaze from the moon and glared at Celestia, as if her sister uttered something that was unbelievably blasphemous. Celestia tore herself away from Luna, opting to look at her own hooves, contemplating on a suitable answer.
"Um... your love for Victorian theatre? We never really appreciated it as much as you liked," Celestia managed, after a minute. She gave a nervous smile, looking up vulnerably. Luna's gaze softened but her frown was conspicuous. Her gaze returned to her moon, as if it would aid her in pondering. But alas, only moonlight stared back at her.
"That's... part of the story, actually. Now, promise me, that you will not divulge the information I tell you this night to any other soul. Swear that you aren't a gossiping mare in addition to a snipe who can't keep her prying eyes to herself," said Luna indignantly. Celestia gasped, but she was in no position to object, as Luna's gleaming eyes grounded her into a corner, insisting. Celestia sighed and thought of making a Pinkie Promise in a last-ditch attempt to cheer Luna up, but it was clearly not the time, with her sister showing no signs of abating her anger.
"I swear."
"Good. It was about time I got it off of my... my chest, anyway," said Luna, averting her gaze from the moon and staring at her hooves. "As I said, it was a gibbous moon..."
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"Enty, my boy, you are going to hit the motherlode this time..."
Entwistle grumbled to himself, like he'd grumble many times to himself in the past, when his ears picked up the murmuring of guards stationed outside the site of ruins. He shifted uncomfortably against the cold and rough surface of the rock he was leaning against, and pulled his tattered scarf closer to himself; his rump sunk further into the crunchy snow as his teeth chattered bitterly. Ever since the ransom for somepony, probably some fugitive galloping away from the crushing hoof of the law, was set out by the higher, higher ups in the halls of Canterlot Castle, battalions of guards were sticking their swords around every nook and cranny of Old Trottingham, placing everypony's throat at the sharp end of the halberd, trying to elicit information. They'd thrash establishments too when the owners had nothing to offer them, then leave as if the homes of hardworking taxpayers were just piles of snow to be crushed underhoof. Like a trail of hoofprints, the march of the landlord's guards left its mark, with property strewn about the area and dazed and confused citizens loitering the streets, with not only Trottingham but various other pony villages falling victim to the landlord's greed.
Entwistle cursed under his breath as the snow sapped his warmth away, despite the layers of blue scarves he had on him. He often talked to himself and found nothing queer about it, though his fellow stallions did. He was nearly always on his own and most of the time, his reedy voice and thoughts were his only company. His blue coated muzzle peeked over the blue frosted rock and he saw the silver-armor plated guards lighting their torches, placing blunt pieces of wood against a bonfire sparked moments before by the captain, a huge grey unicorn stallion with similar plating as his guards but with gold streaks to border it. They seemed to be ready to enter the site of the ruins.
"Guess that's my cue," said Entwistle as his hooves sprang up from his snowy hideout in jittery release of suppressed energy, flinging snow about carelessly as he lightly galloped to one side of the ruins, over the fragile mounds of snow which could give way due to a klutzy, heavy hoofstep. The side of the ruins he was headed for was quite the sizable distance from the guards, but he could still be visible if he wasn't careful. Moonlight that poured in through the stark naked tree branches above him illuminated some portions of the path ahead, briefly flashing his form erratically as he rushed onward. There was little chance of the guards noticing the dashing streak of blue that was Entwistle draped to the neck with scarves; Light from the fiery torches they held so close to their faces blinded them, and their whispers made them deaf to the rustling of Entwistle's many scarves, which an astute pair of ears could easily isolate from the sound of swaying tree branches in the unrelenting winter wind.
The ruins were bounded by rows of sharpened wooden trunks that jutted out at a 45 degree angle, and seemed to have been cut from the surrounding trees. Though not recently, as there were no stumps to be seen for miles.
"Bloody village..." whispered Entwistle as he paced the lengthy perimeter of the ruins, pushing his hoof against the wooden trunks, trying to find a loose one to push over or a sizable gap in between trunks. He quickened his step as he heard the murmurs of guards on the other side. A thief and a survivor that was always filled with paranoia, Entwistle's senses were always fine-tuned in his waking hours; even now, as he pressed his hoof against the wooden poles, his heart skipped a little at the noise of the creaking his hoof made. After a few tense moments, he hit jackpot; three trunks planted side by side were charred and weakened, by a fire from who knows how long ago.
With the strongest buck he could muster, Entwistle knocked one of the trunks out of place, but not quite off of the ground. The sound of hoof hitting bark was a bit louder than expected, and he froze as he thought he heard the murmuring of guards grow excitedly. Sensing that it was just the cider he drank earlier that was upsetting his mind, he gave the charred trunk a firm but wary push with his forelegs. The wooden pole creaked, albeit with a softer sound but still sending shivers up his spine.
He wedged his lean form into the gap between the lifted trunk and its adjacent trunks and immediately jumped for cover behind the nearest wooden hut he found; the village was full of such huts, each hut having multiple tree trunks embedded firmly into the ground in a circle with their ends meeting in the sky and tied up with stringy yet flexible bark. Like a large teepee shaped pile of sticks. The hut he was behind, however, was larger than normal, easily three times his height and two times as wide as the typical hut. He looked over the side; the specks of orange light that were rows of torches were faint, meaning that danger was far away.
Entwistle breathed out a cloud of mist as he slipped around the circumference of the hut and into the entrance, which was a triangular hole covered with a tattered cloth. What he saw inside was wondrous.
A bonfire located in the middle of the hut was ablaze, inviting his frost-encrusted self nearer. The guards couldn't have reached this hut yet since it was the innermost hut from the entrance, which only meant one thing: he wasn't alone. He hesitated, but when no greeting came up to him from the shadows in the corners of the hut, he crept closer to the heavenly flames to bathe himself in heat, and sat himself down on the clothed floor. He had a good look around; There were boxes scattered across the corners of the hut. His ears perked up for the sounds of guards; they were some distance away, giving him some allowance for time to look through the boxes. If the rumors were true, there could be gold, riches, treasure or anything glitzy in these boxes that could rocket him out of poverty.
Or scrolls. Multitudes of them, in no organized manner. As he shifted his hoof through the wooden boxes, his pace quickened in fury as he realized he'd been duped by the folks at the bar, who spoke of an abandoned cache of riches in these ruins. If there were any riches, thieves may have already done away with them, a long time ago. Box after box was flung to the other end of the hut as Entwistle's disappointment grew with each box he perused.
"Hay! I'll be tanning their hides when I get back!" he cursed under his breath, as he flung the last box to a far corner of the room, making a sound of wood hitting wood as it landed. The next thing he heard shook his spine with chills; it was an eerie, strangled cry of a foal, which seemed to have come from where the box landed.
It was but one cry, and nothing followed it. Entwistle had heard about far-fetched stories of the ghosts of ponies inhabiting their previous homes from the folks at the bar. He didn't believe a single word of those drunks but the ghosts seemed to be the only plausible explanation for the phenomena happening around him. He edged gingerly towards where the box he flung clattered.
"'ello? Anypony home?" he asked softly. The heavy silence that still hung over the interior of the hut was stifling, and his anxiety only grew when the sound of guards drew nearer to the hut. It was just shadow that he saw, shadow which consumed the box of scrolls he threw. Maybe it was the booze that was forcing things into his head.
"Nothing wrong. On my way the-- GAH!" he cried out as he experienced a downward force on his ears, like a pair of invisible tongs had grabbed at his left ear and were dragging him down to the floor. Grooved tongs which felt more like a set of teeth. He shifted his eyes to the left to see another pair of eyes staring at him, a pair of floating, curious blue eyes that made him question whether he was looking at a mirror, or looking into the eyes of a ghost, a ghost that could touch him. He gave a yelp of surprise and shook his head again, but his neck had gone heavy, feeling as though somepony had put a necklace of dumbbells around it.
"Weird, ghosts aren't supposed to be warm. Little bugger!" cried Entwistle as he realized it was probably a real pony foal attached to his neck, with warmness and pressure felt at the back of his neck that suggested the foal had draped its legs around it. And he was muzzle to muzzle with the foal, an invisible foal. He'd heard nothing of the like in any of the taverns he'd been to, or in any of the books he stole. Not that he stole such articles for reading.
With his forelegs, he felt the air around his neck for the foal's belly, and pushed it off. Entwistle saw a flash of blue land on the cloth near the bonfire. With a look of consternation, he immediately found himself unworthy to be in the presence of what was before him, for he thought such things only existed and belonged in the halls of the higher ups, in the halls of Canterlot.
"An... Alicorn? A foal, no less?" gasped Entwistle as his widened eyes saw a foal with a long flowing light blue mane and darker blue coat, with a light blue tail, though these were the less important highlights; on its forehead was a short horn that was the size of a stout carrot and on its back were tiny, chicken-sized wings with light blue feathers. Most curious of all, it shared Entwistle's eyes. Right now, the foal looked up Entwistle with glee, its eyes sparkling and a wide smile on its face. The stallion looked at it with caution.
"I'm not sure if I can..." said Entwistle, then stopped.
"Shh," said Entwistle curtly, though the foal was unnaturally quiet throughout the whole ordeal, never making a sound aside from its initial cry. Entwistle watched the foal slink into the shadows from the light of the bonfire, and allowed himself to gasp as it turned invisible in the shadow. There was more to the little alicorn's gifts than camouflage in the dark. Entwistle shifted his focus back to his senses.
He picked up the speech of guards, so close that he could swear they were directly on the other side of the hut's exterior. But his initial thought was not true; there was only one guard, who was grumbling to himself. Through gaps in the rows of trunks that made up the shell of the hut, he could see the shadow of the guard stretched across the floor of the hut passing ever closer to the entrance. With a jerk, Entwistle lunged forward and hooked his hoof around the guard's neck, pulling him in whilst pushing his other hoof into the guard's mouth.
"Euch. Now, tell me, what are these guards looking for, my friend? What's got Equestria so riled up over?" Entwistle said, as he removed his saliva coated hoof from the guard's mouth, opting to press it against his adversary's windpipe. His limbs flew about as he struggled, but he was firmly pinned to the wall of tree trunks. Rumor had it that the landlord employed mere colts to join his guard regiment, and Entwistle could see that the appearance of the guard in front of him supported this notion: His face was unblemished and clean, and his body looked a bit too young to fit into that large armor of his. Entwistle scrunched his nose as the smell of the guard wetting himself floated up in the air.
"The hay? Make this easy for me, please," said Entwistle, then he heard the guard struggling to voice himself. He loosened his grip by a minute amount of force and Entwistle could make out a few words.
"Baby... Ali... c-corn," he managed, his eyes full of fear. Entwistle's eyes widened, and he looked back at the inside of the hut. There was nopony to be seen, but he had a feeling the alicorn was still around. He was praying to whatever higher entity was above that the foal was maintaining its invisibility.
"This is bad... Little One! We're going!" Entwistle called out to the darkness. He felt something firm latch onto his neck; a reassuring touch. He loosened his grip on the guard's neck, but this proved to be detrimental to his cover.
"QUICK! COME HERE! THERE'S A THIE--" In a reflex motion, Entwistle pulled out the sword that was sheathed in the guard's belt with his teeth and hit him over the head with the flat of it, knocking him out cold. It was a cheap one that wasn't even sharp enough to cut skin, but at least it was heavy. He heard a faint giggle behind his ear and smiled.
He scrambled out of the hut, foal on his neck. The conversation between the guards had escalated to shouts as they noticed Entwistle moving out of the large hut to the charred logs. As his body squirmed through the gap between the logs he made earlier, he heard the firm thud of an arrow hitting a log beside him. His squirming quickened, and with a 'pop', he fell to the ground below, flinging snow all about him. He slid down a snowhill and galloped awkwardly through the knee deep snow. His movements were stymied, but there was nopony to be seen on his tail. Not yet, at least.
"Stop right there!" cried the captain of the guards as the battalion swarmed towards them, the soldiers snaking through the multitudes of trees in the forest. Torches ablaze, the soldiers turned their heads around, scanning the vicinity, but Entwistle was nowhere in sight. The captain let out a disgruntled roar and jabbed a hoof at a soldier's breastplate.
"Grab this cur of a thief or it's sewer cleaning duty for all of yous! We can't go back to Bailey empty-hoofed, understand!" said the captain, and was answered with a resounding "oo-rah!" by the guards.
"Hmph. Fools," said Entwistle as he pulled out a pipe and watched the orange points of light below him fan out through the forest, like a procession of pilgrims holding candles. They were on one of the higher branches of a snow coated elderly tree, observing the hurried movements of the guards below. There was the worrying issue of the guards knowing his face, but for now, a good smoke was to be enjoyed.
"Interesting. You can fly and use magic. Great for cheating out a quick escape. You're a real abomination, Little One," quipped Entwistle as he pulled out a wad of tobacco and a lighter. They were on a particularly fat and stable trunk, so there was little chance of them falling off. The foal was fully visible, supporting his notion that its initial invisibility was the result of her own magic and will. Right now, she was pouting at Entwistle, though his interest was drawn to his pipe.
"Horseapples. Lighter's busted. If only... oh," said Entwistle as the foal's horn lit up and a roaring fire appeared in his pipe's cavity briefly, before rapidly going out, leaving a trail of smoke. He relaxed on the branch and inhaled deeply. The foal looked up to him, eyes wide and teeth bared, and used a hoof to prod at his scarfed form.
"What is it? Oh. You're chattering. Here," he said, peeling off two scarves from his body, one teal and the other blue, wrapping it around the foal's body, who closed its eyes snuggled in its warmth, a satisfied smile on its face. Entwistle looked at it, deep in thought.
"Why can't you cook yourself a fire? You've got that grotesque magic wand of yours on your head," Entwistle remarked, and laughed mirthfully when the foal sneezed in response. Insulting others was a common part of life for a pony such as he, who spent most of his time in and out of taverns, drunk for a good half of the day, participating in or starting bar brawls with the highest of gusto. Just because he was talking to a foal didn't mean that he had to hold back on his taunting, which unsurprisingly, he got a good kick out of.
"Wonder what's your gender. Probably girl, seeing those eyelashes of yours. I'd hit my son over his head if I caught him with such decorations on himself," he said, using a hoof to stroke its exposed mane. It felt nearly as intangible as air. She cooed as he stroked down the length of her head to the small of her back. He puffed out a cloud of smoke, careful not to let any smoke float into the girl's face.
"And your future. I wonder how that's going to treat you," he said, and the filly looked up at him with watery, large eyes that were blue and interminably deep, eyes all too similar to his own.
"Gah! We definitely can't get you back to those guards, that's for sure," he said, pulling away from her eyes like they were lasering into his own corneas.
"But you can't hang with me either. I'm a bad guy," said Entwistle bluntly, talking mostly to himself. He looked at the filly, who cocked her head to the side, as if she understood and was confused.
"What? Sure, I saved your life. But I've done things in life I'm not proud of," he said, inhaling deeply. The filly continued to stare, egging him on to elaborate. He shook his head vigorously.
"You don't wanna hear about those. But there are things I'm proud of too. For instance, this," he said, reaching into his pile of scarves to pull out a small leather bag, which clinked with coins. The young pony stared with curiosity at it.
"Swiped it from this loud and foul-mouthed sucker at the Three Hooves Tavern just yesterday. Big shot, he thought he was, with his ever so manly muscles. But alas, the sly always outwit the strong, and that's one lesson you'll need to learn in life, missy," said Entwistle, rubbing his hoof vigorously on her head, earning a giggle.
"Seriously though. It can get you out of a tight spot. If you ever meet those type of muscled suckers, know that they really can't think and exploit that, where you lack in brawns, you have brain. Darn, I'm getting Uncle-ish. Well, we can't stay here forever. Night gets arctic. Gotta find a pub to stay for the night. Maybe... find somepony who can get you to the higher ups without the landlord knowing," Entwistle said, without noticing the filly tugging on another one of his scarves, shivering at a greater rate. Snow was slowly but surely falling from the sky, always a bad sign at this time of year and this time of night for those who wanted to go out.
"Hey! That scarf was stolen from a posh one!" he cried, as he pulled it out of her mouth. "You keep up with this misbehavior, you're on a one-way trip to landlord Bailey. And I agree, we should be on our hooves. Uh, get us down please?"
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By the time they reached Old Trottingham, a blizzard had inundated the town, caking the signs of shops in snow and lining the streets with knee-deep snow. It was never a good idea to go out in such conditions, but that was for normal earth ponies who didn't have alicorn magic on their side. With a magic shield, the little filly, lying on his back and wrapped in scarves, kept the duo safe from the onslaught of the blizzard, but it couldn't keep the cold out. They stopped outside of a row of buildings with signs hanging from the top of their doors, though all of them were covered by snow. Entwistle seemed to study all of them in deep thought before deciding on one of them. The alicorn looked at him with a concerned look in her eyes, which he caught.
"Relax, missy. Begged on these streets for about two months, I know them like the sole of my hoof. 'Tis obviously the homely Thirty Jades," said Entwistle as he pushed open the bar door, his skin tingling at the radiation of warmth that the bar's interior emanated. However, the interior didn't look quite familiar. The bartender was at the left side, not the right. The chairs here didn't have backs. And the patrons seemed much tougher; there was a male gryphon somewhere in the corner of the bar. This was a tavern that he didn't want to remember, but could never forget. He turned tail, but was stopped by a gruff voice at the right of the bar.
"Well, well, well. If it ain't old Bentwhistle at the Three Hooves. Come to gimme back what's mine, you little gruelstain? And what's that on your back? Last time I heard you were a pony, not a camel," said a large Trotsland-accented red coated stallion with a sharp muzzle, stocky body and a beer mug for a flank mark. He guzzled down a beer and trotted with heavy hoofsteps toward Entwistle, who was frozen at the entrance. All eyes in the tavern were drawn to the two.
"Dunno what you're talking about, Stan. Me? Steal? Must be a rumor spread by those folks who I beat at pool the other day," lied Entwistle, though he knew that wouldn't convince Stan.
"Hmmph. What you swiped was a month's worth of savings for my family, my daughter, my wife, my dyin' gran..."
"More like, like beer money," said Entwistle suddenly, without thinking. A collective gasp swept through the tavern and a vein in Stan's head popped. He swept his black mane about and tipped his head down, pawing at the wooden floor like a bull ready to charge.
"You want the ox? You gotta have the horns!" yelled Stan, charging for Entwistle, which the nimbler pony easily dodged. In the process, the pile of scarves on his back fell off, revealing his bare back. From the scarves tumbled out a bag of bits, to which Stan's eyes widened. He gave a sinister chuckle as he picked up the gold and stuffed it into his back pocket, while rearing for another charge.
"You're in for a beatin' you shoulda' had a long time ago," said Stan. Entwistle gulped. The other patrons looked on with interest.
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The brawl took the two ponies to the outside, in the chilling blizzard, but not before four tables were upturned and several stools were flung across the tavern, with one smashed to splinters. With finality, the red victor triumphed over the blue, using a hoof to smash Entwistle's head into the snow.
"That'll teach ya," Stan coughed, as he entered the bar, looking unscratched. The same couldn't be said for Entwistle. His blue-coated face looked bluer than ever, holding an amalgam of cuts, bruises, scratches and swellings, with scratches over his lips and swellings in both cheeks, and two black eyes in addition to a throbbing headache in the spot where he was smashed with a chair.
"Damn... Damn foal," he spat, as he picked up his blue scarves and made for the Thirty Jades. The night was growing older, and the ice storm was subsiding, making it a little easier to find one's way through. He staggered a little as he felt something in his legs ache with pain. Suddenly, he felt a force tug at his scarf.
"Foal? What are... you...?" He said, shocked as the alicorn materialized out of thin air. He was gobsmacked, however, at what the little blue filly was holding in her mouth. It was Stan's bitbag which he thought was beaten back out of him. With glee, he picked up the foal on his forelegs, ignoring their pain, and swung her around in exhilaration.
"You are a blessing from the skies, my friend!" he said, but the filly jumped up in even more excitement when she was finally put down after her dizzying twirl in the air. From one of the scarves she kept, she pulled out yet another, unfamiliar bitbag, which also had the name 'Stan' on it. She gave an excited gasp and picked it up with her mouth to show Entwistle, whose beaten countenance positively shone at it.
"You swiped... that swine's... bitbag too? You little demonspawn, you! Lesson learnt!" Entwistle said, not really believing what was before his eyes. Entwistle's eyes sparkled as if the stars themselves found their way into them, and he gave a shout for joy, stretching his aching cheeks. But he didn't care. He picked up the two bitbags and the bouncing child, and galloped off to find the Thirty Jades.
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"That's all for tonight, sister. Rest now, there are but five hours till daybreak. You will need the energy to raise the Sun," said Luna nonchalantly. Celestia was genuinely listening, never yawning nor resting on the velvety couch she was lying on.
"You're right, Luna," Celestia said, getting up and heading for her chambers, thinking deeply. She knew that at least two of the following five hours would be spent tossing and turning, thinking about her sister and what the next night of stories would offer her.
"Oh yes, before I leave, Luna," said Celestia hastily, when she was at the door, "I have to say this 'Entwistle character that you met was quite a charmer. I would have loved to be in such company, honestly speaking."
"Hm," said Luna, as the doors of her room shut with a bang, leaving Luna alone with echoes, moonlight and thought.
Author's Note
My first submission into When They Were Young! I hope. Favourite/upvote if you liked it and want more, Comment for any negative/positive criticism, and follow for more content. Happy New Year!
