Chapters In one of the less savory districts of Canterlot, Arch Freight peeks past the worn curtains of a dusty window, looking at the street below. Thin mist enrobes the city like a cloak, limiting the stallion’s view to only a few blocks. Above the blanket of haze, he can see the sun glinting on the eastern horizon, ready to rise and greet the new day as it always does. In its sovereign glory, it acts just as nothing had changed during the past month.
Nothing but everything , thinks the stallion sleepily as he sneers at the sight. How is that possible? How dare the Sun and the Moon go on so indifferently? What is going on in the Castle? His eyes dart down as a shadow moves there. He stifles the instinct to draw the curtains completely; instead, he moves slightly away from the window while following the shadow that grows against the opposite house's wall. It’s only after a stray cat emerges from the rubble that he breathes out again.
He closes the curtains and covers them with planks once more. Behind him, sleepy grunts draw his attention. In one of the small living room’s corners, an array of blankets piled on top of each other stirs as his wife moves there. Arch Freight walks over to her quietly and plants a kiss on her idly swaying forehead. Despite the old sweat and dust that stain her coat, the touch warms his heart against the chill of the early morning.
“Archie…” mumbles the mare sleepily, her eyes opening gradually. “Is it morning?”
He kisses her again, on the left ear this time. “Almost. Never mind that. You two can sleep while I stay on guard.”
“But it is so dark… Why it has to be so dark…?”
“Just some morning mist, dear,” answers the stallion soothingly, his muzzle gently brushing her head. “And the windows are covered with planks, remember?”
“How can it be misty this time of the year?” asks the mare quietly while closing her eyes. She falls slowly back to the old mattress and pulls the sleeping colt closer to her. “It’s unnatural…”
He watches the two huddling together tightly, the steam of their breathes mixing in with his. He flinches as his head droops, and for a second he considers giving in to the temptation to settle with his family in the land outside time. No… I must stay awake. I must guard them, must keep them safe. I must… stay awake. The cold in the room allies with his heavy eyelids, urging him again to take his place on the other side of Berryfer. He shakes his head to fend off the thoughts of comfort. Peace is luxury now. Those who forget it lose everything. He turns away from his family and leaves the room.
The first hours of the day wear out rapidly as he searches the other flats for food, supplies, and anything of use in general. Despite the size of the tenement, there is not much to find in the abandoned, empty apartments, some of which appear to have been empty for years. These homes were poor even before the catastrophe: now they are below that, too. I hadn’t anticipated that the situation would be this bad… His searching comes to a sudden halt as he hears loud noises carrying from outside. It’s as if an army was parading right past the building. When his curiosity wins over his anxiety and he peeks through a window, he finds the truth to be not much different.
From the third floor, he sees a line of carriages packed with rubble going by, each drawn by two earth ponies. The cool mist has evaporated by now, and even from afar Arch Freight can see how the young sun’s warmth drenches the ponies in sweat. Still they go on as in a trance, their faces blank and expressionless. All in all, Arch Freight counts a dozen carriages go by and head downtown. They are cursed, all cursed. And were it not for a lucky chance, we’d be there too, working until our backs broke under the weight of our ruined homes. He pulls back from the window, eager to continue his scavenging.
He flinches as he sees Berryfer standing right behind him, staring. “What’s the matter?” asks Arch Freight instinctively.
The colt shuns his eyes as if in shame. “Nothing, Pa. I’m just… hungry.” His aimlessly shuffling legs paint random patterns on the dirty plank floor. “Did you find any food?” he whispers shyly.
Arch Freight feels a bitter lump forming in his throat and despite his growling stomach, swallowing it stirs nothing but disgust in him. “I will soon, Berryfer,” he says, walking to him. “Do you want to help me?”
“Yes, Pa…” He follows his father as he heads to the staircase.
"Mind your step," says the father, pointing at a loose plank at the top of the staircase. "The building is filled with traps like that." They start their descent into the second floor. "Does your mother know you came to me?” he asks.
“Yeah. She told me I should.” The colt glances timidly at his father’s back. “Pa… Why did we leave the others behind yesterday?”
The question stings Arch Freight like a needle. “The situation was very chaotic at the time. We got separated in the panic, nothing more.”
The colt hesitates a moment. “But you said... You told them to go to the stables while we escaped through the Southern Gate. You said that, I remember.”
They get to the bottom floor, where Arch Freight gives the foal a long look. Berryfer seems very disturbed by his father’s eyes, avoiding them as best as he can. Is this why you sent him to me, Silk? To ask questions that nopony wants to know answers for? “Why do you think I did that?” he asks quietly.
As if afraid, Berryfer raises his bright blue eyes slowly from the carpet. “Because… you didn’t like them?”
“Listen to me carefully, Berryfer. What I did yesterday, I did for nopony else than for you and for your mother: for us. That is why I do everything I do, because I love you.” Arch Freight puts his hoof firmly on the colt’s thin shoulder. “When you get older, you'll understand me better.” I didn’t believe I’d ever see the day when I had to resort to that argument. The graveyard must be ringing from my father's laughing.
The pools of blue ripple and for a second, Arch Freight sees his own reflection in their surface. Berryfer nods faintly, and the stallion gives him a warm smile.
“Where do you think they are now?” asks the colt when the stallion has already turned his back to him.
He doesn’t answer immediately. “Wherever they are, we can’t help each other now. Come, let’s try to find something to eat.”
Quiet steps echo around the empty corridor as the two ponies walk along its length, peeking into apartments that line up on either side. The brown paint on the bare plank walls is cracked and faded at several places, perhaps even more so than in the three stories above. The familiar smell of mold, mixed in with dust and putrefying process, lingers heavily in the air. Most of the old-fashioned, dark-green doors are wide open, save a few that have been broken into. The colt hides behind his father, eyeing warily the shadows that spread from the lifeless apartments.
“It smells like something died here,” he whispers. A sizable rat skitters past the carpet, making him flinch.
More like the whole building is dying. “Dead things aren’t the worst we can expect to find here. Stay close, don’t wander away.” The stallion takes a step towards the nearest half-opened door and pushes it gently with a hoof. A creaking noise cuts the air. The colt leans away from the opening, hiding better behind the stallion. He meeps when the father moves to the doorstep.
“Hello?” says Arch Freight, keeping his voice steady enough to carry all over to the apartment and not a room further. “If there is somepony here, know that I’m not one of the Changed. My name is Arch Freight. I’m coming in now.” He takes a step into the room, then another one. Soon he is wholly inside, studying yet another deserted home. In the living room that he finds beyond the hall, furniture lies scattered and broken. The kitchen beyond that tells the same tale. There was a fight here, and a fierce one at that. No blood, though. He sees Berryfer studying a broken glass cupboard.
“Stay away from that,” he says. “You might cut yourself.”
The colt takes a step back, looking anxiously at the stallion. “You think the smoke monsters did this?”
“If they did, they are long gone by now. They never come out at daylight.”
“What are they, anyway?” continues Berryfer, looking at his ankle with frowny eyes. “They have to be magical, right? Like elementals?”
“That is a good observation. What makes you think so?” asks Arch Freight, scouring the cupboards. Better keep him talking: it seems to calm him down. And helps to take his mind away from his stomach.
“Well…” starts Berryfer with a pride of a ten-year old. “They melted through the floorboards, so they must be able to turn themselves at least partly ethra-etrh-”
“Ethereal,” corrects the stallion. “Go on.”
“And their touch was freezing cold, so they can’t have blood in them. Also, you fought them back with magic, and they didn’t bleed or anything. They just vanished.” The colt smiles proudly. “Living things always bleed.”
“Trees don't,” says the stallion, opening yet another cupboard only to find it full of plates and mugs. “And they certainly are alive, don’t you think?”
The colt rolls his eyes. “Duh… They didn’t look like plants to me. So they must be magical.” He wanders under the kitchen table, following a trail of breadcrumbs. “That means they must have a master, right?”
“That is very likely, yes,” answers Arch Freight, closing the cupboard filled with plates a tad more violently than needed, sending the china rattling inside. There is nothing here, not a stump of a carrot to eat. I wage my mane that the same goes for the other apartments, and for the other houses… for the whole damn city. Canterlot is wholly dependent on imported food, and with the siege having lasted for over three weeks… I doubt it if even the Castle has any edible food left inside. “Come with me, Berryfer,” says Arch Freight, his voice as steady as ever. “Let’s move on to the next door. Mark this one's door so that we know what apartments we have searched already. A rational and disciplined mind is our most important asset, never forget that.”
He almost gets out of the kitchen before noticing that the colt hasn’t moved a muscle under the kitchen table. “Berryfer? Leave the crumbs for the rats.”
“Pa…” whimpers the colt. “There is somepony under the floorboards.”
It takes Arch Freight four seconds to understand what he just heard, but only one to step hurriedly over to his son who is staring at the floor. “Move over,” commands the father, pushing the heavy table quickly away with his horn. “Where?”
The colt points at a small crack between the planks. It’s pitch black there, and despite his best efforts, Arch Freight can’t see properly into the hole. Very carefully, he lights up his horn.
In the grey-white light, he sees a pupil shrinking as it stares right back at him from the darkness below.
***
Outside the city, in a round tent that stands over twelve feet tall, Shining Armor eyes with care the other stallions present. They are all dressed in armor and military uniforms. He can feel their stares burning him from every side. Were it not for the brilliant coat that most of them bear as their birthright, he wouldn’t have problems facing them without a flinch. Alas, despite the sun-filtering fabric around them, the ponies of Crystal Kingdom are hard to look directly at for long. Armor closes his eyes and sees sawtooth patterns dancing behind his eyelids.
He forces them open again before speaking. “Most of you already know the topic of this meeting. I have come to a decision. We shall attack.”
The four other stallions erupt speaking fervently at once. Armor gives them a few minutes before beating the heavy table couple of times with a hoof. “I’m glad that you all agree,” he says when the noise quiets down. “Now, to talk about the strategy, I would start by–”
“What?!” blurts one of the stallions, a unicorn with a black beard that almost reaches to the ground. “We are all against you in this!”
Armor rises his eyes from the map spread on the table, nailing an indifferent look at him. “Are you, now? Why, I couldn’t tell. Maybe if you all hadn't talked over one another I might have. I simply presumed that you would follow the Supreme Commander’s orders.” I need to act as if disobeying wasn’t an option , thinks Armor as his eyes start watering again. That's the only way this is going to work.
All the other commanders blush faintly. The effect turns the lighting in the tent almost pink. “My apologies, Commander Armor,” continues the bearded unicorn who is again the first to recoup. “But as you surely know, the combined voice of all the other commanders will outweigh the Supreme Commander’s decision.” He glances at the other commanders, all of whom look sternly at Armor. “And as you said, we knew of the day’s topic already. Accordingly, we have come to a decision of our own.”
One could almost hear a needle drop in the silence that ensues. “Gentlecolts…” begins Armor after a while, his eyes cast on the map. “It has been twenty-four days. We cannot prolong this any longer.”
“We can if we must,” says a short and sturdy unicorn beside the bearded one. “A frontal assault on Canterlot Castle? It cannot be done.”
“It has been done!” cries Armor. “The Changelings–”
“–Were a different animal altogether,” interrupts the stout unicorn. The glimmer of his coat reflects from his round glasses, hiding his eyes. “You know that better than most, Commander.”
“That is exactly what I mean,” continues Armor through clenched teeth. “I was the key to Queen Chrysalis's plan of invasion and so I shall be in ours. I know the city’s defenses better than anypony alive. Canterlot is not impregnable, far from it. It's only made to look like it.”
“Nonetheless, a straight attack would cost hundreds of lives,” says the bearded unicorn. “And for what? They have no food in there, while our storages are refilled daily. Wait another week and–”
“–And Canterlot becomes the largest cemetery in Equestria just by itself,” finishes Armor darkly as he raises his gaze from the table. “The lack of food is the problem, not the solution, Proud Freight.”
“A regrettable problem, but from the military perspective–”
Armor slams his front hooves on the table so hard that even the guards standing by the tent entrance jump. “I will not stand and watch from side as the capital of Equestria starves to death!”
An uneasy silence descends to the tent again, and this time it’s the other commanders who can't bear to look at Armor. Finally, Proud Freight seizes the initiative once more, his face the very embodiment of military discipline. “You are not the only one here who has his heart at stake in this, Supreme Commander .” He pauses to draw breath. “Or do I have to remind you that my son, along with his family, is trapped there along with the rest.”
Armor blinks. “Waiting is not an option anymore, not even if we forget the unforgettable. You all know why.” He turns his eyes from Proud Freight and lets them sweep over the other commanders.
“You talk of the Device?” asks a pegasus stallion with the same Equestrian coat as Armor. “Do we know its purpose now?”
“We do and we do not,” answers a crystal pegasus, the youngest pony in the room. “Nothing much has changed since your absence, Cloud Shield. They are still building it and all we know about it is that it’s like nothing we have seen before. And that it seems to come together faster every day.”
“Thus it cannot be anything we would like to see completed,” continues Armor. “Listen to Bright Wing here: they are hurrying the building of the contraption inside. Why would they waste energy on something was not of essential importance to them?”
“Are you suggesting it indeed is some kind of a weapon?” asks Proud Freight, raising an eyebrow. “How could it be? The thing is so massive it would be impossible to move around.”
“It might be a bomb of some sort,” says Bright Wing. “Since yesterday, the air patrols have registered strange bursts of magical energy around and inside the main construction yard. I’m not talking about the usual glow that surrounds it. All the reports tell the same tale: something big is up.”
“Can’t you get a better look at it?” asks the sturdy unicorn with glasses.
Bright Wing shakes his head. “The ‘Changed’ pegasi, so to speak, have begun acting more aggressively. Some blows have already been exchanged in air and we didn’t think it wise to push it farther than that without the War Council’s authorization.” The pegasus’s glimmering coat darkens just slightly. “I’m not saying this to paint black clouds, but the Changed pegasi fight back as if their lives depended on it. We cannot get any closer without upping the ante ourselves.”
Some meaningful looks are changed, but from all the anxiety in the room, Armor’s attention is drawn to the other pegasus whose frame just turned a tad more stiff. Are you still harboring those dark thoughts? Or did your absence fulfil its purpose? “I rest my case,” Armor states, drawing all the eyes to himself again. “Whatever they are preparing for us there, we won’t like it. That could even be the reason why Canterlot was attacked in the first place: to create the Device.”
“What are you exactly proposing, then?” asks Proud Freight. “A frontal assault?”
“In the end, it will come to that. But there is more: we wouldn't be scaling the walls, but charging through the opened gate.”
A few eyebrows are raised and Armor might swear he heard a stifled chuckle from somepony. However, nopony asks the question that they are all thinking.
“Here is the plan,” continues Armor. “We will send a hoofful of our best soldiers, pegasi and unicorns only, to the caverns below the castle, the same ones Queen Chrysalis used to imprison Princess Cadance. From there they will make it to the Castle and into the city. Some will stay by the cavern entrance to cause a diversion and under its protection the rest will open the city gates.” They didn’t reject it immediately, thinks Armor as he studies the faces of the other stallions. Now I only need to turn Proud Freight’s mind and the others will follow .
“What guarantees that this strike force wouldn’t face the same fate as the first one?” asks Bright Wing.
To Armor’s surprise, it’s Proud Freight who answers. “Because this time they wouldn’t be trying to take out the one who caused all this. Also, they wouldn’t be approaching the Castle from the air, but from below.” He turns his eyes to Armor again. “Still, the risk would be immense. We have no idea how many guards there are inside the Castle, and the route through the city is a long one.”
“We would be sending our best,” answers Armor calmly. “We also have our concealment spells, and the element of surprise.”
“Are we certain of the latter one?” asks the sturdy stallion, aiming his words at the tent in general. “What if the enemy knows about the caverns?”
“I took the liberty to send two scouts there today,” says Armor. “Nothing suggested that they would know anything about them. That is to be expected, considering that they are one of the most guarded secrets of the Castle. Even Chrysalis had to get right into the heart of the court to find out about them.”
Another pause filled with anticipation follows. They have accepted the plan. All they now need is a little nudge. “There are risks involved, let none tell you otherwise. Whatever we decide here today, we are gambling on something. This plan has the benefit that, when it succeeds, it will end this tragedy tomorrow.”
From the other side of the table, Bright Wing sighs heavily. “Look… I know this is something we all know, but… we will be fighting against our own people there.” His eyes circle the table and stop at Armor. “And like I said, they will certainly fight back.”
“They will be starved and weak,” says Armor. “We will use the least force necessary, bind them, knock them out, anything to immobilize them without truly harming them. Once inside the city, we will send enough troops to the Castle to finally subdue the creature that has enslaved our people to their will.”
“Do we still have any clue on what we are dealing with here?” asks Cloud Shield, his jaw clenched. “What kind of a demon could hold enough power to hypnotize an entire city?”
“It most likely isn’t simple hypnosis, that much can be said for certain,” says Proud Freight, his tone almost academic. “If it were, we could have snapped the prisoners we have acquired out of it long ago. Whatever enthralls them is way beyond anything that might even remotely be called hypnotism.”
“Changeling magic?” suggests the sturdy pegasus. “I still argue that it’s Queen Chrysalis again. Her control magic is potent, as we well know.” He gives a quick glance at Armor.
“Nopony denies that to be the case, but it only worked when she kept me close enough to her and renewed the spell at steady intervals,” answers Armor without blinking. “Besides, had Chrysalis been capable of seducing all of Canterlot, she would’ve done that long ago.”
“Maybe she has learned?” asks Bright Wing.
“Everything is possible,” concludes Proud Freight. “But speculation takes us nowhere. Whatever name the horror that lurks inside the Canterlot Castle carries, we know that it was powerful enough to deal with both Princess Celestia and Luna, and with our elite strike force, not to mention enslaving the whole city, all the while without even showing its face.”
Nopony has anything clever to say about that.
Then Armor clears his throat and breaks the spell. “I may be asking the color of the sky here… but did your patrol find any trace of my sis–I mean, of Princess Twilight?”
Cloud shield shuns Armor's eyes. “We roamed the wastes for over two weeks, Commander, yet found no sign of her. Needless to say, we keep on searching until the last feather deserts our wings.”
A faint smile decorates Armor’s lips. “I’m certain it will not come to that.” Twily….what ever happened to you? Where did you go, and why? Will I ever know? “Until that… I suspect that we have a decision to make here. Unless somepony wishes to say something before the final vote?”
The silence lasts for four heartbeats.
“With your leave, Supreme Commander… I would forfeit my vote,” says Cloud Shield while staring straight at Armor. “It’s not that I beg for any special treatment or pity: the choice is as hard for all of us. It’s only that I don’t feel authorized to make the decision on behalf of the Royal Guard – officially speaking, I’m still only the Second Lieutenant, not the Capt–”
“–You became the de facto Captain of the Canterlot’s Royal Guard on the instant that your predecessor was deprived of his free will, Cloud Shield. Your voice will carry the same weight as anypony else’s around this table.” Armor ends his sentence with a grin. “Yours truly excluded, of course.”
The pegasus nods shortly at Armor. “Then I shall vote.”
Armor draws one last breath and says with a booming voice: “Everypony in favour of the plan discussed, raise you right hoof now.”
Four hooves rise in unison. Four ponies look at Proud Freight, who sighs heavily. “It felt appropriate that there ought to be one nay among the votes. The question's gravity demanded that, I felt.” He smiles like a ghost. “If it needs to be done, then it needs to be done. May the heavens help us all.”
Because we seriously need them to , concludes Armor in his mind.
***
Hundreds of miles away, in the wilderness filled with pines and rivers, Twilight watches the midday sun the way she has never before: with scorn. The rays burn her eyes and make tears run on her cheeks, but she glares at the celestial orb for three more seconds before averting her gaze. She doesn’t wipe the salty water of her eyes immediately, but lets the moistness linger as she blinks them. It’s just the sun, just the sun , she assures herself. It’s the same as on the day I was born, it will be the same on the day I die… A short, dry laugh flees her when she remembers the wings on her back, the wings that still feel as if she got them yesterday. That is, if I ever die…
A flash of rainbow on the corner of her vision draws her attention. She wipes her eyes and looks at Rainbow Dash who soars next to her, stopping in the air a few feet off the ground. “Okay, it’s done. What happened to you?” she asks.
“Nothing… You were sure to cover our tracks, too?”
Dash rolls her eyes. “Yeah, of course I did. Trust me: it would take Sherlock Hooves to figure out there was a camp there.”
“Good. Now, gather the others here so we can talk.”
Dash raises an eyebrow. “Should we really leave him without a guard?”
“I think we have made it clear enough what will happen if he tries to escape.” And if he still hasn’t gotten the idea, I’ll have no choice but to elaborate. Twilight smiles reassuringly.
Dash frowns, yet says nothing. She is about to fly to the cottage when a thought crosses her mind. “Uh… Twilight. This comes kind of late, but… I’m sorry that I wrestled you down yesterday.” Suddenly very awkward, the pegasus avoids Twilight's eyes as best as she can, apparently eager to fly away as quickly as possible.
Twilight doesn't hurry her answer. “You really think you were the one who wrestled me down?” she finally says with a smirk. “As I remember it, you were the one who was sent spinning through the air.”
The arrogant snort that Dash gives her has a hint of relief mixed in it, too. “Yeah right. You just thank your horn for that. How about next time you leave out the magic tricks and play it fair and square?” She ends her sentence with a challenging smile and flies away without waiting for a response.
Next time… thinks Twilight as she watches her go. Next time I’ll try to kill him, you mean? It doesn’t take long for the others to come outside and gather into a semicircle in the yard. She looks each one of them in the eyes before speaking. “Let’s cut to the chase then. I called you here because we need to change our plan. I’m sure we all agree that the one we've been following has proved its futility.”
“Maybe it’s not the plan, but the execution?” says Dash immediately. “Let’s take the gloves off with this guy. He’s not going to crack unless we rough him up a bit.”
“A bit,” says Rarity. “Are you saying he was pushed through a wall just a bit?”
“It got him talking, didn’t it?” answers Dash.
“No, it got him denying everything,” says Twilight. “I don’t care to know how he only played a minor part in the Project Pantheia. I don’t care to know how he only followed orders. That’s all he has been talking about since, though.”
“So?” continues Dash. “We just ask more pointedly.”
“How can you not see the problem?” asks Rarity. “He is scared to death! He thinks that we will kill him for what he did in the Project. Of course he doesn’t want to talk about it!”
Dash crosses his hooves while afloat. “Okay… That means we only need to make him believe that we’re going to kill him if he doesn’t tell us about the Project. Logical, right?”
Twilight speaks before Rarity can answer to that. “In that case, he would still be inclined to hide the things that we need to know. Fear has its uses in any interrogation, but I think we have come to the point where we need to change our approach.”
Rainbow Dash narrows her eyes. “What you suppose we do, then?”
Twilight turns her head towards Fluttershy. “We let Fluttershy talk to him.”
Rarity and Rainbow Dash blink simultaneously, their eyes nailing at Fluttershy who tenses immediately. “W-what?” she blurts. “M-me? Why?”
“Because you saved his life,” says Rarity, her face lit up by understanding. “You are the only pony here he has a reason to trust, even if just a bit.”
“That’s true…” says Dash carefully. “Are you up to it, though?”
Fluttershy shrinks under their stares. “I-I don’t know… I haven’t interrogated anypony before…”
“Just ask the questions we need to get answers to,” says Twilight. “We can compile a list for you, if you’d like that.”
The yellow pegasus almost falls to her knees under the expectant eyes of the three other ponies. Her mouth opens and closes erratically, and her whole frame trembles as if she was freezing. “Uhm… I… I suppose I can do it…” she finally manages. “If that’s what you all want…”
“That is what we need,” says Twilight, stepping closer to the shaking pony and offering her a hoof. “You’ll have nothing to worry about: we'll be right outside the room.”
“Come again?” asks Rarity.
“You’re joking!” blurts Dash. “We can’t leave Fluttershy alone with him!”
Twilight doesn’t turn her eyes from Fluttershy. “He’ll be more inclined to trust her if we’re not present. And like I said, we'll be just a shout away. Also, I have a back-up plan.”
“But this is a serious villain we’re talking about!” continues Dash, gesturing with her front hooves. “He is behind the attack on Canterlot!”
“Dash does make a fair point,” says Rarity. “I do not like the way we have treated him so far… but pity towards one’s enemy should not lead to their underestimation.”
“It’s Fluttershy you’re both underestimating here!” snaps Twilight suddenly, turning towards Rarity and Dash. “She has tamed a dragon: surely she can stand a few minutes with one old pony.” She glances at Fluttershy again. “Can’t you?”
She swallows and nods weakly.
“See?” continues Twilight, looking at the two other ponies. “We all just need a bit of encouragement every now and then.”
Rarity and Dash exchange a quick look. “Eh… I guess we can give it a try?” says Dash with her eyes on the sky.
“You really think he will trust Fluttershy?” asks Rarity from Twilight. “He must suspect something, even if she did save his life.”
“Most likely he will, there’s no doubt about that. The question is, what do we have to lose?”
The silence that follows Twilight’s question speaks more than any of them could in one sentence express. Twilight seeks Fluttershy’s eyes again, but finds them securely nailed at her own legs. She lifts the pegasus's chin gently with a hoof. “Are you ready for this?” she asks.
Fluttershy’s lip quivers before her answer. “Y-yes,” she whispers.
You never were much of a liar. “I’m glad to hear that,” says Twilight with a smile. “Let’s begin, then.”
After a moment, inside the house, the stallion flinches as the front door opens. His eyes follow warily Fluttershy, who trots in and sits on her stomach opposite to him. He glances at the front door that shuts quietly. What’s this, now? Why did they leave me with her? Questions burn his tongue, but the sharp memory on his cheek makes him keep them in check. She looks like she wants to get out of here even worse than I do… and what’s written on that paper that she keeps on staring? Unable to contain himself, the stallion clears his throat meaningfully.
Fluttershy’s eyes dart at him immediately. “Uhm, would you like some water?” she asks.
The stallion gives him a long look. “...No?”
“Oh, okay…” She considers something for a moment. “I… I have some questions for you, if you wouldn’t mind?”
“Will you call in the others if I decline to answer?”
She flinches at that. “Well, they wouldn’t be too happy about that. And I would have to tell them of course.” Her hooves scrape aimlessly at the paper before her. “I'd very much appreciate it if we could talk a bit, though.”
The stallion licks his dry lips. “It’s about the Project again, isn’t it? I told you already: I was hardly a part of it, merely a research assistant.” A frantic tinge slips into his voice. “You know that, right? You knew my name, you have to know what my position was?”
She pulls her head slightly back as if in disgust. “Yes, we know that. It read in the papers that we found.” A shudder travels through her. “Why did you do that to all those ponies? Why?”
It’s coming to this again. Dear River, Earth, and Mountain, does my torment ever end? “Please,” he says, his voice breaking. “It was only one mistake, just one, a freak anomaly… We didn’t know, couldn’t know… Please, can’t we all forget it already?”
“The cages, the chains… Why?” A tear glimmers on her cheek. “What for?”
“I don’t know what you are talking about!” he cries, hitting the floor with a hoof. Fluttershy almost jumps on all fours. “What cages!? What chains!?” he continues with wide eyes, drool gleaming on the corner of his mouth. “There were none such! They were all volunteers, each one of them knew what they were in for!”
“We saw them all,” says the pegasus quickly, her heart in her throat. “We saw them ourselves. You don’t have to deny it, we know all about it. We just want to–”
“There weren’t any cages!” shouts the stallion, standing up abruptly. “I swear it on my life! I have no idea what you are talking about!” He backs away to the wall behind, almost falling through the hole that he made yesterday. “Why can't you believe me…?”
“W-why don’t you sit down and take a deep breath?” suggest Fluttershy with a quivering smile on her lips.
“Why?! So you can ask me the same questions you have a hundred times already?! If I knew anything about this 'Bitch Queen' or whatever I would’ve told everything about her long ago!” He starts walking back and forth, his eyes bouncing in their sockets. “I came here to forget everything, to renounce Celestia and magic altogether, to live a life devoid of those vanities, of those abnormalities… Why won’t they leave me alone, too?”
“I-is that that why you made Her attack Canterlot? B-because you hate Princess Celestia?”
“No no no no no,” repeats the stallion, shouting the last two noes with a hoarse voice. “I haven’t attacked anywhere! Does this look like a lair of evil of some sort to you?!” He picks up a worn oil lamp from a table, flailing it at the terrified pegasus. “Does this look like a lamp of doom?! Why do you insist that I am behind any of the crimes you talk about?!”
“Because you were in the project that created Her !” screams Fluttershy with a shrill voice, bouncing up. “You admitted it yourself! You were there, you knew, you planned, you created Her !”
This is not working. They will never believe me. Whatever they have found has convinced them that I am the the greatest evil walking on this earth. As if in a dream, the stallion’s horn begins to glow with a light blue light. “I am sorry, young one,” he says with a faraway voice. “It’s nothing personal.”
Fluttershy’s eyes shine with confusion, terror, and with something that is too cold to be called hate but too attractive to be named disdain. With a hollow expression she watches as a blue halo envelopes her torso, legs, and neck, even her mane, and with a sudden motion, jerks her off her feet. Her scream is cut short as her mouth is trapped shut by the magic of the unicorn. Nonetheless, during its short existence, it manages to alarm the three other mares waiting outside. They burst in through the door, Twilight’s and Rarity’s horns glowing bright. A shared gasp flees them as they see what has happened.
“Stand back!” he shouts, shielding himself with the thrashing Fluttershy. “Stand back, or I'll break her neck!” His eyes bounce from Rainbow Dash to Rarity, but mostly they follow Twilight. She can’t do anything as long as I hold her friend, she can’t, she won’t dare.
“Fluttershy!” shrieks Rarity in panic, taking a step closer to the stallion.
“Not an inch!” he screams. Fluttershy’s neck twists quickly to the left, and pain masks her face. Rarity’s raised foreleg freezes in the middle of the motion.
“You…” says Dash, rage boiling in the air around her. “Let. Her. Go. Now.” The pegasus’s wings beat the air with slow, powerful strokes, sending dust dancing beneath her.
“No,” answers the stallion, a bit calmer now. “I will leave and let her go when I judge it safe. If I sense even a shadow of a wing following me, I repeat, a mere shadow, she will die.” He takes a wavering a step back. Before him, Fluttershy’s eyes remain tightly shut. “I didn’t want this, but you pushed me, you pushed me too far. I’m not going to die here, not by your hoof.” He almost stumbles during the next step, making the three mares flinch simultaneously.
“Draught Tear…” says Twilight with a voice drowning in tranquility. “Calm down. Just… calm down.”
His eyes dart to her. “Too late for that, freak. Now, you have four seconds to–”
“Draught Tear,” snaps the alicorn. “Pay attention. Let her go.”
If I obey her, I die. If I obey her, I die. “No,” he says like in a trance. “No. No.”
A shadow travels past Twilight's eyes. “Fluttershy. Keep your eyes closed.”
“What are you doing?” he asks, drawing Fluttershy closer. “I’m not bluffing. I’m not bluffing. By my life, I’m not bluffing!” The blue aura grows almost black around the pegasus. “You can’t do anything! I have her life literally on the edge of my horn! You can’t–”
A sliver of light bursts through his chest from behind, burning a hole the size of an apple right to the spot where his heart should be. The stallion’s body falls to the floor, limp and lifeless. No spray of blood pools around him. Only a faint pillar of smoke trails from his terrible wound; a wound so clean it looks like it belongs there, on his chest. From the bedroom, Twilight emerges, and the illusion between Rarity and Rainbow Dash, both of whom stare at the stallion in silent terror, disappears.
“W-w-what’s happening?” asks Fluttershy from the floor where she dropped, her eyes wide shut.
“That… wasn’t the back-up plan…” whispers Rainbow Dash, still staring at the corpse. “You were supposed to… knock him out…”
“Must have slipped my mind,” says the alicorn as she makes special care not to touch the stallion as she steps over him. “Besides, he was too close to Fluttershy. I couldn’t risk her life.”
“Is he dead?” asks Rarity with a detached voice. She looks at Twilight, deep confusion staining her face. “Is he really dead?”
Twilight glances indifferently at the stallion. She can almost make out her own reflection in his wide, dead eyes. “That would be my educated guess.” She falls to her knees, vomiting.
And the world turns black in her eyes.
In the Supreme Commander’s tent, on a simple bed with a hay mattress, two ponies drown in each other’s bodies. Their intimacy remains impregnable, protected from outside world by the thick canvas that enrobes them like a soap bubble. Armor basks in the warmth of her touch, breathing in her fragrance. With his eyes closed, he can almost ignore the faint noises carrying from outside. His bliss shatters as a rough voice near the entrance addresses him by his title.
At least they didn’t rush in , he thinks while glaring at the voice’s direction. “Yes?”
“The strike force has been assembled, Supreme Commander,” says the voice beyond the fabric. “They are awaiting for your inspection.”
Of course they are. “I’ll be there in a minute.” Half-risen from the bed, he glances at his wife next to him. Her eyes remain closed. “I'd apologize, but you'd tell me not to worry about it,” he says quietly.
A smile touches a corner of her mouth. “I’ve taught you well.” She huddles closer to him. “Can you come back afterwards?” she purrs, panting the lightest kiss on his stomach.
“I would if I could,” he says, kissing her exposed ear. “But the inspection is followed by the Council’s meeting where we refine the final plans. That will probably take us well into the evening.”
“Plans for what?” she asks, opening an eye.
Shining Armor bites his lip. “I didn’t mention the attack yet, did I?”
Her other eye opens also. “The attack?”
He glances at the tent's entrance. “I'd love to explain everything about that to you properly, but I really need to be on my way soon.”
She sits up, still smiling, although not as satisfyingly as a minute ago. “I can settle for the short version for now.”
“Mind if I dress at the same time?”
She shakes her head faintly.
“To put it curtly,” he begins while getting off the bed. “We're going to storm the city at first light of the dawn.” He glances behind as he walks to the rack. “But don’t worry, there is a catch.” He expects her to say something, but when her lips remain sealed, he continues: “We are sending a strike force under the Castle, using the same tunnels that Chrysalis did to imprison you. Some of the soldiers will cause a diversion while the rest head to the city’s main gate, bust it open, and let the rest of us inside.” Wrapped in a blue aura, the plates of armor begin to cover him.
“The rest of us?” she asks casually. “Will you be joining them?”
He pulls the strap of his breastplate to tighten it up. “A figure of speech. As the Commander of the whole attack, I can't take part in it directly.” He can’t hear her sigh, but rather he feels it in his heart.
“I don’t wish to criticize, but aren't you hurrying this too much?” she says. “Isn't this something you should be planning for weeks?”
Gleaming plates attach themselves to his legs. “We don’t have weeks. According to our estimation, the city’s food supplies ran out days ago. Besides, we haven’t just been idling around all this time.” Lastly, his helmet comes down. “We have come up with strategies that can be applied to our present needs.” He turns around, his armor glowing even in the sparse light that carries through the canvas. “How do I look?”
There is only one thing in the world she can answer to that. “Like a Shining Armor.”
The chainmail that protects his joints clatters as he trots to her. They share one last kiss. “You could come with me, you know?” he says hopefully as their lips separate.
She smiles sadly at that. “No, I could not. The Supreme Commander doesn’t inspect his troops with his wife next to him, nor focus on strategy while stealing glances at her.” She smooths his metallic cheek with a hoof. “I had you for an hour, and that was more than I could ask for. Now it’s Equestria’s turn.”
His eyes remain fixed in her's. One word from you and I'd turn my back to all of it. A word for a world and not a thought would stand in my way to you. Is that love? Or just madness? His casual grin hides his thoughts like a shield. “For the two mistresses that own me, it’s always you who sends me for the other one.” He turns and walks away. “Don’t be afraid to ask for more wine,” he says by the entrance. “The first bottle seems to have faced an accident.” The tent door flaps, and he is gone, swallowed by the bright daylight that momentarily floods in.
Cadance, sitting by the bedside, looks at the carpet that the wine has ruined. She looks at the picture of the white, rearing horse, studies how the red stains its head, neck, and mane. Without exactly knowing why, she suddenly can’t stand the sight of the thing a second longer. A light-pink aura captures the carpet and rolls it together. To her annoyance she finds that the wine has seeped through and pooled on the tent floor under. I’m being stupid… It’s just some spilled wine. Nopony ever died of spilled wine. She covers the wine stain with the rolled carpet and falls back on the bed.
Outside, Shining Armor walks between four unicorn guards, heading towards the centre of the camp. Salutes and greetings blossom along his way but his eyes don’t stray, nor does his stern face show any signs of acknowledging the soldiers around him. The higher the rank, the more distant the commander must be. The chain of command must remain straight, strained, tense. Otherwise it only gets tangled. Only when one of the lieutenants salutes him does Armor nod shortly at the pegasus, immediately forgetting him afterwards.
As they come to the large, square shaped clearing in the middle of the camp, Shining Armor notices that Cloud Shield is there already. The Captain is talking quietly with two other Canterlotian pegasi. All are dressed in their chainmails which, while offering less protection than a full plate mail, allows for more maneuverability while airborne. As Shining Armor gets closer, one of the pegasi nods at his direction. Cloud Shield glances behind him, shares one last word with the other pegasi and turns fully towards Armor.
“Commander Armor,” he says, saluting with his right front leg. “The strike force is ready for your inspection.” Behind him, the two pegasi step back into the line of a couple dozen ponies.
“At ease, Captain,” says Armor, stopping well away from him. The unicorns in front of him stand aside as he walks next to the Captain. “So they chose you to lead the strike force?” he continues. “Somehow, that doesn’t surprise me in the slightest.” He gives him an encouraging smile.
Cloud Shield’s expression remains blank. “With your permission, I would indeed wish to lead the attack inside the Castle.”
Shining Armor studies the pegasus in front of him, his smile gradually fading. Memories of the past life spring to his mind without an invitation. You always were a reliable Second Lieutenant, perhaps even worthy of being the first one someday… But to think of you as the Captain? It took nothing less than turning the world upside down to achieve that. “I wouldn't have it any other way,” says Armor. The absolute lack of reaction from Cloud Shield’s part confounds him for a second, but soon he continues: “I can see that you have chosen the strike force wisely.” He turns his eyes past the pegasus at the two ranks behind him. “Crystal ponies, for all their brilliance, make poor members for a mission where stealth is the key to the success.”
“That is what we thought first, too,” says Cloud Shield, turning around to face the strike force, all of whom share the common Equestrian coat.
Armor sweeps the ponies before him with keen eyes, noticing how they all carry the marked armor of the Royal Guard. “I count twentythree, plus yourself. Don’t you think thirty would be more appropriate?”
“This is all what’s left of the Royal Guard, Commander Armor.”
All that’s left… The thought suspends Shining Armor’s train of thought for a moment. “It can’t be helped, then.” He gives one more look at the gathered ponies, checking if he really can’t recognize any of them. They must be all rather new to the Guard. That makes sense, considering that the rookies sleep in the barracks outside the Inner Keep. They were the only ones who could get out in time. “I’ll speak to them now,” he says to the pegasus next to him.
Cloud Shield nods and shouts: “Platoon! Attention!”
A heavy, metallic noise cuts the air as two rows of soldiers stand in attention, stomping the ground once with their right front legs. Chins raise up, necks strain, and twentythree bodies lose even the ghost of slacking, turning into statues of martial glory and pride.
At least they would win any parading competition they went into. The Supreme Commander draws a deep breath and speaks with a loud, authoritative voice:
“Soldiers! Dark times have once again befallen our brilliant city and country. As before, the enemy came to us like a thief in the black of night, filled with treachery. As such, they were able to steal the day from us.” He searches their faces for signs of emotions. He might as well look for them from bare stone. “That will change tonight. With you as our key, we will liberate Canterlot from the shackles that have bound her. We will sever the chains that have imprisoned our brethren inside their own bodies, that have turned them into the slaves of our enemy. You will have heard this a hundred times already, but I will say it once more: they are not our real enemy. They are not to be harmed except in the direst of circumstances.” A head seems to shake among the soldiers, but the movement is too quick for Armor to say if it was only his imagination. “You will shortly be briefed about the mission’s details by Captain Cloud Shield. From my part, you will only hear this simple truth.” He pauses for four heartbeats. “Canterlot trusts in you. Equestria trusts in you. I trust in you.”
“Stand ease!” shouts Cloud Shield when he sees Armor’s nod. “Your words give us strength, Commander Armor,” he says to him, expression serious as a grave.
I’d rather give you ten more horns , he thinks while turning away from him. I can only hope that the hate you harbour will catch to these green lads. Even if that is not the type of strength Cadance would have me bless you with. The four unicorn guards settle around him once more as he leaves the square and heads to the War Council’s tent. The same salutes accompany him on his way as they always do. He treats them with the same distanced authority as before. When he trots by a group of earth ponies playing with dice, they nearly tip over the table in their haste to acknowledge his presence. Once I would have laughed at that and asked to join in the game , thinks Armor as he glances at the soldiers. Soon enough, the Council’s tent, even larger than his own, peeks over the sea of colored fabric.
“Attention!” shouts a guard inside the tent as Shining Armor steps in alone. The three other Commanders and the two guards stomp their hooves on the ground, eyes nailed in front of them.
“Carry on,” says Armor. He walks to his place at the end of the table. “I’m glad to see that everypony made it in time regardless of their other duties. We shall begin immediately.”
“Won’t Cloud Shield be joining us?” asks Bright Wing.
“He was named as the leader of the strike force,” explains Shining Armor, already blinking his eyes as he tries to look more than ten seconds directly at the glimmering pegasus. “His main task is to plan the strategy for the operation inside the Castle.” Despite the slight watering of his eyes, he can see the pegasus flinch. “I will be of course going through the plan afterwards with him,” adds Armor quickly.
Proud Freight, standing between Armor and the Bright Wing, clears his throat. “I am confident in Cloud Shield’s ability to lead the strike force. I wouldn’t have picked him were I not.” His eyes move expectantly to Bright Wing. “Or would you disagree with the choice?”
With all three Commanders looking at him, Bright Wings's coat flickers momentarily. “Well, now that you ask… I feel obliged to express my surprise about your choice.” His eyes move to Armor. “I hate to question the issue at this point, but can we truly trust Cloud Shield in this?”
Armor ponders his words for a moment, looking the pegasus in the eyes regardless of the stinging that it’s causing in him. “I know what you mean and to an extent I share your doubt… but I still support Proud Freight in this.”
Bright Wing’s coat shimmers again. “If I recall correctly, it was your idea to send him after Princess Twilight in the first place. To get him out of here for a while?”
“I admit that to be one of the reasons for that," says Armor. “But as we have all seen, his absence served its purpose. Cloud Shield enjoys my complete trust once more.” He blinks as he says that.
“He is also the only available officer who knows the Castle well enough,” says Proud Freight. “It is not just a question of whether he is the most suitable candidate. He may very well be our only choice.”
“By Sombra’s beard,” says the stout unicorn who had so far remained silent. “Is that why you picked him?”
“You heard Commander Armor well enough, did you not?” answers Proud Freight. “If he believes that Cloud Shield can be relied on, so will I.”
“But the incident–” continues the stout unicorn.
“Is past now,” interrupts Armor, raising his voice over the other unicorn’s. He eyes him and Bright Wing for a moment. “That issue has been settled for good, and it’s in all of our interests to keep it that way. Cloud Shield will lead the attack in the Castle.”
“It is as you say, Supreme Commander,” says the stout unicorn with a level voice.
Bright Wing stays silent for a heartbeat longer than Armor would like, glancing at Proud Freight. The bearded unicorn seems to be studying the map of Canterlot with great interest. “I concur, Commander Armor,” says the pegasus finally.
“Good. Now, let’s focus on the real questions at hoof.”
They start discussing the strategy and nothing more. Like Shining Armor predicted, the task takes them beyond the afternoon and on the precipice evening. When the lighting in the tent has grown dim enough that only the coats of the crystal ponies keep it up, they finally end their meeting.
“Now it’s only a matter of informing the officers about the final plans,” says Shining Armor. “And come the dawn, we will attack.” He looks at the other commanders. In the dim, their coats are rather more bearable to look at. “I declare the meeting dismissed. We all know what to do. All that is left is to do it.”
“Tomorrow Canterlot will be ours again,” says the stout unicorn.
“And our fellow ponies will regain their freedom,” continues Bright Wing.
“Tomorrow, I will see my son and daughter-in-law,” finishes Proud Freight, smiling faintly.
They leave the tent without another word. But just as Proud Freight is stepping out, Shining Armor, still on his place at the end of the table, says: “A moment longer, Freight? There is a question I need to ask about the first battalion.”
The crystal unicorn stops and returns to the table. “Yes? What would you wish to know?”
Shining Armor waits that Bright Wing and the stout unicorn trot out before speaking. “Nothing. I just wished to express my gratitude for taking my advice on the strike force leader’s election.”
Proud Freight gives him a blank look. “Do you think that I did you some sort of a favour in that regard? I was only following my judgement, which was to trust my Supreme Commander’s own.”
“Right, of course,” says Armor quickly. “I knew I could count on you. Well, that is all.”
Proud Freight stays on his place, looking oddly at him. “It was by your best judgement that you instructed me to choose Cloud Shield, was it not?”
Armor blinks. “Of course I did. Why would you ask that?”
The sliver of doubt that wasn’t supposed to be there in the first place disappears from the crystal pony’s face. “Slip of the tongue. It has been a long day.”
“It has indeed,” agrees Armor. “And it’s only going to get longer.” Neither glances at each other as they walk out of the tent and into the twilight. From the horizon, the retreating sun and the raising moon paint the world in golden red, deep purple, and in all the other colors that the ponykind has not even found a name yet. Despite the undeniable beauty of the sight, the faces of the unicorns remain grave as they look upon it.
“They say that the fact that the Sun and the Moon keep on their courses regardless of the recent events proves that the Sisters never had power over them to begin with,” says Proud Freight with a faraway voice. His coat reflects the celestial play to the utmost detail, especially in what comes to its sinister shades.
Shining Armor glances first at Proud Freight, then at the unicorn guards around them, all of whom shine like the bearded pony does. How could he say that out loud when there are other ponies around? “Who says that?” he asks audibly.
The older unicorn turns to Armor. The few inches that he has on him allow the shining eyes to just slightly look down upon the Supreme Commander. “Nopony. Everypony. It does not matter who says it if everypony is thinking about it.”
“It is still heresy,” says Armor, lowering down his voice before the pools of brightness. “In any case, I refuse to believe it.”
A hint of curiosity, mixed with amusement, crosses Proud Freight’s eyes. “What do you believe in, then?”
Is he talking to me like a father, now? “I believe it to be a sign that the Sisters are still alive. The enemy might have imprisoned them and is forcing them to use their powers.”
Proud Freight looks at him a moment longer and then smiles his faint smile, the smile that a ghost might wear. “That is a good thing to believe in.” Like blown off by a breeze, the smile evaporates in a blink of an eye. “I beg for your leave now, for the sake of both of us. As you said, there is still work to do.”
Armor nods at him and watches him trot on his way with two guards. I could ask what you believe in, but I think I have a pretty good idea of that already. With his own guards falling in formation around him, Shining Armorheads to the western end of the camp where the pegasi companies are located. The pathways are mostly clear by now, so apart from a few guards' salutes, his path is more quiet than usual. Still, despite the order to hit the hay earlier, he can hear faint voices carrying from several of the tents. They almost disappear when he and his retinue walk by. They are nervous and who can blame them? Better let them share some of that nervousness than to insist on hiding it.
When he finally gets to Cloud Shield’s tent, he is surprised to find it dark. A peek inside verifies his notion that the tent is indeed empty. Looking around, he spots a pair of pegasi guards trotting nearby. “Ask them if they know where Captain Cloud Shield is,” he says to his closest guard.
The unicorn obeys and returns shortly with the following message: “Captain Cloud Shield is in the pegasus training yard.”
Is he practicing at this hour? thinks Shining Armour as he heads towards the training yard that lies on the outskirts of the camp. When they reach the site, this turns out to be exactly the case. The five unicorns stop to watch at the figure that zigzags with formidable speed among various obstacles, dealing blows at dummies that block his path. The practice dolls, filled with sand, break apart as the pegasus brings his full weight upon them. One of the things practically explodes as he kicks it twice with his front legs.
“Captain!” shouts Armor at the pegasus who seems to be too focused on the training to notice anything else. That includes the voice of the Supreme Commander. Armor tries again, and again for the third time. “Get him here,” he says finally to one of his guards.
The unicorn gallops to the obstacle course and almost becomes one of Cloud Shield’s targets there. This doesn't bode well , thinks Armor when the Captain finally flies to him, the smell of sweat heavy on him.
“Supreme Commander,” he pants, raising his hoof to a salute. “I didn’t hear you.”
“It makes no matter,” says Armor calmly. “We need to–” Suddenly, he realizes what the pegasus is wearing in his hooves. A feeling cold as frost lances through him. “You were practicing with blades ?” he asks.
The pegasus lowers his front leg, studying seemingly indifferently the sharp metallic edge that has been strapped to his hoof. It gleams in the mixed light of the celestial bodies. “I did,” he says bluntly, looking at his own reflection in the weapon. “It has been a while since I used these. Thought to give them a go before the big day.”
Armor looks at him in astonishment. “You don’t mean to wear them tomorrow, do you?”
The pegasus gives him a deeply confused look. “Of course I will. We all will. That’s what they’re for.”
Armor’s mind blanks out for a moment from the sheer genuine honesty that the pegasus’s voice and face convey. “Leave us,” he finally manages, directing his words at the guards. They obey immediately, trotting to what Shining Armor hopes to be out of earshot. He takes a step closer to the Captain. “Are you insane?” he whispers to him, his voice thick with anger.
The pegasus flinches, his perplexion still evident. “I’m not sure if I follow, Commander Armor.”
“The blades ,” hisses Armor. “They're meant for killing.”
The confusion hardens into an iron frost. “I know.”
Armor almost kicks him for that. Instead, he shouts in rage: “What’s the matter with you!? We made it perfectly clear that the Changed ponies are not to be harmed!”
The bladed hoof lands to the ground with a metallic thud. “You also said that we were allowed to defend ourselves from them. We pegasi cannot do that without weapons.” The blank expression he wore earlier has returned in its full unreadability. "And the unicorns could use them in a pinch, too."
“I meant self-defence by non-lethal means,” continues Armor slowly, emphasizing the negative prefix. Then his eyes go wide. “Wait: are you saying that the whole strike force will wear these?”
Cloud Shield nods. “I didn’t see it fit to deny them something I take for granted.”
“They want to wear them?”
Cloud Shield shrugs. “None of them objected.”
Shining Armor is not somepony whom those who know him would call impulsive. Seeing him now, on this very moment, they might change their opinion quite radically. “How can you be so thick?!” he cries at the other stallion’s face. “Didn’t you learn anything from the first incident!”
Cloud Shield doesn’t even blink.
“How many of your brothers and fellow ponies you want to maim?!” continues Armor. “Wasn't one enough?! You have no idea what I had to go through to keep you out of court-martial for that, you have no idea!”
“I expressed my gratitude for that at the time, Commander Armor,” he says quietly.
“It isn’t your bucking gratitude I want but your obedience! And your wits, if you still have any!”
A shadow travels past Cloud Shield’s eyes. “My wits?”
“Yes, your bloody wits!”
“Is my Commander worried about my sanity?” asks Cloud Shield, his voice suddenly oddly sinister.
The observation escapes Armor who is preoccupied with his boiling rage. “Oh, you noticed?! How convenient! Perhaps you'd–”
He quiets down when the gleaming blade stops a breath of a hair from his throat. The sudden movement of Cloud Shield brought their faces only centimeters from one another.
“My sanity, Commander?” he repeats almost inaudibly. “After what they did, you question my sanity?”
“Soldier. Put down the blade.” Armor’s voice is thinner than the distance from his coat to the steel.
Cloud Shield sounds as if he was suffocating on something. “Members of the Royal Guard… attacking Princess Celestia herself ?” His hoof shakes a bit, bringing the blade yet closer to the snow-white coat. “I saw the Captain himself… take the tiara of her head …”
Armor's eyes remain locked into his. “Cloud Shield,” he says. “I know. You told me all that already. He wasn't in his right mind, none of them were.”
“He deserved to die,” continues the pegasus, oblivious to Armor’s words. ”I’m not ashamed to say it. I’m not sorry that I did it. What they did was treason. No… It was more… It was beyond treason.” The blade shakes again. This time, it cuts a few hairs off Armor’s coat.
“You… You killed the Captain of the Royal Guard?” Did I ask that aloud?
“He was no Captain!” cries the pegasus. “He was not even a pony anymore.” He blinks for the first time in what seems like an eternity. “Although… when I pierced his throat with my spear… his eyes… they turned green again.” Something that resembles a short laugh climbs up his throat. He blinks again, but when his eyelids open they're not looking at Armor anymore, but at his raised hoof. “What the buck?”
And then a storm breaks loose.
“Get him!” cries a shout from beyond Shining Armor’s vision. He sees how the confusion ignites into blind rage in the pegasus’s eyes, but before he can do nothing else, the green glow that had creeped along his raised hoof speeds to enrobe his whole front leg, from there his shoulder.
He tries to pull away from the glow, but suddenly his limb twists into an unnatural angle behind his back. “Ngh!” he grunts and falls to the ground. Immediately he tries to rise again, but the green aura only tightens its grip. “Let go of me!” he cries, thrashing violently. He glances up at Armor, face twisted by madness. “Make them to let go of me!”
Shining Armor only stares at the pegasus in disbelief. “You had your blade on my throat…” He touches the spot where the cold steel almost kissed him. At the same moment, a rough voice addresses him from behind.
“Supreme Commander! Are you alright?”
He turns around and sees one of his guards looking at him anxiously. More are galloping over, some to him, but most head to the still thrashing pegasus. All of their horns are glowing ready.
“We heard the shouting and saw what happened,” continues the guard. “It took us awhile to get close enough to seize him safely.”
“Good work,” hears Armor himself saying, lowering his hoof. “Good… work…”
“Let go of me! I am the Captain of the Royal Guard!”
“What would you have us do with him?” asks the guard, looking at Cloud Shield in disdain.
As if in a dream, Armor looks again at the mindlessly flailing pony at his legs. I would have trusted the fate of Canterlot in your hooves. I almost trusted thousands of lives in your care, in your hate…
“Commander Armor?” asks the guard, looking at him again.
“Lock him up in the cells meant for the Changed ponies,” he says with a detached voice. “But don’t put him in with the rest of them.”
“Yes, Commander Armor.”
Armor watches the guards take the pegasus away. His resistance is fervent enough so that Armor sends all four to make sure that the Captain reaches his new accommodations safely. “And somepony, just shut his mouth. He’ll wake up the whole damn camp like that.” I really thought I could trust you, Armor thinks as the green glow muffles Cloud Shield. Why could I not see what had become of you? Why? Why…?
As the guards take the pegasus away, Armor notices the hoof blades that somepony took off from Cloud Shield at some point. He picks them up, studying them in the faint light. He had even sharpened them. I must cancel his order to the strike force at once, cancel it and… and… The weapons drop to the ground. There is no leader for the strike force. Cloud Shield is the only officer we have who has actually been inside the Castle. And the team is green as summer grass: they need an experienced pony to lead them.
The sun has almost already gone, and the moon is well on its way to greet the night. The practice yard rings with silence. From here, he can see the silhouette of Canterlot rising against the mountainside. From this distance and in the sparse light, it almost looks like the city is untouched. If I delay the attack, more ponies will starve, and the device comes yet closer to become finished. There is only one thing I can do, then… as the Supreme Commander. The real problem is… can I do it as Shining Armor?
A word for a world…
***
The sound of breaking wood fills the air again and again as the walls of the small shed are brought down, plank by plank. Amidst the saw dust, dirt, and splinters, Rainbow Dash gives another kick of her wiry hind legs to the dry wood. After two hours of work in the sunlight, she is both panting and sweating heavily, yet the blows she deals are as fiery as when she began, if not even more so. Most of the shed, along with the logs that it contained, are spread on the yard in a mismatched order. Only one corner is still standing. She stares at it with glee, her breathing heavy and rapid. She is about to crash into it when a familiar voice from behind asks: “Is that truly necessary anymore?”
Dash gives Rarity a sardonic look. “You think it ever was?” She nails her gaze at the corner and with a short aerial charge, brings it crashing down.
“What do you mean?” asks Rarity, walking closer to Rainbow Dash.
“It’s a bucking shed!” shouts the pegasus, kicking a plank in two. “Full of logs, spiders, and dust! What an awesome waste of my time!” She turns an annoyed look at Rarity. “Please tell me you at least spend your time usefully.”
“Not exactly, no,” says Rarity, shaking her head. “Twilight is still at it, but I had to get a break… Reading that diary is starting to take its toll on me.”
“Why? What’s in it? Something evil?”
“Nothing of the sort, actually,” says Rarity, looking at the ruin of the woodshed. “It is all the same from day to day: observations on animals, various thoughts… some poems… Just about the stuff that you would expect to find from a diary of a hermit.”
“But there’s gotta be something else, right?” insists Dash. “The guy couldn’t have just planned the attack all in his head! He must’ve hid the evidence somewhere.”
“I suppose so,” says Rarity quietly, eyes looking nowhere.
Dash tilts her head. “And whaddya mean, ‘taking its toll on you’? Are the poems that bad?” An ironic smile spreads on her thin lips.
Rarity frowns at her. “They are quite beautiful, in fact: intricate and ponderous. And it’s that what keeps on bothering me.”
“What?”
“Would a profoundly evil pony been capable of writing poems such as that? Or been interested in the mating habits of the local doves?”
Dash snorts. “The diary is obviously a fake. It’s meant to cover his real identity in case somepony tracked him down.”
The anxiousness in Rarity’s face only deepens. “You truly believe that he would have written an entire diary just for that? The thing covers over a decade of his live.”
“Or so it's meant to.” Dash rises on her wings and circles Rarity in the air. “What are you on about, Rar?”
Her gaze follows Dash floating above her. “I think you know quite well what that would be, Dash.”
Dash narrows her eyes. “Now why would you be thinking something stupid like that?”
“Because if he really wasn’t whom we thought him to be–”
“He was,” says Dash sharply. “And were I you, I wouldn’t be hinting anything different.”
Rarity arches an eyebrow. “Or what? What do you mean by that?”
Dash lands abruptly right in front of Rarity. “I mean,” she begins quietly. “That what you’re saying, even if there was some truth to it – which there isn’t – is not something you want Twilight to be thinking about right now.” She nods meaningfully at the cabin’s direction.
Rarity studies her friend carefully. “I know that. Believe me, I know. I could not even think about…” A shudder travels along her neck. “I just needed to talk to somepony about that,” she finishes, eyes cast down.
Dash’s expression softens slightly. “Well you talked about it. Might as well forget it now.”
Rarity is about to answer when she hears a sound of flapping wings approaching them. She looks at the river’s direction and sees Fluttershy coming fast towards them. Her flight is broken and unsteady. Soon she lands next to them, panting. “I… I found… something,” she manages while catching her breath.
“What?” say Rarity and Dash in unison.
“Something… important,” she continues, swaying slightly.
“Where?” the two ask together.
“Up the mountain... trail,” says Fluttershy and collapses. Dash barely manages to catch her before she hits the ground. “There is a cave,” says Fluttershy, sweat trickling down her brow. “I came as fast as I could… I may have overdone myself…”
“She is feverish,” says Rarity worriedly as she tries her friend’s brow. “Twilight warned that this could happen: it’s the side effect of the potion. We must take her inside.”
“No!” blurts Fluttershy, her eyes wide. “I must tell you! I must… let you know…” Her voice trails off along with her consciousness.
“We got you, Shy,” says Dash as Rarity gently helps Fluttershy onto her back. “Just relax now. We got you.” They hurry inside where Twilight is surrounded by various papers and an opened diary.
“What happened?” she asks surprised as she sees the unconscious Fluttershy.
“She wore herself out while flying up to the mountain,” says Rarity quickly. “She has fever, too.”
Dash sets Fluttershy carefully on an old couch. “What potion did you gave her back then?” she asks, looking anxiously at Twilight.
“One that saved her life,” she answers, hurrying to the couch. She tries Fluttershy’s brow, listens to her breathing, and opens carefully her eyelids while lighting her pupils with her horn. “This doesn’t make sense,” she mutters. She turns to face the other two ponies. “Tell me exactly what happened.”
“We were talking about… stuff with Rarity,” says Dash quickly.
“And then she came staggering down from the sky, all sweaty and out of breath,” continues Rarity.
“She said that she had found something up the mountain trail,” says Dash. “Something important.”
“And then she collapsed,” finishes Rarity, her eyes watering slightly. “Twilight, what happened to her?”
Twilight eyes the two ponies carefully for a moment and then turns back to Fluttershy. The pegasus's mouth is slightly cracked open, she breathes more steadily now, and without the heavy sweat that covers her, one could almost think that she is just sleeping calmly. “I grabbed the potion from the Castle’s hospital while we fled from there. It’s supposed to milden and heal magical injuries by slowing down the victim’s body functions by creating a sort of a coma so that the disintegrating magic in the body becomes dulled, too.” She bites her lip. “But this is wrong. The medicine shouldn’t be affecting her anymore, not this strongly at least.”
“‘A sort of a coma?!” cries Dash. “What, is Fluttershy gonna turn into a vegetable?!”
Rarity starts sobbing.
“That shouldn’t be possible!” shouts Twilight helplessly, staring at Fluttershy. “I gave her the minimum dose! There is no way this can be the potion’s fault!”
“It doesn’t matter whose fault it is,” says Dash, flying to Twilight. “How do we fix this?”
Twilight turns her eyes slowly to Dash. The corner of her mouth twitches faintly. “I… don’t know…”
Rarity cries helplessly. Dash opens her mouth to say something, but can only stumble into the chaotic thoughts that clog up her mind. Her wide magenta eyes keep on staring incredulously at Twilight. “W-what?”
“I said that I don’t know what to do!” Twilight cries, stomping the floor with her front leg. “This doesn't make any sense!”
“Hey guys…” carriers a faint voice from behind Twilight. “Why... are you yelling?”
All eyes dart to Fluttershy whose half-opened eyes blink feebly at them. “Fluttershy!” they say together, rushing to her. A storm of worried question ensues, and it's finally Rainbow Dash who has to push her two other friends away to give some breathing room for Fluttershy. After they have all somewhat calmed down, Fluttershy coughs and says: “I think I’m better already, thank you.” She gives them a wavering smile.
“You shouldn’t have strained yourself so much!” blurts Rarity.
“What did you find?” asks Twilight, moving closer to the couch.
“Whoah, Twi, cut her some slack!” says Dash and puts a hoof on her shoulder.
“No, Dashie,” says Fluttershy before Twilight can answer. “I did find something important… A cave.”
“Where,” asks Twilight slowly.
Fluttershy wipes her brow with a wing and swallows. “It’s very hard to find... I have to show it to you myself.” She tries to get up, but Dash presses her gently back into the couch.
“Not yet you’re not," she says. "What’s so important about that cave?”
Fluttershy closes her eyes before answering. “The squirrels said that it was there that he went once or twice a month. He just trotted inside and came out days later, maybe even a week. The bats even remembered that he favoured to go there on Tuesdays.” Her eyes open again. This time, a sense of fear flickers in their bright blue depths. “They also said that sometimes, they heard screams from there. Not often, but sometimes.”
Twilight, Dash, and Rarity share a look. “Did they ever saw what he was doing there?” asks Twilight.
Fluttershy shakes her head weakly. “The didn’t dare to look. Also, they said that the back of the cave had some kind of a magical seal that blocked their path to where the screams came from.”
“Okay, that does it,” says Dash. “We have to check that cave out asap.” She glances at Fluttershy again. “Can you tell some bird to take us there?”
“I can try… but all the animals were very reluctant to get close to the place. I had to ask them really nicely and I can’t say if they’ll go there without me.” She coughs a few times into her hoof. "If the cave wasn't their home, the bats would've been long gone, too."
“Well that’s just great,” snaps Dash, rising to the air. “What the hay is in there?”
“That we’ll find out,” says Twilight determinately. She looks at Fluttershy. “I don’t want to rush you… but you know what is at stake here.”
Fluttershy swallows. “I… I know.”
Twilight studies her for a moment. “It is possible that you have traces of the potion left in your circulatory system. Combined with the recent stress and physical strain, that could explain your sudden lack of strength. With enough water and rest, you should be on your feet by tomorrow.”
“Are you certain of that?” asks Rarity. “She does look awfully pale.”
“So do you,” says Twilight bluntly. A sudden silence descends into the room. “I’m sorry,” she continues, eyes cast down. “I didn’t mean anything by that… Honestly, I feel kind of weak myself.”
“I understand, Twilight,” says Rarity, putting a hoof on her shoulder. “We all have been burning the candle from both ends lately.”
“You three should all rest,” says Dash, still floating in the air. She looks at Fluttershy. “I’ll get you a drink from the stream. Heck, I’ll even go scrape some ice for you from the mountaintop.” She grins encouragingly at her. “You brought us the best news we’ve had for longer than I care to remember.”
Rarity is the first to take the cue. “Dash is right. You did a wonderful deed, Fluttershy.”
“Thank you,” says Fluttershy shyly, hiding her face into her mane. “It was nothing, really… Dashie would have spotted it eventually… or either one of you.”
Twilight takes a step forward and lifts her friend’s chin gently with a hoof. “But it was you who did find it. And for that, the whole Equestria will be in debt to you.”
Fluttershy looks her in the eyes. Amidst the deep purple, she catches a sense of familiarity that she thought to have lost forever. It is a peculiar thing and slightly unsettling, too.
It is almost as if she saw a glimmer of Princess Celestia in those twilight eyes.
At twelve o’clock, even against the summer and the luminous coats of the Crystal Kingdom ponies, the War Council’s tent is darker than Shining Armor has ever seen it be. The dark clouds that have creeped from the other side of the mountain during the past few hours hide the moonlight, leaving the tent’s lighting for candles and lamps. He rubs his temple with a hoof, eyes closed, giving time for his words to sink into the three other commanders. Seconds stretch into the limits of unbearability, yet nopony speaks. Somepony better open their mouth soon. We only have few more hours before the strike force must be on its way . He opens his eyes that fine bags line. “Thoughts?” he asks expectantly.
Proud Freight clears his throat. “We should cancel the attack. The risk it too great to bear.”
“I have to concur,” says the stout unicorn, avoiding Armor’s gaze. “When the stakes get too high, a wise player folds and recoups.”
Armor clenches his jaw and slowly turns his eyes on Bright Wing. The crystal pegasus looks straight back at him, his eyes gleaming in the dim. One could almost mistake him as a statue, the way how still he stands. “Somehow, I knew it would come to this,” he says finally. “It feels to me that this was meant to happen.”
Armor only stares at him over the table. “Your answer, Bright Wing?”
“I support the Supreme Commander’s decision,” says Bright Wing with a clear voice. The two other crystal ponies stare at him in utter astonishment.
“You would risk your Supreme Commander’s life?” whispers the stout unicorn, blinking.
“And what happens if the plan fails?” continues Proud Freight sharply. “And who is to lead the attack on the city gates?”
“You will, Freight,” says Armor, drawing all the eyes on himself again. “From this moment onwards, I name you as the Acting Supreme Commander.”
“I think we just made history of the Crystal Guard’s regulations…” says the stout unicorn, brushing his mane with a hoof. “This is unheard of.”
“So is our peril,” says Armor with a level voice. He gives a glance at his companions. “Do I have to call a vote on this?”
Proud Freight gives him an unreadable look. “I admire your courage, I truly do… but I have to beg you to reconsider. The title of the Supreme Commander cannot be thrown around like a frisbee. If the head keeps on switching, how can the body trust it?”
“Metaphors make ill advise in a situation as grave as this,” says Bright Wing dryly. He flinches as the older stallion turns his deep eyes upon him.
“And reckless ones even more so,” says the gleaming grey stallion coldly.
“Celestia knows we that don’t have time for this,” says Armor before Bright Wing can get his mouth open. “I ask again: do we have to vote on this?”
“I believe that to be unnecessary: we can all count,” comments the stout unicorn, eyeing the young pegasus carefully. “And what did you mean by your previous comment? ‘This was meant to happen’?”
The gleam lingers in Bright Wing’s eyes as he looks at Armor. “I believe this is a favourable sign. Shining Armor is the brother of Princess Twilight: he shares blood with an alicorn. I can sense that we are being guided to this decision.”
“Piety is so terribly more helpful than metaphors, is it not?” says Proud Freight.
They all erupt speaking at once. Armor has to beat the table to restore some sort of an order into the tent. “Quiet down! Quiet down! By Celestia, I am still your Supreme Commander!” When the three commanders settle to merely glaring at one another, Armor continues: “It’s decided, then. I will lead the strike force and Proud Freight will lead the main attack. I leave it to you to elect the commander for the first battalion.”
Proud Freight looks away from Bright Wing, closes his eyes, breathes deep, and says with a colorless voice: “Yes, Supreme Commander. I beg your leave to go find him.”
“Granted,” answers Armor bluntly. “The same goes for you two. Go inform your officers about this.”
“Yes, Commander Armor,” says the stout unicorn without looking at him. He leaves right after Proud Freight.
It’s after he is gone that Armor notices how Bright Wing is looking at him. “Yes?” Armor asks. “Is there something else?”
Bright Wing blinks. “It might be considered somewhat personal… but if you would prefer that, I can offer to pass the message to Princess Cadance from your behalf.”
“No,” blurts Armor immediately. He coughs and continues with a more formal voice: “I appreciate the gesture, but that task is my duty alone.”
Bright Wing nods to him. “You inspire us with your example, in more ways than one. I am deeply honoured to be able to serve under your command.” He bows and leaves without another word.
When the young seem foolish in their faith to you, you know that you’ve become old. Armor stares at the table as if the hard wood could somehow relief the weight that rests on his heart and shoulders. Then he raises his eyes to one of the guards that stand by the tent entrance. “Summon Princess Cadance.”
“Yes, Supreme Commander,” the guard says and leaves.
Armor sits down on the magnificent carpet that depicts an aerial clash of a pegasus and a griffon. Soon he bounces up and starts trotting back and forth the large tent. His eyes crisscross around, unable to focus on anything particular. About every five seconds he glances at the tent door, begging it to open while being mortally afraid of the prospect. He almost sends the other guard for the same errand, but then the first one enters in. “She is here, Supreme Commander.”
“Ask her in,” he says with a thin voice. “And leave us alone,” he adds to the other guard. The unicorns disappear. And then she is with him.
“What is it, Shine?” she asks, walking closer to him. Her body language is under the same controlled, elegant, and secure will that shines from her eyes; the eyes that he must shun.
“Problems turned up,” he begins. “Cloud Shield, he… He snapped.”
She stops a few steps from him, not a shadow of worry staining her face. “Snapped?”
“He threatened my life,” he says bluntly. “Although I doubt whether he realized that himself. There’s no better word for it: he snapped.” He pauses, looking at the picture of a rearing pegasus under his hooves. “He was supposed to lead the strike force inside the Castle. And the real problem is that we don't have anypony to replace him. Nopony else except…” In the end, he can’t bring himself to say it.
Her eyes don’t so much as blink. “Is that the final decision the Council came up with?”
“Not the Council,” he says. The eyes like burnished ice rise from the floor. “Me. It was my decision.”
She blinks and for a moment, the will flickers. “How did it come to this?” she whispers, disbelief scraping her face. “It can’t go like this… You are the Supreme Commander…”
“And that is the only reason I'm not sending somepony else there,” he says. “If it was Shining Armor who made this choice, there wouldn’t be any. But I can't choose the choice itself.” He steps closer to her and whispers to her ear: “Say the word, my love. Say the word and I will send somepony else. A word.”
His breath washes over her ear like a gale. “I've given you my word already,” she whispers. “Let me come with you.”
He steps back, circling the table. “I can't do that.”
“Yet you ask the exact same thing from me.”
The table lies between them. “Love knows no logic, no symmetry. Isn’t that what you said once?” He pauses and looks at her as if she was not really there. “I think I understand that now.”
“Then you also know that asymmetry works both ways,” she says with a hint of a spark. “What if I do give you my word. Would you really follow it?”
He nods slowly. “I'd burn Canterlot myself if you asked me to.”
Her eyes widen before pale fear. “Then you're not the stallion I married.”
“Prolegomena,” he says with a voice devoid of feeling, with a voice forged in the pulse of the heart. “Or the beginning of all metaphysics. Written by Immanuel Canter. Your favourite book. I am Shining Armor.”
Deafening silence follows.
“If I let you go… will you promise to return?” she asks.
“No.”
She flinches. He can see her lips quivering faintly. “Will you stop me if I try to follow you? Even if I tell you not to?”
“Yes.”
A short laugh, mixed with a wail, departs from her. “Then how can I let you leave?”
“Because if you don’t, Canterlot will die.”
She collapses on two knees. Armor surges around the table to her. “I wouldn't say that if I had the slightest pretense to believe otherwise,” he says. Supported by him, the Princess of Love stands up.
“I know,” she says, touching her temple. “For my life, I know…”
“Cadance… I am so sorry.”
She turns her eyes on him and smiles as if she saw him for the first time in her life. “Don’t be. It is as you said: you can't choose the choice itself.” She captures him into a strong embrace. “Just as I can't tell you to stay.”
Shining Armor holds her gently, balancing between the urge to squeeze her against his chest and the indescribable sorrow that would have him sink on his knees before her, begging forgiveness, vowing his love for her. But he does neither. He simply holds her as if the universe depended on it. And kisses her on the lips. The first touch is light, barely a brush, and yet it makes him tremble like a leaf in a gale. She closes her eyes and responds by drawing him into the gates of transencede. Her tongue is a whip, a lash of deep passion and unfathomable affection. The burnished ice disappears under a blanket of snow, but the darkness that follows is not one filled with frost, but with warmth rising from the forge of love itself. They fall on the carpet, and the griffon’s war cry drowns beneath her mane, a cloud escaped from dreamscape. His knees stomp on the pegasus’s hoof blades; their entangled bodies immerse in symmetry that challenges the frozen enmity under them. A synthesis emerges, an equation old as blood itself, the prolegomena of all metaphysics.
Outside, it starts raining.
***
It’s past midnight in Canterlot, and the heavy rain has by now drenched the city completely, showing not the slightest intent of stopping. The gutters that nopony has cleaned for weeks fill up immediately, flooding the lower parts of the city. Several poorer districts turn into miniature lakes in mere hours and the water level only keeps on rising, heading for the higher parts of the city. Those hiding in the cellars must either grow gills or flee outside into the night where patrols of the Changed ponies roam. Shadows grow unnaturally long in the moonless night, reaching for every watery nook and cranny. Their forms resemble snakes as they swim on the streets.
Perhaps this is the end , thinks Arch Freight as he studies the deluge outside through the planks of the window. Some say that at the very beginning, the world was nothing but water, one big ocean, and the first ponies were seaponies. If that’s true, then perhaps it’s only appropriate that the world ends as it began: submerged. And all the ponies meet their demise as they met their birth, flailing underwater, reaching for the surface, their last scream bubbling in their dimming vision. The stallion moves against the wall as he spots movement from down below. Whether it is his dark mind playing tricks on him or a living shadow built of smoke, he can’t say. A series of steps from behind makes him turn around.
Berryfer lingers by the door, swaying. “I can’t sleep,” he says quietly. “The water is noisy.”
The stallion forces a faint smile on his lips. “That it is.” He trots to his son and puts a hoof on his shoulder. “It won’t reach us here, though.”
A lightning strikes outside, illuminating the whole room with bright whiteness for a microsecond. The colt jumps and shudders again as the thunder follows a few seconds after. “That won’t get us either,” assures Arch Freight, holding tighter to the colt. “I promise.”
Berryfer clasps to his father, eyes wide shut. “And the smoke monsters?”
“If they come, I'll make them regret it.” The noise of heavy rain fills the room sovereignly for a moment. “You should go to bed now,” he says eventually. “Your mother wouldn’t want you to stay up over midnight.”
The colt’s eyes open, staring at the floor. “But he is with her… I can’t sleep with him .”
Arch Freight studies his son carefully, removing his hoof from his shoulder. “We talked about this already. Cough is our guest now and that’s final. In fact, since this is his home, we should be thankful that he allows us to stay here.”
The colt scrapes the floorboards with a hoof. “I shouldn’t have said anything when I found him.”
Arch Freight rises his chin determinately with a hoof. “Berryfer,” he says quietly. “That is not how I brought you up.”
“But that’s what I think!” he cries desperately. “Now mother only cares about h–”
For the first time in his life, Arch Freight slaps his son. The blow is sharp, strong enough to turn his head. Immediately the colt’s eyes dart to him, wracked by disbelief so immense that it subdues the tears just by itself. But the shock dies away inevitably, collapsing into the hole that now stands in place of his young heart. He sprints away.
Arch Freight’s own confusion lasts a few seconds longer. “Berryfer!” he shouts when the colt is already through the doorway. Ach Freight gallops after him and looks to the left in the corridor. He can barely see Berryfer disappear into the staircase. “Stop!” the stallion shouts. The colt doesn’t. Arch Freight glances quickly at the direction of the room with all the board games, but there’s nopony standing in the doorway. He curses and runs into the staircase. “Berryfer, stop!” he shouts again blindly as the wooden steps creak noisily under his hooves. Another lightning bolt repels the shadows for a moment, but only for a moment, and the corridor he enters in is black as coal. He searches for movement, but then hears hoofsteps in the stairs. Freezing terror lances through him. Is he heading outside? “Berryfer!” he shouts from the top of his lungs and speeds downwards. In the dark, he fails to notice the broken plank and trips. His jaw hits the steps hard. The blow sends his mind dancing for a moment so he hardly feels his ankle rupturing. But the consciousness can escape the pain only for so long.
“Berryfer!” he screams, his voice breaking before the agony that pulses from his front leg. “Don’t go outside! Don’t go outside!” He stumbles hurriedly to his feet and almost rolls the rest of the stairs down. The sprained ankle feels like it’s about to tear clean off, and when he tries to put weight on it, he collapses. As he raises his head, he sees Berryfer. The sparse light carrying from the window behind him can barely show him shaking on the top of the stairs leading down. “Stop,” Arch Freight begs, his face ravaged by pain. “I hurt my leg. Please, help me.”
The colt stares at his twisted ankle, his lip quivering. “I-I’m s-sorry…” he says.
“It's okay, Berryfer,” says the stallion with some relief. “Please, come here. Just… come here.” Leaning against the rail, he reaches for him with his good hoof. The colt takes a step towards him. They hear the front door opening.
Berryfer’s eyes dart down. Arch Freight sees how they widen in horror and hears more hoofsteps carrying from the floor below. He stands straight, limping his right front leg. “Berryfer,” he says, straining to keep his voice calm and quiet. The beating rain that floods in from the opened door drowns his voice in the first attempt. “Berryfer,” he says again, just a bit louder this time. The colt’s eyes turn to him, wide and wild. The stallion signs him to come closer. “Did they see you?” he asks as the colt sneaks to him. Berryfer nods barely noticeably. The first step of the staircase creaks below them.
Time slows down, crawling now. The throbbing pain in Arch Freight’s leg turns into a distant dream. The rainfall carrying from outside fades away. They’re coming upstairs. There is only one exit in the building, only one set of stairs. I can’t run, and Silk can’t fight. The second step creaks, marking the end of the equation that was born in Arch Freight’s subconscious the moment he knew that they were not alone. “Berryfer,” he begins, his voice tranquility come flesh. The colt’s eyes turn from the top of the staircase to him. “You must run,” whispers the stallion.
He doesn’t understand.
“You must run,” Arch Freight repeats. The fourth creak adds an imperative tone to his voice, yet it doesn’t disturb its unnatural calmness.
He doesn’t understand.
The delay in time expires; the noises return in their ominous tone; the pain sears him more than ever. “I will hold them off. Don’t go to your mother, you can’t help her, she can't help you. Only your feet can help you. Your feet and your calm mind.” He smiles. In the face of sublime trepidation, he smiles like he did the first time he saw his son. “Run to one of the apartments on the back, jump from a window and hide.”
The colt runs. But he doesn’t understand. He will someday… if the world has any justice left to it . Arch Freight watches his son run into the corridor to his right. Berryfer stops at a corner and looks at him one more time, his face in tears. Arch Freight’s smile cuts himself like a razor, but still he keeps it up. And then his son is gone. From some other reality, the sound of creaking steps comes to a halt. Arch Freight turns his head like in a dream and sees an earth pony stallion standing on the spot where Berryfer did just a moment ago. He looks at Arch Freight with cold, empty eyes. Behind him, more ponies climb up the stairs.
His smile dies twitching. “If you can hear me, know that the prospect of hurting you doesn’t intrigue me in the slightest.”
The earth pony walks towards him. The glazed stare remains merciless.
“But sometimes, we find it necessary to sidestep our innermost drives and rules.” His horn glows grey in the gloom. “I suppose that is what goes for love nowadays.” Lightning illuminates the earth pony and the one behind him. Arch Freight readies his spell… and gasps as an icy sensation seizes his damaged leg. He glances down and sees a membrane of black smoke rising from the floor, wrapping around his hoof. He cries in fright. The spell escapes from his mind. He tries to focus on a new one, but another ethereal tentacle enrobes his chest and squeezes. “Argh!” he blurts, the touch of the dark mist colder than any earthly blizzard. His breath escapes him, making him gasp and stare in absolute panic as the earth pony walks past him, not paying him any attention.
They are heading up. But how can they know? How can they – The tentacle squeezes some more. His heart stops. One last spell tries to push through his mind, but the cold is too numbing, too paralyzing. His eyes blink as their whites turn up and disappear behind his eyelids. His body falls limp in the insubstantial embrace, which gradually lets go of him. Arch Freight lays on the hard floor, the rain beating the walls outside as more ponies walk by him. In a moment, he stands up and follows them, his twisted ankle crunching sickeningly everytime he puts weight on it. The excruciating pain has fled him, sucked away by the void that now fills his eyes.
***
Deep inside the earth, among the mirror-like crystals that play tricks on their viewer at every turn, a couple of dozen ponies wait in silence. Only a few of them keep their horns alit and even they keep the shining at minimum. Shining Armor studies the pale faces in the eerie glow. Some of them he knows by name now, but most are complete strangers to him. Are they ready for what’s coming? Am I? He glances at the magical hourglass next to him, noticing every grain of sand that passes through the narrow hole between the containers. The faint rustling sounds unnaturally loud in the massive, quiet cavern. We’ll find that out soon enough. He draws a deep breath and says: “Okay, everypony listen up.” Twenty pairs of eyes turn instantly towards him.
“Our main objective is to open the city gates. All other goals are subjected to that end. That includes our lives.” He pauses and waits for his words to sink into his audience. “We are soldiers. This is war.” He stands up. “Let's go win it.”
They gallop into the darkness. As the three ponies that were guarding some distance away join them, their numbers grow to twentyfour bodies, twelve of whom have wings, the rest horns. Their steps echo in the massive space, and their reflections run along with them on the walls and on the ceiling, following them like ghosts. After a few minutes Armor slows down the group’s pace, bringing it to almost crawling when they are under a hundred meters from the entrance into the Castle. He stops, turns, and nods to the five unicorns directly behind him. Without speaking a word, the rest stay behind as the six ponies close in on the entrance.
From all the hidden doors, this one should be the most unnoticeable. Twenty meters from the door, which he can almost see by then, Armor signals the other five to stand still. He sneaks the last meters alone, his heart beating in his chest, every loose rock that he sets in motion turning into a rockslide in his ears. He comes to the door, licks his dry lips and touches its stony surface with his horn. The first surge of magic that he sends through is too weak to open it, yet it manages to shortly illuminate the geometrical veins that run in the smooth rock. He blows out and tries again, increasing the amount of magic just a tiny bit. The veins glow and the door disappears into the ground, rumbling quietly.
He peeks inside. The kitchens of the Castle are dim, cold, and seemingly empty. The ash of the large fireplace whirls and stains the floor as he walks carefully through, his horn glowing ready. Wide and empty stone tables spread before him, and various pans and kettles hanging from the low roof limit his vision. He waits for a minute and then whistles gently. Nothing moves in the shadows. He returns back to the cavern and sends one of the unicorns to get the rest while he himself returns to the kitchen with the other four. In there, he sends two of them to secure the southern end of the kitchen while walking with the other two to the northern side. As they get there, another door awaits for them.
Armor presses his ear on the wood. He holds his breath, but can’t hear anything from the other side. Still holding his breath, he cracks it open. The creak lances through all three of them like a spear. The door opens outwards, so he pushes it a bit more, and glances at the other side. Opened barrels litter the narrow corridor that stretches before him, only to disappear around a corner. He looks back to the kitchen and sees how about half of the group has found their way in. First step, done. The first one is always the hardest. He looks at the unicorn on his left. “Helm, stay right behind me.” He turns to the soldier on his right. “And Mail, you keep us in your sight, but from a corner’s distance.” They both nod tensely at him. “Let’s move.”
A corner by a corner, and a corridor by a corridor, they progress through the underground network of Canterlot Castle. Wherever they go, only dust and darkness greets them, but somehow Shining Armor can’t be grateful about the fact. This is going too easy. Would the enemy truly be so sure of themselves as not to post any guards in the lower levels? It makes no sense, considering the fortifications they have put up around the city. He can see his own anxiety in Gilded Helm’s eyes every time he glances at him. Nonetheless, they carry on until they finally arrive to the first stairs. Third step. It only gets easier then, right?
Armor turns to Gilded Helm. “We are approaching the servants’ quarters now. There’s bound to be somepony there: even the Changed ponies need sleep.” He glances up the stairs, peering at the dark door that stands on top of them. “Up there, things are going to get hot. Tell Mail to fetch Copper, Bolt, and Hammer here.” Armor doesn’t see him leaving, but keeps his eyes firmly on the door. As the others arrive, he turns behind the corner to face them. “Okay, this is the plan. The door may be locked and if it is, Hammer breaks the lock. Usually there are two exits in the sleeping chambers. Copper and Bolt, you fly and block them as soon as that door opens. Don’t let anypony through until I say so. In the meantime, me, Hammer, and Helm subdue anypony who’s in there sleeping.” He watches each one of them in turn. “Questions?”
“Subdue, Commander?” asks Hammer, a tall unicorn with a dark-green coat. “Do we use the stun spell?”
“That’s what it’s for,” answers Armor. “But keep your aim straight. Catch a ricochet from a wall and it’s you who’ll be out cold for the next few hours.” He forces a sly smile on his lips. “And you don’t want anypony to hear about that in the victory celebration.”
A series of strained grins follows.
“Enough of the joking,” Armor continues, his face serious again. “Let’s do this.”
They head upwards, Hammer first, followed by Copper and Bolt, Armor, and Helm. Hammer steps carefully, and Armor thanks Celestia that the stairs are made of stone. The green unicorn gets to the door and tries it with his hoof. When it doesn’t budge, he pushes his horn into the lock. A faint click carries to Armor’s ears. Hammer straightens his neck, inhales, and pushes the door open, galloping inside. The pegasi glide after him with Armor and Helm right behind them. Armor stops in his tracks as he enters into the chamber. He stares into the far side of the bedroom that harbors about thirty large bunk beds. All are empty. He blinks, glances at the other ponies around, their puzzlement reflecting his own.
“Luck seems to be with us,” says Armor quietly. “They must be using the barracks instead.”
“The barracks were demolished during the attack,” says Hammer next to him.
“They must’ve rebuild them, then,” says Armor with slight annoyance. “It makes no matter where they sleep. The important bit is that it’s not here.” He pauses, thinking. “We shall continue as planned. Copper, go inform the others that the bedroom on this side is clear. But make sure that they–”
A river of frightened screams surges from the stairs behind them. It sweeps over them like a blizzard, freezing all the five ponies in the room. “The enemy!” they hear them cry. “Flee, flee!” they wail. “Celestia help us!” they pray. But for the most part, they simply scream.
“They are under attack!” cries Hammer. The big unicorn runs for the stairs, followed by Helm and the two pegasi.
From some void beyond comprehension, Shining Armor hears his own voice shouting: “Stop!”
They all halt and look at him. In their faces, confusion shines. For one more second, the decision remains ambiguous in Armor’s mind, held back by their stares. But the screams, growing ever more fervent, shatter his indecision like a mirror. “Hammer, Copper, Bolt: block that entrance with all the beds. No, collapse the whole damn thing: bring it down now.” He turns his eyes at Helm. “You come with me and secure the upstairs.”
They stare at him as if he had just turned into a changeling.
“Do it!” he barks, spit flying from his mouth. The calm, bright blue ice is aflame in his eyes. The screaming has drowned all the words by now; it is nothing but mindless, senseless, meaningless noise.
Hammer turns towards the staircase, his horn glowing bright green. He blasts the corridor’s walls, and the mortar crumbles noisily, bringing down some rocks along with it.
Copper’s eye go wide as he sees that. “No, what are you doing!” he shouts and pushes Hammer violently aside. “They need our help, they need to–”
“It’s a bucking trap!” cries Armor, marching to the pegasus. “We walked into a trap!” He turns to the two other unicorns. “Bring this corridor down now!”
Hammer glances angrily at Copper and continues aiming magical bolts at the corridor. Helm looks at Copper, then at Armor, blinking his eyes as if in a trance. “But… they…”
Armor’s eyes flare. “Rushing in there is just what the enemy expects us to do! Snap out of it and go secure the upper corridor! If we have any luck they won’t have–"
In one moment, the darkness held back by their horns turns alive. Shining Armor sees Copper’s pale face swallowed by the shades that run along the walls and seize him from behind. At the same time, he himself is yanked back by an unnaturally powerful force. Air flees his lungs as he crashes against the floor. “No!” he cries out in rage. Bright light ruptures from his horn, cutting the blackness that ripples all around them now. In its short existence, he can see how the two pegasi literally sink into oblivion, their flailing legs disappearing into the ethereal velvet. Hammer’s horn still glows green, searing the tentacles that reach for him. “I’m coming, Commander! I’m coming, I’m com‒” A membrane thick as a tree trunk envelopes his head, and the green glow dies away along with his last shriek.
“No!” repeats Armor, his every muscle fighting against the unreal forces that bend and twist his body. “No! No no no no no!” His words slur together as the shadows do, as all the reality does. It all turns black, blacker than a pupil, blacker than the deepest abyss. And in the depths that reach no deeper than a shadow does, Armor’s last sane thought chimes. Failure. Failure. Failure.
It’s all over in a matter of seconds.
Among the deep-green pines, raging rapids, and magnificent mountains, there rests a cabin. Its front door opens gently and from inside, Twilight emerges. Thin mist hangs above the yard, hiding everything but the most closest pines and the constant roar of the nearby river. Still, the grey veil already shows signs of rupturing as the sun peeks on the horizon. Twilight walks on the damp grass, looking around in the colorless world. The sound of hoofsteps on the porch make her turn. Rarity and Rainbow Dash trot out, supporting Fluttershy in between them. Rarity is the only one carrying a saddlebag.
“Can you do anything about the fog?” asks Twilight from Dash.
The three stop on the wooden porch. Dash looks around with a professional expression on her face and says: “Sure I could, but it’d be pointless. This won't last more than a few hours tops.”
“How long would it take for you to clear this?” continues Twilight.
“Uhh… Just alone, more than a few hours.” Dash adjusts her position, making sure that Fluttershy’s wing lays comfortably against her back. “The mist ain’t thick, but there’s a lot of it.”
“Surely we can wait a few more hours?” says Rarity. She gives a worried look at Fluttershy leaning against her flank. “I dare say, the weather is not the only argument in favour of that.”
“I can manage,” says Fluttershy quietly. The two ponies by her sides seem to be the only thing keeping her standing.
Twilight looks at the three of them for a moment, her face expressionless. “Every hour we waste is another hour away from Canterlot.”
Dash and Rarity glance quickly at her, then at each other. “Twilight…” begins Rarity, looking at Twilight again. “Time can’t be wasted if there’s no way to spend it. We can barely see you standing there.”
“Rar’s got a point,” says Dash. “And Fluttershy is barely holding it together: she can’t even fly. That cave won’t be running anywhere.”
“But something inside it might,” says Twilight. “Unless Draught Tear went there to teach rocks how to scream, there could very well be more of his victims trapped inside.” Veiled by mist, her eyes appear colorless. “And they may not have a few hours.”
Nopony says nothing for a while. Beside Fluttershy's feeble swaying, they barely even move.
“I guess I could beat the fog back bit by bit,” says Dash carefully. She looks at Fluttershy. “Can you guide us like that?”
Fluttershy swallows. “I… I think I can.”
Rarity notices that Twilight is eyeing her expectantly. “Very well, then,” she says. “But you must come help me with Fluttershy.”
“Of course,” says Twilight and walks next to Dash. After they have exchanged positions, Dash rises to her wings and starts beating back the grey walls, driving a path for the three ponies trotting behind her. Their progress is slow, for the path up the mountain is a steep one right from the start and sprinkled with rocks, roots, and undergrowth. At places it turns almost invisible even without the mist. But the real problems begin when they move away from the track and into the unmarked routes.
“Ah!” gasps Fluttershy as her hoof slips on a wet rock. She would have hit the ground, but Twilight moved just in time to stop that.
“Is it far away?” she asks.
Fluttershy, panting slightly, looks around herself. After over an hour of travelling, the mist is still respectfully abundant. “I don’t believe so… but it’s hard to say. I flew there on the first time, and everything always looks different from the air.”
“Not now it doesn’t,” says Dash above them. Exhaustion taxes her wings, and sweat trickles along her neck and brow. “It’s all porridge here, too.”
“Should we pause?” suggests Rarity, looking at Twilight.
“Not yet,” answers Twilight. “Fluttershy said we’re close. Let’s move on.”
Rarity opens her mouth as if to say something, but only sighs. They carry on and after half an hour of wearisome travelling, Fluttershy finally says: “Stop. Rainbow, stop. I know that cliff.” She points at the mountainside to their right, an almost smooth wall of rock that disappears into the mists above. Sweaty and tired, they still can’t help but wonder at its massive size. “It’s up there,” says Fluttershy.
“Up… there?” asks Rarity. “We’ll never make it.”
“We all won’t,” says Twilight. “You and Fluttershy stay here. Me and Rainbow will check it out.” Carefully they let go of Fluttershy, who settles on her stomach on the ground. Her eyes close immediately.
“That sounds good,” she says feebly.
Dash lands next to them, wiping her brow with a wing. “If something happens, scream like your favourite gown shrank in the wash,” she says to Rarity.
“You just be careful in there!” says Rarity as Twilight and Dash rise to the air.
“We will,” assures Twilight, just before they disappear into the mist.
Rarity turns to Fluttershy and sits down next to her. “Would you like some water?”
“Yes, please,” answers Fluttershy. She drinks deep from the canteen that Rarity produces from her saddlebag. “Thank you,” she says.
“Don’t mention it.” Rarity takes a sip herself and puts the canteen neatly back into the bag. After that, they both quiet down.
“How did it come to this?” asks Fluttershy finally. She turns a faraway look to her friend. “Could this all be just a nightmare?”
“Not every nightmare is a dream,” says Rarity after a short pause. She smiles bravely afterwards. “But they all have an end.”
Fluttershy rests her head gently against Rarity’s neck. “I wish this one would end soon, then.”
The way Fluttershy says that makes chills run along Rarity’s spine. She wraps a warm hoof around the pegasus’s shoulder and hugs her tightly.
***
Above them, Dash and Twilight slowly fly along the cliffside. The mist is less thick higher up, but still rich enough that they have to disperse it with their wings to get any idea of their surroundings. “We should split up,” says Dash. “We’ll find it sooner that way.”
Twilight nods shortly. “You go right, I go left. But if you find it, don’t go in alone.”
“Duh,” says Dash and swoops to the right. She disappears sooner than Twilight could have imagined.
She heads into the opposite direction, scanning the bare stone to her right from a few meter’s distance. There’s no way Draught Tear could've climbed this. Either there is a pathway somewhere or he used a teleportation spell. A sudden burst of anger sweeps over her. Why he couldn’t just tell us about the cave right away? Why he had to fight against it? He must’ve known that he was outmatched… Why he had to be so stupid? It only got him killed. She grimaces as if a flaming pain lanced through her. He was insane. A mad, lost pony after a desperate revenge. He was wicked. She glares at the smooth rock grey as a beard, grey as a certain beard that belonged to a certain stallion once. By a random trickery of the fog, his face seems to stare at her from the mountainside, eyes wide open, empty, expressionless. Dead as stone.
And the cave mouth that suddenly stares at her resembles the wound on his chest more than a simple trick of the fog can explain. Twilight stares at the rupture that opens before her, the hole that stands out as a black gash from the grey reality. For her life she can’t tear her eyes off the sight. For her life, she can’t make out a word. Eventually a howling gale that sinks into her bones snaps her out of the trance of the void. “R-rainbow!” she shouts. “Rainbow Dash!”
After a few more shouts and signs from a glowing horn, Dash finds Twilight. She looks at her, then at the cave. “Should I tell the others we found it?” she asks, eyeing the blackness before them.
“In a moment,” says Twilight. “Let’s just… take a peek inside first.” She flies closer to the cave.
“Uhh… okay,” says Dash and follows. They land on the comparatively flat cliffside that spreads in front of the cave. “Seems that there’s another way here,” says Dash, pointing at the narrow track that starts near them, leading down.
Twilight ignores it, her focus completely sucked in by the cavern. She lights up her horn and trots forward. Dash raises an eyebrow behind her, but follows without a word. They stop at the cave mouth, which is high enough to allow two ponies stand atop each other and wide enough to accommodate three to walk side by side. “Can you notice anything strange?” asks Twilight, peering after the fleeting darkness. It runs farther than her light can reach.
“No…?” answers Dash after having studied the cave for a moment. “It’s a cave. I’ve seen a few of those in my life.”
“Don’t you see how smooth the walls inside are?” says Twilight. “And how there’s no stalactites or stalagmites? By all reason a natural cave should be about as old as the mountain, but this one can’t be even a hundred years old.” She turns a peculiar look at Dash. “Somepony built this.”
“I think we have a pretty good idea who that was.”
Twilight blinks in confusion. “No, you don’t understand. Draught Tear couldn’t have built something like this by himself. Nopony could.”
“Not even with magic?”
“Magic isn't miraculous,” says Twilight annoyedly. “Like any tool, it requires time and skill from the wielder. And it consumes energy just as drilling rock would.” She turns her eyes to the cave again. “He would’ve needed help. A lot of help.”
Dash follows Twilight's gaze warily. “So you’re saying his friends could be there waiting for us?”
“I don’t think Draught Tear had any friends,” answers Twilight. “But I’d bet my horn that there is something expecting us in there.”
Dash blinks, and the wings stir gently on her back. “Should we keep them waiting?”
Twilight takes a step forward. “That wouldn’t be polite, would it now?”
They walk inside the cave. Behind them, the shades close their path. The way is straight as an arrow and smooth as a road. After a minute of steady trotting, Twilight stops Dash with a raised hoof. “You heard that, right?” she whispers, squinting deeper into the tunnel.
“Yeah…” says Dash quietly. “Sounds like… something alive?”
“The bats,” says Twilight with relief. “It must be the bats that Fluttershy told about.” They walk further and soon enough find the ceiling covered with dark, furry things with leathery wings. Few are still awake and their eyes gleam in the light of Twilight’s horn as the two ponies walk under them.
“There must be hundreds of them,” says Dash, eyeing the creatures suspiciously. Suddenly, her hoof steps on something soft and squishy. She looks down and gags. “Eww, gross!” she exclaims, rising immediately to her wings. “The floor is covered with their–”
“Guano,” finishes Twilight in disgust. She grimaces, wipes her hoof against a wall and spreads her wings. “Never mind that.” They fly onwards, wrinkling their noses. When the bats leave behind them, the darkness inside the tunnel seems to grow even more oppressive. It consumes not only all the light that carries from the cave's mouth, but also the faint noises of the bats behind them. Twilight’s horn glows twice brighter now, and still they can barely see ten meters ahead of themselves. And then they arrive to it.
“What is it?” asks Dash tensely.
“It must be the barrier Fluttershy mentioned,” answers Twilight, her tone equally stiff from creeping fright. “Although… I wasn’t expecting it to look like that …”
Before them, the air vibrates gently. It almost seems liquid, the way how its surface waves gently as if brushed by a wind, although no breeze blows in the cave. It’s impossible to say whether the thing is opaque or if the darkness on the other side simply decides to ignore Twilight’s light. She takes a step closer to the strange object, tilting her head slightly. From half a meter’s distance, she can hear an eerie, high-pitched humming emanating from the mystical wall.
“Can you break it?” asks Dash behind her. She is still floating above the floor.
“I don’t know,” says Twilight after a moment. “This magic is… weird. It reminds me of Zweistein's negativity theorem...”
Dash lands and trots next to Twilight. “How about we just throw something at it?”
Twilight gives her a condescending glance. “Or maybe you just try walking through it?”
Dash shrugs. “Okay.” She raises her front leg.
“Wait, stop!” blurts Twilight as she sees that.
Too late. Dash’s hoof touches the humming air… and passes through as if it was just air. A relieved and nervous laughter flees from her.
“Are you crazy?!” shouts Twilight.
Dash gives her a condescending look. “Hey, I thought we were in a hurry? Besides, if it was a trap, it wouldn’t have been so obv–”
Her sentence ends in a shrill and terrified scream.
“Rainbow!” cries Twilight. Terrible pain twists Dash’s face. Her wide eyes stare at beyond the barrier. Twilight looks at the same direction, and the sight makes her gasp in fear. Something has seized Dash’s front leg, wrapping the part that she had pushed through completely in a coat of shadows that have no beginning. They reach for her from the nothingness itself. And they squeeze.
“Ah!” yelps Dash in pain. She yanks back her hoof, but the shadows won’t let go. Instead, they start to pull. “Help me!” she cries hysterically, staring at her captured limb.
For half a second, Twilight’s brain refuses to comply. The sight of absolute horror in Dash’s face is simply paralyzing, unreal in its finality. It is beyond the fear of death. It is the fear of what comes after. But something more pressing than fear emerges inside her when Dash's third shriek melts into the second one. “Let go of her!” cries Twilight, her horn exploding into a blaze that no sun would be ashamed of. The brightness floods the corridor… but fails to penetrate the transparent wall.
“Argh!” wails Dash. Her wings spread open like moved by a spring, beating her back against the shadow’s grip. Summoning all her strength, she manages to slow down her unavoidable slipping to the other side.
It didn’t work , realizes Twilight. The barrier blocked the spell. Panic stretches every second, ultimately ripping them apart in wild frenzy. Dash screams again, but this time there is blind rage mixed in with the trepidation.
“Do something!” she shrieks, thrashing in the air.
Twilight grabs her friend from the waist and starts to pull. She brings her wings to the work, flapping desperately to release Dash. She can feel how the pegasus’s body has tensed into its extremes, how her every muscle fights against the hostile power. But bit by bit, they both get dragged closer and closer to the humming wall. “No!” shouts Twilight. “No no no no no no!” She presses her eyes shut and pulls . Her horn burns brilliantly, and the light fills her limbs and wings. Soon her whole body drowns in deep purple glow. “Give… back… my… friend!” she shouts through gritted teeth and hauls with every ounce of strength she can find. They fly backwards in a wide arch and hit the cave floor hard, Dash on top of Twilight.
“Oof!” they yelp simultaneously. The freezing shock lasts for a microsecond, and then they’re back on their feet, staring at the wall. Beyond it, the darkness stands still as a grave.
“What… was… that?” asks Dash, panting.
“That is… what happens… when you do crazy stuff!” cries Twilight, equally exhausted. She sits down heavily. “I don’t think… that it can… reach us here.”
“Maybe we should… back off just in case?”
“In a moment…” says Twilight, collapsing to her flank. “I need… to catch my breath…”
Dash sits down next to her. She looks at her right front hoof. “It felt like my hoof was freezing completely.” She turns her limb, searching for wounds or frostburns. “But now it’s like nothing had happened. It’s not even red or anything.”
Twilight turns a flank, looking at her friend’s hoof. “Are you sure? The thing was pulling like mad.”
Dash tries putting weight on her leg and doesn’t even blink. “I know. But it’s all good now.” She looks at Twilight and bites her lip. “Twilight… I…”
Twilight raises her eyes to meet her's. “It’s okay, Rainbow. You don’t have to say anything.”
A careful smile raises on the cyan lips. “Not even a thanks?”
“Well, that might be appropriate,” says Twilight, smiling faintly, too. Then her expression turns serious again. “Actually, I should be thanking you. I think you just saved us both.”
“Uhh… What?”
“The barrier,” explains Twilight, peering at the wall again. “I don’t think it was meant to keep us out… but to keep that thing in.” She looks at Rainbow. “If I had broken the barrier, there wouldn’t have been anything to restrain it.”
Dash swallows and shudders. “Oh…”
“Yeah,” agrees Twilight. “But it didn’t happen, so let’s not talk about it.”
“What do we do now?” asks Dash after a moment.
Twilight sits up. She gives a long look at the darkness beyond the ethereal wall. “From what I can tell, it would seem that the barrier is designed to stop everything magical… and to let everything else through.”
Dash frowns. “But didn’t Fluttershy say that the bats couldn’t get past it?”
“Maybe the humming keeps them off,” says Twilight after a pause. “Or maybe the thing on the other side likes to keep its floor clean.”
“Okay… but how does any of this help us?” Dash stands up on all fours. “That thing must be guarding something. Whatever it is, we need to get it.”
“I know…”
“So, what do we do?”
“I don’t know!” snaps Twilight, stomping the ground with a hoof. “Let me think…”
Dash flinches, turning her eyes off Twilight. A rock about the size of her hoof catches her eye. She picks it up and throws it at the barrier. “Take that!” she shouts.
“Rainbow!” blurts Twilight. She tries to stop the rock with her horn, but misses just barely. It flies through the wall and disappears into the darkness. If it hits something, it doesn’t make a sound. “What did I just tell you about–” Her sentence ends abruptly. With glazed eyes, she stares at the barrier of enchanted air. Her mouth droops slightly open, frozen in unfinished scolding.
“Uhh, Twi?” asks Dash. “You okay?” She waves a hoof in front of her face.
Twilight blinks. “Could it be that simple…” she mutters.
“What? What did you think up?”
Twilight stands up quickly and turns back to the cave mouth. “Let’s get back: we need to make something.” She flies onwards, Dash following right after her.
“Make what? Come on, tell me!”
Twilight glances over her shoulder. “That rock you threw… What if it had a spell hidden inside it? A spell that was set to trigger with delay?” She smiles conspicuously. “A spell that would make that thing in the dark regret the day it was born?”
“Can you make stuff like that?”
“It would basically be just an elaborate water balloon. Yeah, I can manage that.” Twilight looks in front of herself. “All I need is a suitable container. And then we’ll see just how smart that wall actually is.”
***
In Canterlot, in the backyard of one of the large, poor tenements, a colt opens his eyes dreamily. At first he wonders why his mother hasn’t tucked him in, for the morning is chilly and damp. He gropes around himself, searching for the lost blanket. But then he remembers that no such thing exists. “Mommy,” whispers Berryfer. His eyes stare at the darkness. His breathing intensifies second by second along with his heartbeat as the missing pieces find their places in the puzzle of his mind. “Pa,” he sobs. Tears swell in his eyes red from crying. A sorrowful, painful gasp climbs up his sore throat, cracks open his mouth, and gets cut in half as he bites his tongue.
I can’t cry, I can’t make a noise. They could still be near. I must think, I must use my head. I must… I have to… The decapitated groan rolls past his lips. More follow in its trail, shaking the colt’s body as they fall into the oblivion. “Mommy…” he sobs through gritted teeth, clasping his front legs against his chest. He squeezes himself until it starts hurting, after which he squeezes even tighter. His belly crumbles noisily, plunging him into pure panic. He tries digging deeper into the disgusting filth that surrounds him, but the bottom is too close and he can only huddle deeper into the pathetic burrow into which the thrashed himself during the uneasy drowsing that saw him through the night.
Eventually the hunger, the revolting smell, and the unfathomable yearning make him crack open the dumpster lid. The bright light outside blinds him instantly, making him drop the lid. On the second attempt, he squints until he can see the yard better. He sees no movement. But they could be waiting behind that fence. Or around that corner. Or on the roof. Mother could be with them, Pa too. His stomach crumbles again. He closes his eyes, draws deep breath, and pushes the lid completely open. Sunlight washes over his dirty coat and messed up mane, his tear-stained face and quivering lip. He opens his eyes and looks around. Apart from the few darker clouds, it’s a beautiful day.
It takes him fifteen minutes to climb off the dumpster and sneak next to the wall. From there, he progresses slowly towards the front of the building. As he gets to peek around the corner at the street, his heart is racing like a rabbit with a pack of wolves in its tail. He looks left, then right. Puddles litter the street in their scores, all standing perfectly still. Nothing moves, although he can hear noises carrying from somewhere farther away. He pulls his head back, presses himself against the wall, and counts to ten. He sprints for the front door of the tenement. It lies ajar, and he dives in, closing it behind him as quickly and as silently as he can.
Inside, it’s dead quiet. He looks up the staircase, peers into the apartments down the corridor, but doesn’t see even a rat. He pants in the hall, his ears picking up sounds that don’t exist. “P-pa?” he whispers, holding his breath. “M-om?” No answer. He takes the first step up. Even as he was expecting it, the creak still makes him tremble all over. He gets up to the second floor, then to the third, and finally to the fourth. The corridor there is as long as the way to the stars. “P-p-pa? M-m-mom?” No answer. He walks towards the room they first slept in, finding it empty. Next, he walks to the one with all the board games.
Among the colourful boxes, there sits a pony. A colt. A yellow colt with a dark-brown mane. No. No. No. Berryfer gasps in horror and disbelief. The colt’s head turns as if moved by somepony else. Two eyes stare at Berryfer, two eyes grey as dust. “No!” Berryfer cries, backing away. “No!”
“Who are you?” asks Cough. His voice is a whisper from beyond the grave.
“Why are you here?!” yells Berryfer. “What did you do to my parents?!”
Cough tilts his head to the left. “Do I know you?”
Berryfer charges at him. Cough only stares indifferently as they collide forcefully, tumbling on the floor. Berryfer stands up immediately and captures Cough against the planks, pressing his chest with his front hooves. “Why are you here?!” he shouts hysterically. “Where are my parents?!”
“Your name’s Berryfer,” wheezes Cough. A tortured smile spreads on his lips. “I remember you.”
Berryfer pushes harder with his hooves. Cough coughs painfully. “Where… are… my parents?” whispers Berryfer.
The grey eyes flicker. The smile vanishes. “I don’t know,” he manages. His front hooves fumble at the legs pressing him down. “It hurts.”
Berryfer doesn’t move. “What… happened to them?”
“They… They went away…” Cough starts fidgeting and squirming. “They left.”
“You’re lying .” He presses more.
“Argh!” gasps Cough. He tries pushing Berryfer off him. “I’m not! I’m not!”
Berryfer moves his hoof to Cough’s exposed throat. He just moves it there, almost gently. Cough stops his weak struggling immediately. He looks up at him, his lips forming inaudible words. “T-t-the Smoke got them,” he says. “P-please…”
Berryfer’s hoof trembles erratically. He can feel Cough’s throat quivering under his touch. He gazes into the dusty eyes and sees fear: naked, simple fear. The hoof moves away from the frail coat, lands on the floor. His other front leg follows suite. Berryfer staggers backwards, staring at Cough as if he was death itself. He sits down shaking.
Cough looks at him fearfully, breathing shallowly. “I’m sor–”
“Shut up,” sobs Berryfer, staring at the floor. “Shut up, shut up, shut up…” His head droops like a broken twig. “Why didn’t they take you?”
Cough sits up, eyeing warily the other colt. “I… don’t know… Maybe they don’t take foals?”
“They do,” says Berryfer quietly. “They take everypony. But not you.” His eyes rise slowly. “They take everypony except you.”
Cough leans slightly farther away from him. “Maybe they think I’m too weak to work…”
“They don’t care about that,” says Berryfer, wiping his eyes. He stands up. “They don’t care about anything.”
Cough jumps up and backs away. A bright green box crunches under his hoof. “It wasn’t my fault!”
“Then why are you so scared?” asks Berryfer. He takes a step closer to Cough. “What are you hiding?”
“Nothing!” Cough’s hind legs hit the wall behind him. The sparse sunlight from the covered windows paints his body with stripes. “You scare me!”
Berryfer stops. “What?”
“You scare me,” repeats Cough. “How did you get away from them?”
“I hid in a dumpster in the back,” says Berryfer. “Can’t you smell?”
Cough sniffs at him. “Ugh… Yeah… I can.”
They eye each other cautiously for a moment. “What do we do now?” asks Cough eventually. He is barely shaking anymore.
Berryfer sniffs and wipes his eyes some more. “I know what I'll do. I’m gonna find mommy and pa.” He lowers his hoof slowly. “And you’re gonna help me.”
“M-me? H-how?”
“If the Changed ponies really don’t care about you, that means you can go where I can’t. You can find my mommy and pa.”
Doubt mixes in with wariness in the dusty eyes. “B-but… They are Changed, too…?”
“I'll fix that. But I need you to find them.” His eyes soften a tad more. “Maybe we can find your parents, too.”
Cough gives him a long look. “O-okay… I can help you.” His hind legs detach from the wall. “But you must promise me something.”
Berryfer narrows his eyes. “What?”
“Don’t ever make me lie down again .”
***
Standing in a semicircle in front of a large cave, four ponies stare at an empty water canteen. The mist has mostly dispersed by now, revealing a breathtaking view into the valley below. A sea of pines spreads before them, split apart by the massive waves of mountains and the complicated network of rivers. Even the small cabin can be seen from up here in all its insignificance. Nonetheless, they all look intently at the round canteen.
“I don’t want to sound vain or anything, but I really do love this particular canteen,” says Rarity. The other three give her a look. “I know the fact doesn’t weight much now… but it felt right to mention it,” she finishes, scraping the ground with a hoof.
“If this works, I’ll make sure that you will get your choice from all the canteens in Equestria,” says Twilight, glancing at Rarity.
“How can you know what spell to use?” asks Fluttershy. She isn’t as pale as in the morning, yet she sways slightly even while standing still.
“Trial and error, Fluttershy, trial and error,” answers Twilight. “Although I’m pretty sure I’ve got the right one for the job already.”
“Like a catch-all evil beater?” asks Dash, floating above the ground.
“Something like that, yes,” responds Twilight from under her eyebrows. “It’s a spell to negate other spells. I once used something similar against Discord.”
“But that one failed, did it not?” asks Rarity.
“It was Discord we were up against,” says Twilight. “I doubt that the thing guarding the cave is composed of as high-level magic. But magical it is, I’m sure of that.”
“Speaking of which, how do we know that Discord doesn’t have his claw in all this?” asks Dash.
Fluttershy flinches. “Rainbow… Don’t go there again.”
“Why?” continues Dash, circling above Fluttershy. “He hasn’t shown his face for forever. He should be helping us, right?”
“But he isn’t,” says Twilight. “Discord is a problem for the future. Right now, we have plenty enough of those in the present.” She lowers her eyes at the canteen. “Stand back, girls.”
Rarity and Fluttershy back away while Dash glides beyond the edge of the cliff. Twilight’s horn lights up slowly and soon glows bright purple. She closes her eyes, concentrating. The canteen floats up and turns towards her. The air hums as energy gathers at the tip of Twilight’s horn and from there, moves into the canteen, packed in a point of white light. The bright illumination disappears as the cork closes the bottle.
Twilight sighs and opens her eyes. “Like a water balloon.” She looks expectantly at Dash. “You still want to throw something at the thing?”
“You bet,” says Dash, grinning. She flies closer and picks up the canteen from the air. “You all wanna come watch?”
They all nod and follow her into the cave. Fluttershy is still supported by Rarity and Twilight. They light their horns as the darkness grows thicker around them.
“I have one question, Twilight,” says Rarity. “Does the spell cancel the barrier, too?”
“Most likely it will,” answers Twilight without looking at her. “Our magical powers will be safe though: the wall should block the spell and then evaporate.”
Rarity frowns. “But that would mean… If the monster inside doesn’t vanish as well…”
“It will,” says Twilight. “And if it doesn't, it’ll be weak enough so that I can finish it off.”
Rarity gives her a look. She is about to say something when Dash, flying before them, says: “You guys may wanna watch your step now. We’re entering the danger zone.”
“I thought you said the barrier was quite deep in the cave?” asks Rarity.
“I don’t think she was referring to the barrier…” says Twilight, looking down. She grimaces. “Wait wait wait–”
Rarity’s eyes dilate as her hoof lands on something soft and sticky. Her neck stiffens, stopping her from looking down. “Just what… did I step into?”
“You may not want to know,” says Fluttershy as she looks down. “I should've remembered that bat caves aren’t the cleanest places in Equestria.”
Rarity ceases to breathe.
“Just wipe it off and let’s carry on with wings,” says Twilight, rolling her eyes. She looks at Fluttershy. “Can you fly, just for a short while?”
“Maybe…” Fluttershy answers. She spreads her wings and tries to rise up. With sweat and effort, she manages to get one metre off the ground.
Twilight looks at Rarity who seems to have turned into a living statue: she stares straight in front of herself, tense as a bow. Twilight sighs heavily. “Never mind… I know a better way.” Her horn glows brightly for a second, and then they disappear. Further in the cave, Dash yelps as the three of them suddenly appear before her. “A minor setback,” explains Twilight as she sees her expression.
Rarity blinks and gasps for air. “I think I just saw my life flashing before my eyes.” With a move that embodies the very idea of revulsion, she wipes her contaminated hoof against a nearby wall.
“Is that it?” asks Fluttershy, sitting down. She eyes suspiciously the sight before them.
“It is,” says Dash, narrowing her eyes as she looks at the humming barrier. The darkness beyond is as black as before, impregnable. “So, I just fling this through?” she asks from Twilight.
“Not yet: I need to set the trigger,” she answers. “After that, the spell will cast itself after thirty seconds.”
“Why not ten?” asks Dash, hoofing the canteen towards Twilight.
“Why not eight and a half?” says Twilight. “Thirty is a round, solid number. It’s not really important.” She touches the canteen with her bright horn. A jolt of energy surges into it, making the bottle glow from within. “Okay. Do it.”
Dash leers at the wall and tosses the canteen into a vertical movement. With one sharp, powerful kick, she sends it flying towards the vibrating air which it pierces with ease, disappearing into the abyss behind. “Goooaaal!” she hollers.
Twilight glares at her. “Have you ever thought of taking serious stuff seriously? What if your kick had cracked the canteen?”
Dash gives her an annoyed look. “Yes, Princess …”
Twilight opens her mouth. At the same time, something hits the back of her head hard. “Ouch! What the–”
“It threw it back!” blurts Rarity, pointing at the canteen that rolls on the cave floor. Its glowing intensifies with every second past. “The monster threw the canteen back!”
“Oh no you won’t!” cries Dash, dashing towards the canteen. She picks it up and hurls it back at the wall. It sinks in, only to almost immediately fly back with immense velocity.
This time, Twilight catches it with her horn. The canteen pulses with purple light like a miniature sun. It has less than ten seconds left , realizes Twilight through the throbbing pain that stems from the back of her head. I don’t have time to diffuse it. And if it explodes on this side, it will drain my magic, break the barrier… and leave the monster intact. The calculation lances through her mind in less than a second. The choice that lies at the end stops time completely. She looks at the black void and at the canteen that floats between them. It won’t stay there unless somepony keeps it there.
“Throw it back!” cries Dash, flailing with her front hooves. “Twilight, throw it back!”
The canteen’s side almost cracks as dark-purple light seeps through. Twilight crouches, gathers strength into her hind legs… and sprints towards the barrier.
“Twilight!” the other three ponies shout together.
The canteen flies against Twilight’s chest, where she locks it with her front legs. She can feel it shaking fervently, and its light burns her eyes. Her wings spread mid-motion, carrying her the last few meters. From the corner of her eye, she can see Dash surging for her. She doesn’t reach her in time. Twilight passes through the enchanted air, and for a fleeting moment the eerie humming fills her ears completely. After that, all sounds die. Her eyes are wide open, or at least she thinks they are. It’s impossible to tell, just as it’s impossible to breathe. Cold. Cold. Cold. It’s the only word that chimes in the frozen desert of her mind. But it’s not the absolute darkness, the weird sense of weightlessness, or even the breathtaking cold that she is most terrified of… but the certainty that she is not alone.
It’s beyond Twilight to say whether she spent a year or a second on the other side of the barrier. She wakes up as her whole body shakes violently. Detached syllables and alphabets ring in her head, trying to rebuild the words that somepony is shouting at her. She recognizes a “T”, a “ght”, and the anxiety that glues them together. Twilight… That’s my name. My… name… She opens her eyes. “My name’s Twilight,” she says weakly. “Twilight.”
“Twilight!” cry the three ponies around her, huddling closer. Suddenly, she feels like suffocating again, although this time the feeling is somehow more welcome.
“Okay, let’s give her room,” says Dash finally. “Come on, let her breathe.”
They stand aside. Twilight squints at the light of Rarity’s horn, looking at the relieved faces of her friends around her. “You… You're Rainbow Dash,” she says, looking at Rainbow Dash. “And you’re Rarity,” she continues, blinking at Rarity. When she looks at Fluttershy, she has to frown. “Flatterlie?” she tries eventually.
Fluttershy blinks, the joyous smile on her lips failing. “Uhh…”
“No…Fluttershy ,” corrects Twilight, shaking her head. She sits up, touching her temple with a hoof. “What… What happened?”
The other three share a worried look. “Can’t you remember?” asks Rarity.
“You dived through the wall,” says Dash. “You were there like a second, and then the darkness just exploded.”
“The wall?” asks Twilight, dazed. “I… What…?”
Rarity swallows. “She has lost her memory.”
Fluttershy stifles a gasp with a hoof.
“No,” says Dash. “No.”
“I haven’t,” says Twilight, her eyes pressed shut. “I know why we are here… It’s all just coming back in pieces.” She sways gently. “My head feels like it’s about to burst.”
“Take your time, dear,” says Rarity, sitting down next to her. “We’re in no hurry. Just take your time.”
“I’m fine, really,” says Twilight, cracking open her eyelids. “It’s like Spike had tried his new archiving system inside my head.” Suddenly her neck tenses. “Wait. Who is guarding Draught Tear?” She looks at them sharply. “Did we leave Applejack and Pinkie with him?”
Fluttershy sniffs and turns her head away. Dash clenches her jaw, looking like she would like to shatter a stone wall or two with her bare hooves. Twilight looks at them in confusion and then turns her eyes to Rarity. A tear glistens on her marble-white cheek.
“You… You don’t really remember what happened to Applejack and Pinkie Pie?” asks Rarity carefully.
“What’s wrong?” asks Twilight, rising panic staining her voice. “Where are they? What happened to them?”
“They…” begins Rarity. Another tear rolls along her coat. “Twilight, they…”
Fluttershy’s knees fail her: she falls onto her stomach. Dash rushes to her aid and almost loses balance as she clings against her, crying helplessly. Twilight stares at them in terror, in indescribable horror. “What happened to them?” she cries.
“They changed,” sniffs Rarity. “They changed…”
Twilight shakes her head. “Changed into what?”
Rarity looks at the ceiling, breathes deep and wipes her eyes. “How much exactly do you remember about the recent events?”
“I… I remember how it all began,” says Twilight after a while. “It started… about a month ago?”
Rarity nods faintly.
“Canterlot was attacked while we were all there,” continues Twilight, rubbing her temple, looking at nowhere. “I don’t remember the details… but I recall that it happened fast. Way too fast. It was night, and Luna–” Her eyes widen. “Luna woke me up! She came to me in the middle of the night, she was wounded… bleeding… She told me that we must escape Canterlot.”
“And find Project Pantheia’s headquarters,” says Rarity slowly, blinking her wet eyes. “You told us that later that night. Do you remember anything about our enemy?”
“They… They were ponies? Other ponies?”
“Changed ponies,” says Dash who is still comforting the sobbing Fluttershy. “Luna said they had Changed, didn’t she? That something had cursed them or something?”
“‘Possessed’ was the word she used,” continues Rarity. “She didn’t have time to explain properly, but basically it’s like hypnosis, only worse. The Changed ponies lose all control of themselves, their free will, their–”
“Memories,” finishes Twilight, stopping her rubbing. “Just as I did now.” She pauses for a moment. “Pinkie and Applejack… They weren’t sleeping with the rest of us.”
“No, they were sleeping with us,” says Rarity. “But they weren’t there when Luna woke us all up. We don’t know where nor when they had left. But… We saw them…”
“I remember now,” whispers Twilight. “I remember that. And that… I killed Draught Tear…”
“While defending Fluttershy,” adds Dash, soothing Fluttershy. “You got anything about that bitch who started all this?”
“Was she a mare?” asks Twilight, turning to Dash.
“We don’t know who or what it was,” says Fluttershy past her tears. “Not even if it was a pony…”
“Didn’t Luna says something about some queen?” asks Dash.
“She did,” says Rarity. “She said that our enemy wants to be the queen.” She frowns and adds: “But she was very incoherent at the time… and I had just awoken in the middle of the night.”
“We all had,” says Twilight. “I think I remember it all now. The darkness… It must have tried to tamper with my mind while I dived into it. It could be the same kind of magic that swept over Canterlot.”
“That would make sense, yes,” says Rarity. “Perhaps this cave is one of the Project’s secret facilities?”
“We’ll know soon enough,” says Twilight, standing up. “Let’s finish this.”
They all get up, although Fluttershy needs Dash to support her. Twilight comes for her help on the other side of Fluttershy as they all continue deeper into the cave.
“Are you really okay, Twilight?” ask Rarity as she walks ahead to show the light. “You haven’t even lit your horn.”
“I’m fine,” answers Twilight. “Just a bit dizzy. The spell drained my magic for now: it will take a few hours before I can even lift a pebble with my horn.”
Dash snorts. “Sounds like a good time to have a wrestle match, yeah?” Dash watches Twilight roll her eyes and continues: “I have to say though: you had some guts, charging against that monster like that. But wasn’t that a bit too rash from a princess?”
Twilight smiles at her. “I guess a dash of rashness is just what is needed sometimes.”
Beneath uncountable tons of rock and stone, four ponies trot deeper into the cave. Rarity, still walking first, lights the way with her horn, peering into the darkness ahead. Behind her, Twilight and Dash support Fluttershy in between them. Not an echo rings around them: just the dull clip-clop sound of hoof landing on stone repeats itself over and over through eternity. Their ears prick and turn as they try to locate any other sounds, but none can be heard.
“How long is this thing?” Dash asks, biting her lip. “We must be like a halfway into the core of the mountain already…”
Twilight looks at the pegasus, noticing how tense she looks. Pearls of sweat gleam on her brow, and her eyes remain fixed ahead. “Are you okay?” Twilight asks.
Dash blinks, glancing at her. “Yeah, sure I am… Stuffed inside a pitch-black tube with a million tons of rock above, why wouldn’t I be?”
I should’ve know she’d be the first one to get claustrophobic. “Just try not to think about it, okay?” says Twilight soothingly. “Focus on what you can see, what you can feel. Everything else is just your imagination.”
Dash breathes out, the in, then out again. “Yeah, yeah, sure… I’m fine, I’m fine.” In again, out again.
Suddenly, Rarity stops before them. “Uh, girls? I think we have a problem.”
The three stop on their tracks, looking at her. “What do you mean?” blurts Dash. “Does the cave get narrower there?”
“Not exactly, no…” says Rarity. She brightens her horn. “It ends here.”
In front of them, a wall of solid rock stands, appearing just as impenetrable as all the other walls around them. Twilight stares at it as if the bare stone was laughing at her, or cursing, or shouting. But it only remains mute, and the chiming silence is more horrible than any screeching she can imagine. “No,” she says quietly. She trots forward, not even noticing how Fluttershy almost loses her balance. “No,” Twilight repeats, walking past Rarity. She stretches her front hoof, reaching for the wall, her limb trembling in the air. The stone feels cold under her touch, so very cold. No .
“There’s gotta be a secret door there, right?” says Dash, shuffling her hooves and sweating even more. “Just cast a spell or whatever and open it. Maybe there’s more room in there.”
“I don’t have enough energy yet,” says Twilight, still staring at the stone. She looks over her shoulder. “Rarity. Come here.” As Rarity trots next to Twilight, she asks: “Have you heard of Farahay’s magical field theory? Do you know the revealment spell he invented?”
“I don’t suppose he was a fashion artist?” asks Rarity, braving a smile. It dies when she sees Twilight’s reaction.
“Do you think you could cast it if I explained the principles and walked you through it?” she asks, narrowing her eyes.
“Of course I will try,” answers Rarity. “Tell me what to do.”
Behind them, Fluttershy looks worriedly at Dash. “Please, stop fidgeting… You’re tipping me over.”
Dash, her face pale in the glow of Rarity’s horn, looks at Fluttershy. “Sorry, Shy. Sorry.” She closes her eyes, inhales, exhales, and tenses her legs. She tries staying still like a statue, but soon she starts shifting her weight between her legs, lifting them and moving them around, all the while squeezing her eyes tighter shut.
“Dash…”
“I know, I know!” blurts Dash, opening her eyes. Her pupils have shrunk and move erratically. “But I can’t feel if I can’t move my legs around. And if I can’t feel, I have to imagine, and all I can imagine is every friggin rock that’s about to drop on my neck!” She talks fast, incoherently, abruptly.
Fluttershy has to keep on aligning her legs to stay standing. “Okay, I understand…” She sits down, taking some distance to Dash, who rises to her wings almost immediately.
“You guys ready or what?” she asks from Twilight and Rarity.
“This is going to take a moment,” says Twilight, looking at her. “Can’t you just sit down and think of clouds?”
“I’d much rather be feeling them! Or eating even!”
Twilight sighs annoyedly. “Then fly outside. It’s no use making you rip your feathers off here.”
Dash’s grimace turns a tad deeper when she hears that. “You guys… I’m really sorry…”
“We understand, Dashie,” says Fluttershy from under her, smiling kindly. “It must be awful for you here.”
“Just don’t wander too far away from the cave mouth,” says Twilight. “We may need you when we find the door.”
“Sure,” says Dash, sounding a bit more relieved already. She is about to leave, but then notices that Fluttershy has lied down on her stomach, eyes closed. “You’re gonna be okay, too?” asks Dash from her.
Fluttershy cracks open an eye. “Yes. I’m just resting a bit.” The eyelid closes slowly.
Dash bites her lip, looks back at the quietly talking Rarity and Twilight, then at Fluttershy, and finally at the walls around her. She swallows. And flies away. When she finally sees the light at the end of the tunnel, she triples her speed, practically shooting like a bullet from the cave mouth. First she just flies as high as she can, as fast she can; she climbs into altitudes where her head starts getting dizzy. After that, she breathes slowly out and starts floating down on her back, her front legs crossed behind her neck. She turns into an autumn leaf, carefree and limp.
Oh yeah… That hit the spot. A content smile spreads on her thin lips as she falls through a cloud. The hole she leaves behind shares her shape, and the notion makes her chuckle. Gosh… I shouldn’t be liking this so much. Gradually, the smile evaporates. What kind of an element of loyalty would run from some rock? A lousy one, that’s right. She turns right way round in the air and glides towards the cave. It’s just for a little while. No biggie. The morning mist has completely faded by now, and as Dash gets closer to the cave, she wonders at the sights below her. Not as pretty as Cloudsdale… but comes darn close. Nah, not that close, not really. Too many trees. Her eyes wander at the faraway cabin. Something in it makes her stop and look closer.
What the…? She shadows her eyes with a hoof, peering at the small cottage and its yard. Is that… a pony? By the corner of the building, it appears as if something was moving. She blinks, and the impression is gone. She stays still for a few minutes, trying to spot any more movement, but can’t notice anything. But I could’ve sworn that I saw something. Must’ve been a deer… She gives one more glance at the cabin’s direction and then lands in front of the cave. Somehow, the entrance seems narrower than it did the last time she saw it. Dash narrows her eyes, paws the ground a few times, and then flies inside.
After a moment, she hears shouting, cursing, and fighting. When she gets closer, she recognizes Twilight’s and Rarity’s voices. As she arrives at the end of the cave, her eyes widen in confusion at sight that greets her. Fluttershy is still laying on her stomach, front hooves crossed over her ears and eyes closed. Twilight and Rarity are shouting at each other’s faces, their foreheads locked together.
“I can’t help if it doesn’t work!” shouts Rarity, pulling back her neck. “We should try another spell.”
“This is the most advanced revealment spell there has ever been invented!” shouts Twilight. “You just have to focus on it more.”
“I did everything you told, just as you told me to!” wails Rarity, stomping the ground. “It doesn’t work!”
Twilight slams his front leg against the wall next to them. “It has to work! If it doesn't, it means that–”
“Guys, guys!” cries Dash, flying in between them. “What are you doing? Chill out!”
They both look at her, then at each other. A faint blush rises on both of their cheeks.
“Now that’s more like it,” says Dash. “How about a nice, friendly hoofshake on top of that?” She draws them closer to each other by their necks.
“We’re not foals, Dash," says Rarity annoyedly. She looks Twilight in the eyes. “I am sorry. But the spell doesn’t work. Either that or I am the worst unicorn in Equestria.”
Twilight gives her a long look. “Then there is no door here.” She says it like it was somepony’s epitaph.
Dash looks at her in confusion. “Eh?”
“I said there’s no door here!” snaps Twilight, stomping the ground. “At least not any magical ones,” she says more quietly, looking at the floor.
“Could it be mechanical?” asks Rarity, studying the wall.
“It has to be,” says Dash, stepping next to Rarity. They start searching for levers, indentations, loose rocks; all that stuff that opens secret doors in Daring Do novels. But if there was a hidden entrance there, its creator had not even heard of A.K. Yearling.
“Nothing,” says Rarity finally, sitting down. “I can’t find anything.”
Dash, sweat trickling down her brow, keeps on searching. “You two take a break. I got this.”
Rarity turns her eyes at Twilight. She is still looking at the floor, head drooping. “Twilight?” she asks.
Twilight raises her head. Rarity fears to see tears in her eyes, but when their gazes’ meet, she finds that the tears might have been welcomed, after all. In the light-blue light, Twilight’s eyes seem like two pits leading straight into some abyss; the hollowness in them is beyond words.
“There is nothing here,” she whispers. “Nothing.”
After hearing her voice, Dash stops searching and looks over her shoulder. “We don’t know that. When you get your powers back, just blow this thing to Tartarus. Buck the mechanism and all that jazz.”
“Dash is right,” says Rarity quickly. She puts a hesitant hoof on Twilight’s shoulder. “Maybe I didn’t get it right, after all. But you can open it, you can and you will.”
The twilight eyes look at nothing, the empty voice speaks to nopony. “It’s no use. I know it isn’t, I just know. There is nothing here, never was.”
Dash turns around. Her front legs thump as they land on the stone. “Oh? And what was that monster doing here then? Playing hide and seek with Draught Tear?” She takes a step closer to Twilight. “Cut the bull, Twi. We’re close. I know it .”
Twilight’s shoulders slump a bit more. “Maybe he was trying to tame the monster. Maybe it was his screams that the bats heard.” She pauses for a moment, looking at Dash and Rarity. “Maybe he had no part in the attack on Canterlot.”
Rarity swallows. Fluttershy, who had at some point removed her hooves from her ears, flinches. Dash keeps on staring Twilight in the eyes like she’d like to punch her; she is breathing heavily and stands stiff as the rock around them. “Twilight…” she starts. “He did. The monster proves that he did. Why the buck would he live in the middle of nowhere and go regularly see anything like that without telling anypony about it?” The magenta eyes narrow down, drilling ever deeper into Twilight’s seemingly soulless gaze. “Because he didn’t want anypony to know. Because he was planning the surprise of the century. That doesn't change, not even if this place is a dead end.”
Twilight blinks, and for a moment, the abyss does, too. “Then why was he here and not in Canterlot? And where are the plans, the notes, the laboratories – he couldn’t have done everything he did from that cabin.”
“And he didn’t,” continues Dash, her gaze like red steel. “It’s obvious. He simply stole what he could from the headquarters, brought them here, made another monster, and then released it on Canterlot. He didn’t need to control it: just to unleash it, after which he’d wait safely here.”
Twilight frowns. “But… How the monster could–”
“We don’t know!” exclaims Dash, waving her front hoof. “There’s a million things we don’t know about Draught Tear or the monster or the Bitch Queen or whatever! The point isn’t what we don’t know, but what we do know.”
“And that is?” asks Twilight sharply.
“That we must win Canterlot back,” answers Rarity. “We know that much. Also, thanks to the visit here, we now know how to fight against the monsters.”
“But not the Queen,” says Twilight. “That’s why Luna sent us here. It’s she who controls the monsters and the Changed ponies.” She shakes her head slightly and then adds: “Right?”
“Yeah,” says Dash, her form relaxing a bit. “And don’t you forget that. This ain’t the time to get all sloppy and sobby.”
“Do you still have trouble remembering?” asks Rarity from Twilight.
Twilight looks at Dash for a moment longer, then averts her gaze and raises a hoof on her temple. “I guess… It feels weird. I don’t have any holes in how we got here, but some of it feels like it happened to somepony else. It’s like I couldn’t trust my own head.” She laughs shortly. “But I’m sure it’ll pass when I get my magic powers back.”
Rarity smiles carefully at that. “I’m certain of that, too.”
“In the meantime… What do we do?” asks Dash. “Should we return back to the headquarters and keep on searching from there?”
“Do we have to?” asks Fluttershy suddenly, raising her head. Her face appears eerily pale in the light of Rarity’s horn.
“I don’t know if there’s any other choice,” says Twilight, looking sadly at her. “Although the idea doesn’t attract me, either…”
“If that’s what we got to do, then that’s what we got to do,” says Dash with a level voice. “This time, we at least know what we’ll be walking into.”
“I seriously don’t know if that makes it any less taxing,” says Rarity. She notices Dash’s look and adds: “But I can’t see any other option, either.”
Fluttershy buries her head into her mane and hooves, whimpering. The three others walk to her and help her up.
“You don’t have to go in,” says Twilight reassuringly.
“Yeah,” agrees Dash. “You played your part when you found this cave.”
“But…” starts Fluttershy. “There was nothing here.”
“That doesn’t mean we couldn't learn anything from here,” says Twilight, smiling faintly. “Like Rarity said, we now know how to defeat the monsters. And Dash is right too: this cave proved that Draught Tear was planning something evil.” She smooths Fluttershy's mane with a hoof. “That is not nothing.”
Fluttershy nods weakly.
They leave the dead end behind them, walking steadily out without another word, not even when they cross the bats’ section of the cave, although Rarity did ask Dash to carry her over that. She didn’t ask twice. When they get outside, she is the first one to run on the sparse grass that grows in front of the cave. While wiping her hooves clean, something in the corner of her eye catches her attention. She looks down into the valley. And screams.
“The cabin!” she cries. “Look at the cabin!”
The three others gallop quickly beside her, looking at the where her hoof is pointing. From down below, a thick, black pillar of smoke rises, reaching higher by every passing second. It starts from the cabin, squeezing through the broken windows and walls. The whole building is aflame.
***
In Canterlot, in one of the main streets, a train of carriages, each pulled by two earth ponies, makes progress towards the city centre. Their cargo is composed of mixed assortment of bricks, logs, and other rubble. The wheels whine and complain under their heavy load, splashing water as they tread over the countless puddles. The ponies themselves remain quiet as stone, glazed eyes fixed ahead. All are sweating profusely, some pant, others look like they should have collapsed ages ago. Their ribs could be counted through the dirty, shaggy coats.
Suddenly, a mare pulling the first carriage stops abruptly. When the stallion next to her glances at her, he sees her looking into a nearby alley. The rest of the retinue comes to a halt behind them. Without saying a word, the mare unharnesses herself and trots into the shady alley. Her empty eyes search around the miscellaneous crates, boxes, and bins. They nail at the last pile of trash that stands in the corner of the alley. Hoofsteps echo against the walls as she gets closer to it. Standing next to it, she tilts her head, and extends her leg. After removing a few garbage bags, she stops.
From the filth and stench, two wide eyes stare at her; eyes grey as dust. She stands still for a moment. Just when Cough is about to faint, she turns away. He can hear the receding hoofsteps gradually disappear and change into the rattling of the carriages. After a while, even they disappear, leaving him alone in the garbage pile. Very carefully, he fights his way out, all the while firmly keeping his eyes at the mouth of the alley. He sneaks towards it, shaking at every step. The street is empty on both ways, although the sound of the carriages carries from around the next crossroads. He sprints to the opposite direction.
After a while he arrives to the familiar tenement. On the second floor, he knocks thrice on one of the doors. “It’s me,” he whispers.
The door cracks open, revealing a peek of dark-blue coat behind. “Get in,” says Berryfer quietly. He pushes the door quickly shut after Cough. “What did you see?” asks Berryfer hurriedly.
“They are still carting rubble somewhere,” says Cough, panting. He sits down. “Just like you said.”
“Anything else?”
Cough looks around the room. “Don’t we have any more water left?”
“Not any that we could drink,” says Berryfer quickly. “Did you see anything else?”
The dusty eyes turn to him. “They were fighting in the sky.”
“Who?”
“The pegasi,” says Cough, rubbing his tummy. It grumbles loudly. “Any food? Hay?”
Berryfer narrows his eyes. “I told you, we ate the rest in the morning. Most of the furniture is stuffed with wool. You wanna eat wool?”
“I could try…”
Berryfer chews his lip. “Me too… but I don’t think we should. Who were fighting?”
Cough swallows, leaving his belly alone. “The pegasi. The Changed ponies… and soldiers. I think they were soldiers.”
“The Royal Guard?” asks Berryfer hopefully.
Cough shakes his head. “Crystal Kingdom. I could tell, the way they shined.”
“Who won?”
Cough rolls his head. “I dunno… I couldn’t see well; the sun got into my eye.” For a moment, a strange look invades the grey eyes. “I saw some of them fall.”
“On which side?”
“On both.”
They quiet down for a moment.
“You sure that we can’t drink from the water buckets?” asks Cough, looking pleadingly at Berryfer.
“Mom said we shouldn’t,” he answers, furrowing his brows. “It’s dirty: we’d get sick.”
“But if we don’t drink we get sick, too. I know I did.”
“We’ll think of something, okay?” says Berryfer, the lines deepening on his brow. They all disappear suddenly. “The rain.” He turns a bright look at Cough. “There was a rainwater barrel in the back. It’s fresh.”
Cough stands up, smiling. “Then we should drink it!”
Berryfer nods, and soon they trot carefully in the backyard. The barrel standing beneath a gutter is full of clear, sweet water. As they quench their thirst, Cough asks: “Why they carry all that rubble around the city?”
Berryfer swallows and sighs contentedly. “Beats me. I asked from pa once, but he said I shouldn’t think about it.” He stares deep into the rippling waters. The surface is too clear to let him see his own image in it. “He said I should only focus on surviving.”
Cough looks into the same waters, the grey eyes half-covered by the bright yellow eyelids. “My mom said I should hide. I guess that’s the same thing.”
“I guess…” says Berryfer quietly. He wipes his eyes, landing on all fours again. “Why you smell like I do?”
“I… I had to hide in a garbage pile,” answers Cough, still studying the water. “But it didn’t matter. They found me anyway, but didn’t care. They just moved on.”
Berryfer eyes him from under his eyebrows. “What’s your name? I mean, your real name. The name your parents gave you.”
Cough turns his eyes from the clear depths. Amidst the grey, a strange glint resides. “Glide. Glide Skate.”
“Glide Skate,” repeats Berryfer. “It sound cooler than ‘Cough’.”
Glide smiles happily.
Berryfer looks at him for a moment longer and then lets his gaze travel around the backyard. A tall wooden fence surrounds it completely, and over that only the other large tenements, identical to the one in front of him, can be seen. They are all old and worn, their paintwork cracked and faded. The ground is paved with stone slabs, although several blades of grass push through. Beside the garbage bins and the rainwater barrel, a lone bench lies against the fence. One of its planks has broken.
“Glide…” starts Berryfer quietly, looking at the bench. “What happened to my parents?”
The smile dies on Glide’s lips. “I… I told you already. The Smoke took them.”
“I know,” continues Berryfer. He looks at him, eyes shimmering. “But could you… Could you tell me how it happened?”
Glide looks at the ground, slowly landing on all fours. He scrapes the stone with a hoof for a moment. “You sure you wanna know? I’d forget it if I could…”
“Please. I have to know.”
The grey, sad gaze rises to meet Berryfer’s. “Okay. I… I can tell you that.” He swallows, blinks a few times and says: “That night, your mother… She woke me up. She was… shouting… I couldn’t understand her at first.” Glide sits down, brushing a tuft of grass with his hooves. “She was trying to block the door, saying that I have to run. But there wasn’t anywhere to run. And my legs… I couldn't even get up.” He yanks the tuft free. “Then they broke in.”
“A-and?” Berryfer asks after a while.
Glide grimaces. “When she screamed, I got up. I think I was screaming, too. The rain was so loud. There was four or five of them… Earth ponies mostly… One of them tried to grab your mother.” Very slowly, Glide grinds the grass into pulp beneath his hooves. “I dunno what she did, but there was light, and the stallion passed out like she had hit him. They kept on coming through, and there was a unicorn with them: he fought back your mother’s magic.”
Berryfer’s lip quivers. “H-he?”
“Your dad,” says Glide, sobbing. “When she saw his face, she… she just… I…” He sniffs a few times. “I tried to stop them. I screamed and kicked and bit and kicked. They just brushed me away like I was some bug… And then… Then…”
“The Smoke?” The word is barely audible.
Glide nods faintly. “It, it… It got to me, too… It was cold, really cold… I thought I was gonna die…” He wipes his eyes and clenches his jaw. “But then I woke up. I dunno how long I sat there until you came.”
Berryfer stares at the other colt, who trembles faintly in the rhythm of his sobs. For one fleeting moment, he becomes aware how warm it is in the yard. He looks up, shading his eyes with a hoof. The sky is practically cloudless, the sun is living its prime, sovereign in its heavenly glory. The rays sting his eyes like salt, making them water more. His mouth cracks open, and past the almost still lips, hollow lines fall.
“Night so dark there exists not that the Sun, bright and hot wouldn't there ever trot.”
The poem lives and dies. Nothing happens. He says it again, louder, stronger. But the sun remains mute. Berryfer gives it one more glance from the shade of his hoof and then lets his head droop.
Glide, wiping his eyes dry, looks at him. “Should I get back into the city?”
Berryfer doesn’t answer immediately. “Yes. You should.” He lifts his head. “I want to know where they are carrying all the ruins, and why.”
Glide sniffs. “I think they’re all heading to the city center.”
“Go there,” Berryfer continues, his voice as sharp as a ten-year-old can manage. “Find out what they’re doing there.”
Glide gives him a suspicious look. “I thought it didn’t matter?”
“It matters now.” He walks closer to Glide. “If we want to get our parents back, we need to know why they were taken. We need to know what the Smoke wants from them.”
Glide stands up. “I… I guess…”
Berryfer stops in front of him and puts a hoof on his shoulder. “I need you, Glide. I need your help. And you need mine.” He looks deep into the grey eyes. “I know how we can get our parents back.”
Glide blinks. “How?”
“I’ll show you. But you have to find them first.”
“But how can you–”
“We have to trust each other,” interrupts Berryfer, pressing his shoulder. “That’s the only way this is gonna work: with trust.”
Glide’s eyes travel slowly from Berryfer’s face to the hoof on his shoulder. “Okay… I trust you.”
The hoof lets go of him. “Good. Now go.”
***
As Twilight, Dash, Rarity, and Fluttershy finally make it down from the mountain, the cabin is nothing but a pile of smoldering ashes. They stare at the remains, panting.
“What the hay happened?” asks Dash, floating in the air.
“Let’s take a closer look,” says Twilight. She glances at Fluttershy who is drawing support from her and Rarity. “You should stay here. I don’t want you breathing any of that smoke.”
“I’ll stay with her,” says Rarity.
Twilight nods and trots towards the ruin of the cottage. The bitter smoke lingers heavily all around the yard and some of it gets into her eyes. She stops a few meters from where the walls of the cabin stood, peering through the smoke at the ashes. Soon she hears the sound of wings above her.
“It couldn’t have just sparked on its own, right?” says Dash.
“It’s highly unlikely,” says Twilight, coughing. She looks up. “It was fine when you went outside, wasn’t it?”
Dash’s eyes go wide. “No way… No bucking way…”
“What?” asks Twilight quickly.
“When I last saw it, the cabin was fine,” says Dash, circling Twilight. “But I saw something move near it.”
“You didn’t think to mention this earlier?”
“I thought it was a deer!” says Dash, spreading her hooves in the air. “I mean, what else it could’ve been?”
Twilight coughs and looks one more time at the blackened destruction before her. There is nothing left of the furniture or even of the floor. All the saddlebags burned, too. “More like who it could’ve been.” She looks grimly at Dash. “This was an arson.”
Dash frowns. “Draught Tear’s pals?”
Twilight nods slowly. “They must be lurking around here somewhere.” She turns her head from side to side, looking at the surrounding treelines and undergrowth. “They might be watching us right now.”
Dash follows Twilight’s example, searching for anything unusual. The roar of the rapid mixes in with the crackling fire, and the smoke still stings both of their eyes. The pines wave in the weak wind, bringing their own faint tune into the melody of creeping oppressiveness. Next to the trail that leads to the mountain, Rarity and Fluttershy sit, looking expectantly at them.
“How long is your horn gonna stay dull?” asks Dash quietly, still looking suspiciously around.
Twilight closes her eyes, frowning. For a moment, a spark of purple energy appears at the tip of her horn, only to disappear immediately after. “A while,” says Twilight frustratedly. When she open her eyes, the first thing she sees is Rarity. “We should get closer to them.”
“Yeah, good idea,” says Dash slowly from above her. Her ear pricks up, turning towards the closest treeline.
Twilight, still looking at Rarity, raises her hoof. From somewhere behind her, a strange noise carries to her ears over the dying flames and the raging rapid. It resembles a long, high-pitched whistle, like a boiling kettle, but some primal instinct tells her that the origin of the noise has nothing to do with teatime. The next thing she knows, she is pushed violently against the blackened ground. The whistling sound grows louder for a second and then disappears, melting into the mixed screams of Rarity and Fluttershy.
The body pressing Twilight down rises abruptly. “Get up!” barks Dash’s voice, sharp as a lash. “Get up get up get up!”
Twilight fumbles to her feet, looking wildly around with half of her face stained in ash. She sees Dash, or the enraged wild animal that strangely resembles Dash. She is crouching, hind legs digging into the scorched ground and wings spread wide. She is snarling and baring her teeth at something, eyes aflame with fury. Twilight follows the burn trail through the cloud of smoke. From the treetops, something trots closer to them, a dark-blue light glowing near its head.
A unicorn , Twilight realizes, freezing. I was right. Draught Tear did have accomplices. “Rarity!” she shouts, not taking her eyes off the stranger. “Ra–”
Her shout breaks in two, the damaged half turning into a frightened, disbelieved yelp. By her side, she hears Dash gasp. As a breeze of wind blows away the thick smoke and gives them a good look of the unknown assailant, they notice the wound in his chest. Despite the rough edges, and the dirt surrounding it, the round form is clearly visible, as is the glimpse of the green forest on the other side. It’s a neat hole, a clean cut, standing right on the place where his heart should be.
“Impossible,” says Dash, the flame extinguished in her eyes.
“D-draught Tear?” whimpers Twilight. Only her eyelids are moving, blinking rapidly. “I-I k-killed you…”
Draught Tear stops his staggering, his horn glowing brighter again.
A shock wave travels over Dash’s spine. “He’s gonna shoot again!” The pegasus zaps to her wings. “We got to move!”
Twilight remains immobile, staring Draught Tear in the eyes. It’s difficult to say through the veil of smoke, but they seem to be completely black, as if their pupils had dilated into unnatural proportions. For a blink of an eye, she sees how they flicker in the light of the indigo bolt that leaps from his horn, flying towards her with astounding speed. She stares at it like a startled deer, unable to move, to breathe, to think; the bolt whistles like a train, sprints like a famished wolf. It stops a length of a horn from her face, crackling and fizzling against a light-blue surface, only to fade away with one last whistle.
“Back away!” shouts Rarity from behind Twilight. She glances over her shoulder, seeing her shining horn. Twilight blinks, and from some other dimension, the reality floods in, fast and violently.
“Everypony, get behind Rarity!” cries Twilight, rising to her wings. Then she notices that Dash and Fluttershy are already there, the latter in the air, the former cowering right behind Rarity. Twilight glides quickly next to Dash and Rarity. They all glare at the stallion who stands still on the other side of the ruin, swaying like a blade of grass in the wind.
“Can you keep up with his attacks?” Twilight asks from Rarity.
“I’ve turned a pile of thread and fabric into a collection of top-class garments in ten hours,” answers Rarity, her gaze nailed at the stallion. “He needs to beat that before getting through my horn.”
“Don’t waste energy to counter-attacks,” continues Twilight. “We have no idea what we’re dealing with here.”
“To tell the truth, I’m not that strong at offensive magic anyway,” confesses Rarity. She flinches as the stallion starts circling them to his right. “What should we do?”
“All I need is a split second,” says Dash through gritted teeth. “And that… thing… has to learn performing magic tricks with a broken horn.” She snorts angrily.
Twilight follows as the stallion trots around them, his black eyes studying them indifferently. Every step seems to be a challenge for him, as if he didn’t know how to use his legs properly. He even stumbles for a second, almost losing his balance. Like a zombie. But if he is dead, how can he use magic? How can he walk in the first place? This is insane…
“I don’t think it’s a good idea to touch him,” says Twilight. “Whatever it is that makes him tick, it can’t be healthy for us.”
“I-is he in p-pain?” whispers Fluttershy from behind. “H-he looks l-like it…”
Draught Tear stops his clumsy trotting in a shadow of a large pine, turning towards the four ponies. His horn starts gleaming stronger again. They all freeze.
“You should back away,” says Rarity. “I think he is aiming at me this time.”
“No way,” says Dash, inching a bit closer to Rarity. “When he fires… I’ll charge at him.”
“No you won’t,” blurts Twilight. “For all we know, you might turn up like him if you make contact.” She sees how the light concentrates at the tip of his horn. “Here it co–”
From behind them, a terrible ripping sound carries. They look quickly back and see how one of the massive pines, wrapped in an eerie indigo glow, falls on them.
“Watch out!” cries Twilight. They disperse like a flock of birds, Twilight and Dash in the air, Fluttershy and Rarity on the ground. The tree crashes right where they were standing. One of the branches scrapes Twilight’s cheek, and she can feel sharp pain cutting her coat. A flurry of pine needles fills the air, and in the middle of the chaos, her eyes happen to glance at the tree’s base. The sight makes her heart skip a beat. He ripped the whole thing from its roots like it was nothing.
“Head down!” shouts a raspy voice from behind her. Twilight is yanked back in the air, right when another magical bolt cleaves the air just by her nose. Immediately after, she is pushed down in the cover of the fallen tree where Rarity and Fluttershy are huddling.
“I’m no match for him,” Rarity stutters, eyes wide and needles sticking from her mane. “He is too strong.” Fluttershy clasps tighter to her.
Dash peeks quickly over the massive trunk. “He is coming closer.”
Catching her breath, Twilight looks at her friends. He is going to kill us all, just like I killed him. This is his revenge. This is my fault. My… fault… Even when she is sitting completely still, her heart rate only climbs up higher and her breathing intensifies by the second. What should I do what should I do what should I do? Think think think think think…
Dash looks carefully over the tree again. This time, she gasps in surprise. “He… He is walking backwards.”
“What?” exclaims Twilight. She stands up next to Dash. About twenty meters from them, the stallion retreats, with great effort, back to the shadow of the pines. When he gets there, his horn lights up once more. “Everypony, move!” cries Twilight, pulling Dash down with her.
“Where to?” asks Rarity, panic seeping through her every syllable.
Before Twilight can answer, the tree trunk starts shaking violently. She watches in horror as it rises from the ground. “Anywhere but here!”
They flee. Twilight and Dash soar through the air while Rarity helps Fluttershy gallop as fast as she can. The pine creeks noisily behind them, shedding more needles as it defies gravity. Twilight turns in the air, her eyes darting to the stallion. His pitch-black eyes look straight at her. The abyssal stare lances through her like a blade made of frost. What is he planning? Is he going to smack me with the bucking pine? The stallion’s eyes lower. Twilight follows them, seeing how Fluttershy lies on her flank on the grass, her chest heaving. Rarity stands next to her, looking helplessly alternately at Twilight and Draught Tear. For a second, the whole world stands still. It shatters when he hurls the trunk at Rarity and Fluttershy.
Some say that extreme experiences and events, such as the possibility of seeing one’s friends squashed under a large tree, have the power to slow down time. The phenomenon is often explained with the notion that the brain reacts to certain stress hormones with increased awareness and perception. Indeed, as Twilight watched the pine soar through the air, it felt to her as if it was moving very slowly. The problem was that so was she. Her wings were coated with tar, and Rainbow Dash wasn’t doing any better, as she could deduce from the dept of the desperate scream that cut the air behind her. To Twilight’s astonishment, Dash was the only one making any noise during the short flight of the great pine; she herself had no air in her lungs to breathe, and Rarity had instinctively huddled over Fluttershy, trying to protect her with her body.
At the moment when Twilight’s mind had registered the trajectory of the tree, she had lunged towards its landing point. But it wasn’t just with her body that she tried futilely to reach the point that had instantaneously become the most important one in the universe, but also with her mind. She grasped deep inside herself, never minding the rational part of her soul that reminded her that there was nothing there, not at least for the next hour or so. Her magic was drained, and there was nothing anypony could do about it. It was exactly as she had said, barely an hour ago: magic isn’t miraculous. It is an inner power of the pony, an attribute just like stamina. It can be exhausted. And yet she gropes in the void, scrapes at the bottom of her soul, extracting every ounce of mental energy to rub life into whatever engine worked for his horn. She might have as well hoped to make fire by clapping her hooves together real fast.
Considering this, words totally fail to express her perplexion when the tree, without any comprehensible reason whatsoever, stops mid-air, perhaps some thirty centimeters from Rarity’s horn. Twilight sees it, but fails to act accordingly and thus collides with the trunk, dropping to the grass with flaring pain blooming on her forehead. The trunk comes down a second later, landing neatly between her and Rarity huddling over Fluttershy. Just as the dull agony is about to fade and give way for the real pain, Twilight sees that the trunk starts trembling again. Rarity raises her head just in time to see it fall on her.
“No!” cries Twilight, reaching for the tree with her hoof. In a way of a foal that has been caught stealing cookies before dinner time by their mother, the tree freezes. Rarity stares at it, her left eye twitching slightly.
A part of Twilight wants nothing more but to scream out loud “What is happening?!”, but as she feels the pine slipping from her grasp, all other through are pushed aside. She can feel the tree, just as if she was levitating it, although the sensation has an unfamiliar tinge to it that she for her life can't describe. It's like she was holding tongs with tongs, trying to pick something up. It didn’t help that the “something” was a hundred-year-old tree.
“Move!” she shouts, fighting to keep the tree from crushing Rarity and Fluttershy.
Rarity blinks and pulls Fluttershy up. Just as they have rolled from the way, Twilight loses whatever hold she had of the tree. Splinters fill the air as it comes crashing down, but Twilight doesn’t pay the fact any attention. She stares at Draught Tear, or the thing that resembles him. He stands in a shade, staring at her with eyes like coal. Twilight can’t say for sure, but it seems as if he is hesitating.
A familiar sound of wings closes in on her. “About time you got your magic back,” says Dash, eyeing Draught Tear. “See? I bet that hole in his chest itches real bad right now.”
“I can’t use magic yet,” whispers Twilight. “And I don’t think he feels much at the moment.”
Dash’s head spins at her. “But I just saw you–”
“I know. Don’t ask about it; we need to focus on him now.” Twilight takes a step forward. “Lead Fluttershy and Rarity out of here. Hide in where we made the last camp. If I don’t–”
With an assertive thud, Dash lands next to Twilight. Suddenly, the empty stare from the other side of yard feels like a distant tickle to Twilight. Without being able to help herself, she glances at Dash. The look the pegasus gives her pierces right through her skull.
“In your dreams,” says Dash. Her voice is steel folded over bedrock.
From behind her, Twilight hears Rarity’s voice: “I happily concur.” Twilight turns her head, her eyes widening as Rarity, covered in pine needles and red scratches running all over her, walks by her side.
“Where’s Flu–”
“Behind the tree,” answers Rarity in a tone that might cut diamonds. She looks at Twilight. “She urged me to come.”
For a moment, tears touch Twilight’s eyes, forming a well that reaches all the way to the primal spring of her soul. She blinks the shimmering away and glares at Draught Tear again, every cell of her body oozing with vigour. “I think I've found his weakness.”
“Transparency?” says Dash.
“The sun,” continues Twilight. “Every time he moves in the sunlight, he spasms. He can’t stand it.”
“How should we proceed?” asks Rarity.
A crooked smile brushes Twilight’s lips. “We help him to renew his tan.”
On the other side of the yard, in the shadow within a shade, the thing hesitates. This is not what it had expected. As it studies the three mares whispering to each other, a sense of a doubt seeps into the process that, in the lack of a better word, serves the purpose of thinking in the thing’s mind. There is something suspicious in the mare in the middle, in the one with the wings and the horn, the sight of whom makes the parts of the thing that still in some ways resemble Draught Tear shiver in fear. But it isn't the fear of the unknown, nor the fear of the familiar enemy, for neither of these exist for the creature. Instead of these, a peculiar distortion reigns. In its eyes, the alicorn appears as a new letter in the alphabet, as something familiar and strange at the same time. It was like seeing one’s mirror image wink at you, right before it crashed through the glass to try and kill you.
The Road to Prolegomena
By Stanku
Proofreaders: Lordfrieza, Senyu
Amidst the shadows of pines, near the toes of the mountains, and in the earshot of roaring rapids, there rests a cabin. The simple structure of unpainted wood and tarred gabled roof hides in the scenery; it melts into the deep green woods as if some spell covered it. The cabin belongs there; along with the pines, the mountains, and the river, it declares its right to exist on this very place with a tacit statement that shines from its stout figure.
That is what having a home means, belonging , thinks a unicorn stallion who stands on a cliff some hundred meters above the building, studying the panoramic view with narrowed, glinting eyes. The wind blows from behind him, sending his rich and rugged mane swinging like long lichen tangled in a tree. He breathes in the fresh air, closing his wrinkled eyebrows, listening to the mountains bellowing all around him. When he opens them, his attention is drawn to movement from down below.
A deer , he thinks at first. No, a pony . Deer don’t wear saddlebags. Nor hooded capes. He peers at the figure making its way up the steep mountain trail, leaning slightly over the edge to get a better look. That is unexpected. Why would anypony venture this far to the wilderness? He pulls back as a loose rock stumbles down in front of his hooves. It disappears into the gorge below in seconds. In any case, seems like they are coming straight to my home. The unicorn's thick mane covers his face as he turns to face the wind, but he clears his vision with a hoof and picks up his saddlebag, beginning his long descent down. He doesn’t use magic, but takes every step with his own hooves.
As he finally gets down on the level with his cabin, he sees that the stranger has already arrived. Waiting by the porch, the hood shadowing their face, the visitor seems as they were expecting the stallion to arrive. The unicorn takes his time walking to them, never once taking his purple eyes off the figure. He stops well away from them, putting down his saddlebag before speaking.
“What is your business here, stranger?” he asks warily. “Have you lost your way?”
The hooded pony remains silent.
“Or have you come here to meet me?” continues the stallion. “If so, I would like to see your face. And hear your name, if you happen to have one.”
Only the winds answer to him, roaring alongside the river behind him.
“Are you alright in there?” he asks, narrowing down his eyes.
“I’m sorry ,” whispers a voice from the depths of the hood. “I’m so sorry .”
“Come again? These old ears of mine didn’t quite catch th–”
A ray of dark purple light, mixed with veins of feverish green and black, surges towards the stallion from the confines of the hood, cutting short his sentence. It stops a mere horn-length from his face, crackling as it tries to burn through a light-blue forcefield that he summoned just in the nick of time. The violet energy intensifies and grows darker, and the stallion can feel his spell crumbling before its strength. This magic is powerful; way beyond my capacities. I have to flee before–
Suddenly, the hostile energy pulls back and wraps around the dome that surrounds the old unicorn, spreading around him like a large blanket. He can do nothing but stare in terror and awe as it covers his shield entirely, and very slowly, begins to compress it. Only seconds later it has pushed his own spell just some centimeters from his body. Is he going to crush me to death? His mind fills with the sounds of snapping bones and tearing limbs, and like a sinkhole, they swallow his sanity piece by piece. Without realizing it, he starts to pray.
Then his wide, wild eyes meet his enemy. At once, the blind fear evaporates in the face of a genuine confusion. A mare… A young mare. I’m going to be smashed to pulp by a mare young enough to be my daugther . Even at this distance, the stallion can see the glint of hate in the eyes of his assailant, now unveiled of her hood. But... I don’t even know your name… I have never seen your face… His own spell, glowing dimmer now, presses against his ribs, his neck, his beard. It doesn’t stop there. No, no, no! It’s enclosing too fast, too fast, too close. The fear returns, more paralysing than ever. He closes his eyes, focusing all mental energy on pushing back her magic. For a few seconds, the dark purple dome crackles, expands, and then compresses again.
Could this be Celestia’s doing? Is this her idea of justice? A grunt of pain escapes him as the aura tightens even more. I’m going to die, I’m going to die . I’m going to die screaming. His eyes flash open, wide and wild. “Stop!” he shrieks. “Please, make it stop!” His tail gets squashed against his flank. Can she even hear me through this bubble? Or does she not care? How can she hate me so, to do this to me, this… He can see it now. A pool of blood, shreds of coat, and some flesh from which broken bones protrude. His future. His very near future. Seeing it in his eyes, there is only one thing a sane mind can do to escape it. There’s no point in trying to prolong this. He closes his eyes. And cancels the shielding spell.
He expects the agony to enrobe him at the instant; instead, nothing happens. Then, under the familiar roar of the river, he hears sounds of a struggle. With extreme wariness, he cracks open his eyelids. He sees two mares, a unicorn and a pegasus, wrestling on the ground some meters away from the place where the unicorn stood just a moment ago, ready to squish him with his own spell. The pegasus is shouting something at the unicorn, but he can’t make out the words for the fury of the rapid. He does see, though, when the unicorn’s cape gets torn off her in the heat of the fight.
The old stallion gasps as he spots the wings on the lavender unicorn’s back. An alicorn? But she is so young! How is that possible? What is going on? Enthralled by the sight, the stallion is about to take a step closer to the two fighting mares, but he can’t make a move before a soft voice addresses him from behind. “I’m terribly sorry about this,” is all he can hear before a sharp blow sends him tumbling on the ground, flaring pain searing the back of his head.
Before the dark fills his eyes, he sees how the alicorn wraps the pegasus into a cloud of purple magic and throws her high into the air like a rag. The alicorn stands up, her horn glowing sinister purple. A bolt of pure energy leaps off it just before the cyan mare reaches the alicorn and brings them both to the ground in a flurry of hooves and wings. The stallion doesn’t see what happens to the two, for his fleeting consciousness is nailed at the purple arrow that speeds towards him, cracking and fizzling as it crosses the grass in the likeness of a sprinting wolf. It won’t be stopped, it can’t be stopped, it hits him any second now…
It’s stopped by the body of a pegasus mare, yellow as wheat bathing in the light of the summer sun.
The last thing he sees is her collapsing to the ground.
***
He wakes up to the feeling of cold wetness travelling over his brow and scalp. A trickle of water runs into his eyes as he opens them, making him blink. Some of the liquid travels into his mouth, and he can taste the familiar flavour of salt and iron mixed into the water. Blood. My blood. The salt smarts his eyes as he opens them again, but for some reason he can’t bring his hoof to wipe them clean. Through the moistness, he can make out a figure of a mare standing over him, her horn glowing faintly.
“Who are you?” he asks, squinting. “What is happening to me?”
“No need to worry. I am just cleaning this blood off you. I have no words to express my grievance over the fact that I had to hit you with a rock, but rest assured in the knowledge that I found no joy in the act.” The mare wipes his brow a bit more, and then squeezes the rug clean atop a bucket next to her. The light red liquid dribbles down, and splashing noises fill the stallion’s ears. “When it comes to my name, it’s Rar–”
“–Don’t tell him your name!” snaps a sharp, mildly raspy voice from somewhere out of the stallion’s field of vision. He tries to strain his neck to see better, but finds moving his upper body impossible. Am I tied to my own bed, in my own cabin?
“We had to tie you up,” says the mare next to him, sinking the rag into a clean bucket. “I am sorry about that, too.” She begins to wipe his head again. “The wound isn’t too bad, in the case you were wondering,” she continues with a casual tone. “Head wounds just tend to bleed a lot. I remember this one occasion when Sweetie Belle–”
“–Don’t tell him anything , Rar!” shouts the same raspy voice.
The unicorn mare turns abruptly towards the voice. “Well excuse me if I feel obliged to tend a senior pony whose head I just split open, right after Twilight tried to kill him!”
“Are you deaf or what?!” continues the other voice. “Don’t use names! And get over here: Flutter–I mean, uhm… Just get over here!”
“What’s wrong with her?” asks the unicorn anxiously, dropping the rag as she walks quickly out of the stallion’s sight. The two ponies keep on talking, but quieter now, and he can’t make out what they’re saying.
Is my head really split? wonders the stallion absentmindedly, staring at the ceiling. I do feel weirdly light… Perhaps I’m going to die, after all. His ears register another loud argument erupting between the two ponies, with the words like “Twilight”, “potion”, and “hopefully” crisscrossing in the air in a seemingly meaningless order. Perhaps death wouldn't be the worst option available at the moment… This headache is worse than the time I ran head-on to the lamp-post as a colt. He tries to move his front hooves again to ease the stinging of his eyes, but the ropes holding him down are skilfully knotted. After some hesitation, his horn glimmers faintly, but the light dies down quickly. It’s no use. My mind is too weak now.
He closes his eyes and submits to the confines of his eyelids. The throbbing pain, the noises, the feeling of ropes digging into his limbs: they all fall to the background as he concentrates on his breathing, on the one thing he is still in full control of. His chest heaves gently in rhythm of his lungs, and muscle by muscle, his tensed body relaxes under the constraints, under the pain, and under the fear. I am nothing but a hull, but a shell, but a husk. My body is my burden, my soul is my crime. Mother Earth, Father Mountain, Brother River… I will join with you soon. He loses consciousness with a faint smile on his lips.
***
When he wakes up for the second time, it’s dead quiet, and despite his eyes being wide open, he can’t see a thing. It takes him a moment to realize that instead of gazing at the Other Side, the night has finally fallen on the mountains. And I’m still tied down. Did they just leave me like this? Or are they sleeping here, too? His attempts to rise up prove as futile as the last time, but now that his own blood isn’t clouding him anymore, he can get a better view of the dim room he is in. They tied me to my bedroom . Why are they doing this to me? What more have they planned on doing? This headache is killing me...
Minutes pile on top of each other as the stallion lies in the darkness, unable to sleep, unable to stay awake. Just as he is about to try freeing himself with magic again, the closed bedroom door creaks. Instinctively he closes his eyes and lets his body fall limp. Steps intrude his ears, steps calm and silent as a cat’s. Behind the closed eyelids, his gaze focuses towards the noise that stops right by his bead. It’s the alicorn. I know it is. She has come to finish me off, just like her friend said… His pulse gets higher by the second, and despite his best efforts, he is beginning to inhale faster. She is looking at me, studying me, pondering whether to go for the head or the heart. I’m ready, you bitch, you freak of nature. Do it. Do it now.
Nothing happens. Only the seconds die in their scores, every agonizing demise adding just a little bit more weight to the stallion’s aged heart, adding just another doubt into his mind. What are you waiting for? For me to wake up? I won’t give you the pleasure, bitch. I won’t. A whole minute later, and he can feel moistness forming under his back. I’m going to scream, I’m going to scream. Kill me, don’t kill me, whatever you came here to do, do it already. I don’t want to die sweating like a pig, I don’t, I don’t want to… die. His lips crack open, ready to say something.
“Twilight?” whispers a soft voice from the doorstep. “What are you doing?”
He almost throws open his eyes, but instead manages to let out a sleepy grunt. He hears some movement by his side, guessing that the alicorn turned to look at the speaker.
“Nothing… I wasn’t going to do anything,” answers the one called Twilight, sounding surprised. “I just… wanted to look at him.”
“Why?” asks the voice whom the stallion now recognizes belonging to the mare who treated his wound earlier.
“I… He…”
“Would you come back to sleep now?”
He can’t sense nor hear movement near him.
“Twilight…” continues the unicorn’s emphatic voice. “One of these nights, you have to sleep more than a few hours.”
Against all his reason and survival instincts, the stallion can’t help himself anymore, but cracks one of his eyelids as little as possible to get a glimpse of what’s happening in the room. He sees the alicorn’s backside, and to her left, the unicorn mare who is standing by the door. The alicorn sways slightly while she stands, as if she might collapse at any moment. Her head is drooping heavily.
“I can’t, Rarity… Every time I close my eyes, every time sleep tries to get hold of me... all I can see is Canterlot burning. Screaming. Dying.” Her voice succumbs again near the end of her sentence. “How can't you see that, too?”
“What makes you think I don't?” says Rarity. Her words almost fail to reach the stallion. “I was there, too. I was there when the Castle gates fell. I was there when…” Her rich curls hide her face as she averts the alicorn’s gaze. “I was there.”
“How can you sleep, then?” asks Twilight.
Silence descends in the room, veiling the ponies there like a cloak. “We are alive, thus we need sleep," responds Rarity. "We will find it, dreams or no.” She extends a hoof towards Twilight. “Please. Come search with me.”
They leave the room without another word and close the door after them, leaving the stallion alone with his questions. Canterlot, burning? When, how, why? Has the world gone insane? The last remark forces a muffled chuckle out of him. No… The world has only come to realize that it was insane to begin with.
***
Under the same moon that harbors the cottage, Canterlot can’t find sleep. On the streets and city squares, ponies of different ages, sizes, and races work without rest, without sleep, without pause. They work without knowing why. Torches and bonfires light their night and paint their empty, hollow faces with shadows. Nopony speaks, but nonetheless they work in unison, leveling buildings here and there, digging open a street cobblestone by cobblestone, building forges like ones the city has never seen. The magical city has turned into a massive construction yard, into an intricate machine with a single purpose; a purpose nopony knows.
However, no matter how delicate a machinery is, no matter how craftily the parts connect to each other to create a whole, there is always room for anomalies to seep in. Anomalies such as a family of three unicorns, hiding in a cellar, cowering in the dark, avoiding one anothers faces. A little colt, dark as a blueberry, clasps to his mother, a cream white mare with a raven mane. The mother soothes her foal, whispering words of some lullaby. The father, grim straining his face, watches the two halves of his heart, his eyes filled with anxiousness.
“It’s time,” he whispers, cringing as he hears footsteps carrying from the street above. He looks at the small cellar window, behind which shadows move away. He sighs in relief and stands up. “Follow me.”
“No!” whines the colt into her mother’s chest. “I don’t want to, they’ll find us, they’ll–”
“Quiet, Berryfer,” says the stallion. “They will find us here for certain. It's too late to back off the plan now.”
The colt’s pleas only get more fervent. “They’ll take you away, just like they took away everypony else, just like they took away Dawn’s parents… and Stonecraft’s, and Sugar Blossom’s, and–”
“Hush now, dear,” says the mare, brushing the colt’s soft mane and kissing his brow. “They won’t take us. We won’t let them.”
The colt’s whining turns into sobbing, yet he doesn’t say a word. The mare plants another kiss on his cheek. “Remember what I told you yesternight?”
“Y-yeah…”
The mother smiles faintly, brushing her foal’s mane with her muzzle. “Could you say it for me, please?”
“There’s no time,” begins the stallion, glancing at the cellar window again. “We need to go before–” He quiets down as he sees his wife’s expression.
She looks at the colt again, gently lifting his trembling chin with a hoof. “Recite me the poem, Berryfer.”
The colt swallows a bitter mouthful. With a thin, wavering voice, he says:
“Night so dark there exists not that the Sun, bright and hot wouldn't there ever trot.”
The colt looks at his mother’s eyes, into the pools of green that where the first part of reality he ever saw, and the tears dry. They still press his eyes, but now he fights them back, the words of the poem his shield. He recites it again, a bit louder this time.
“Good colt,” says the mare, her eyes shimmering. “I love you so very much.” The two hug each other tightly.
“We must go,” says the stallion after a moment, his voice softer now. “Follow me.”
With some difficulty, the colt gets up after his mother and huddles strongly against her flank. All three stay quiet as they fumble their way across the dim cellar, avoiding crates and worn furniture. Hoofsteps ring in the small space as they meet the cold stone floor. Soon they’ve made it under the stairs, where the stallion turns to face the other two.
“Wait here,” he whispers and starts to climb. The heavy cellar door creaks nastily as he pushes it open a bit and slips outside. At the base of the wooden steps, the two ponies wait and stare at the opening above. Minutes pass painfully slow.
“Did they get him?” asks the colt, holding his breath. To the mare's relief, the stallion appears behind the door before she can answer.
“The way is clear, come quickly,” he says. When the colt reaches his father, he presses tightly against him.
“Come now, son,” hushes the stallion, rubbing his mane with a hoof. “They're not going to catch your old pa that easily.”
Berryfer only clasps more fervently to the stallion. In the end, he has to push his son away from him. “That’s enough. The others are waiting upstairs. Let’s go.”
They exit the cellar, leaving the door open behind them. After crossing a corridor and another set of stairs, they enter into a large kitchen. Empty pots and kettles stare at them as they go for the door beyond, and shards of broken plates crack like thunder under their hooves. Nopony can hear that , the stallion tells himself. We’re deep inside the mansion, no noise can carry into the streets from here . The kitchen door opens without a complaint, revealing a dining hall behind. The stench of rotten food fills their noses, and the colt gags involuntarily. They walk quickly to the other side, through the double doors that lead to the main living room.
In there, they meet seven more ponies. An elderly pegasus mare, two earth pony fillies and a colt, an earth pony stallion and two young mares, one of whom is a pegasus, the other a common pony. Their differences in social class, appearance, and age all lose their meaning in the face of the fear they share, in the tacit terror that shines from their eyes. The only exception is the elderly mare, whose sight is as grey as her mane.
“Did the rabbits come out of their hole already?” she asks, her head turning towards the opening the door.
“Mother!” snaps the younger pegasus mare, glaring at the elder one. She is immediately hushed down by the two other adults. “Stop calling them that,” she adds more quietly.
“It makes no matter, Flight,” says the father calmly as the family of unicorns joins in with the others. “We are all here now. Is the way clear?”
The other stallion nods at him. “Just checked. There’s nopony around the building.” He hesitates a moment and then adds: “The moon is up and bright, though. Maybe we should–”
“–Wait for the clouds to wander around?” finishes the earth pony mare, looking annoyedly at the stallion. “That might take hours.” One by one, she looks at each adult in the eyes. ”There’s no telling when they start tearing the houses down again. This is our shot. We should just go for it.”
“What if it’s a trap?” asks the elderly pegasus, her blind eyes looking a bit off of the earth pony mare. “They might be out of their minds, but who’s to say they ain’t smart?”
The cream-white mare takes a step forward. “The only thing we know for certain about them is that ever since last week, they've turned the city upside down. Literally. It maybe only a matter of time before they come for this house.”
“That’s a big ‘maybe’,” says the elder mare under her breath. Her words tie everypony’s tongues into a knot. They all steal glances at one another’s faces, all the foals looking either at the adults or at each other as they huddle closer to their parents. A weird thought crosses the father’s mind as he studies the small group of survivors that chance has brought together. We’re all strangers here, as scared of each other as we are of the perils outside. He clears his throat to draw everypony’s attention.
“We can talk about our situation for hours, just like we have ever since the world turned insane. We are scared, insecure, unaware of what's happening outside.” He puts a hoof on his wife’s neck, drawing her closer. “But if there is one thing I’m certain of, then it’s that we have become tired of waiting for things to get worse. We are leaving the city tonight. Those of you who want to stay here are welcomed to do so.” He pays a glance at the two pegasus mares. “The rest of you: once we get outside the city, remember that numbers count. A larger group has a better chance of making it out there than a small one.”
“But that ain’t the point,” continues the elder mare with a dry, rough voice. “The city is in lockdown, we all know that. Guards at the gates, perimeters everywhere, torches, pegasus patrols… You’d be lucky to make it to the outer city.” The grey stare sweeps the small group, making the foals cower deeper behind their parents’ legs.
The father studies her calmly. “Who agrees with Agathea here?” he asks without taking his eyes off her.
For a moment, silence reigns supreme. Then the other pegasus coughs. “I can’t leave my mother… I’m sorry.” Her gaze turns to the carpet.
He doesn’t pay her any attention. “Anypony else?”
“We’re with you,” says the earth pony mare. Her husband and the three foals nod at her words.
The father smiles at them faintly and looks at his son and wife. “Very well, then. First we need to–”
A massive crash, like a full grown oak splitting in two, fills the living room and sends everypony there panicking. Terrified, shrill screams of the foals mix in with the alarmed questions of the adults.
“What the hay was that?!”
“Did they break in?!”
“What's happening?!”
Another loud noise floods in and drowns all the other voices. This time, the tide of splintering wood is accompanied by a violent shaking that brings down one of the cabinets. The shattering glass brings its formidable addition to the cacophony of dissonance that rages in the room. The father, as in a trance, realizes that somepony is shouting at him. He turns his head to the left and sees the terror-struck face of his wife staring at him.
“That came from the back,” she repeats, panic seeping through every syllable. “That came from the back.”
He blinks as he understands. The Oak Gate. They demolished the Oak Gate. A third crash, the loudest so far, carries from somewhere behind them. The noise is different now, it sounds like a rockslide just broke into a china shop. “The stables,” he says, more to himself than to anypony else. “Everypony, to the stables!” He has to repeat himself a couple of times before they hear him. “It’s our only chance!”
They look at him, then at one another, and at the same time, they run. The three little foals line in between their parents, and the pegasus mare helps her mother as they fly after them, disappearing through a set of double doors. Another shock travels through the building, sending plates and other artefacts rattling in their cupboards. Falling dust from the ceiling makes Berryfer cough as his mother pulls him towards the others.
“Wait,” says the father, his tone less urgent now. “Not that way. Follow me.”
The mare turns a confused look at him. “But you said–”
“I know what I said. There's no time to argue: hurry up!”
Berryfer glances up at his mother and sees the flash of doubt in her eyes. Nonetheless, she obeys, and together they follow the stallion who heads for the third door in the living room, opening it with his horn. He ushers them through and pays one last glimpse to the living room of his ancestors. Heavy dust floats in the air, and most of the decorative artworks that he has been collecting half of his life are nothing but ruins now. Another shockwave makes the chandelier come down in a spectacular show of breaking glass and heritage. He closes the door with a thud.
After galloping across several corridors and beautifully decorated rooms, the mare stops abruptly, holding back the colt, too. “Not a step more, Arch Freight. Not until you tell us where we're going.”
Arch Freight glances behind him. “To the Southern Entry. Once we make it past the garden, we can–”
“What?” blurts the mare. “That was not the plan! We were supposed to take the wagons filled with rubble and exit through the–”
“We can’t do it anymore: the intruders will have brought their own carriages along. We would be spotted at once.”
Her eyes narrow down. “But you sent the others…” In one fell moment, the lines of confusion disappear from her brow. “No… You used them as a b–”
“It wasn't supposed to go like this,” hurries Arch Freight to say before the mare’s revelation can catch onto the colt. “It’s done. Please… There is no time.”
Berryfer looks at his mother, then at his father, oblivious of what is going on, secure in the thought that whatever it is, it’s not going to end well. A feeling of biting cold creeping up along his leg makes his eyes dart down. Through the floorboards, a tentacle of black smoke rises and wraps around his ankle. He’d scream, but the air in his throat has frozen.
“Berryfer!” shrieks the mare as she sees her foal’s distress. She stomps on the tentacle, and despite its seemingly non-corporeal form, it writhes in agony as the hoof lands on top of it. It doesn’t let go of the colt, though. The mare stomps again, but to no avail. On the third attempt, another limb build of mist emerges from down below, grabs her ankle, and pulls violently. The mare lets out a cry of pain as her knee hits the floor. “Arch!” she shouts hysterically. “Help him, help him, help h–”
A brilliant light fills the corridor, blinding both the foal and the mare. It dies down as suddenly as it appeared, and when the two can see again, they notice the now severed tentacles twisting and wriggling painfully on the ground, quickly fading away like steam. They look at Arch Freight, whose horn glows faintly in the dim. “Get up,” he says. Nothing happens. “Get up!” he barks. They get up and gallop after him. Behind them, fresh limbs dark as coal spawn from the floor, groping blindly around.
***
In the cabin hiding in the mountains, a stallion is woken up roughly from the strangest dream he has had for a while. Except that it was no dream , he thinks as he sees the cyan mare with a rainbow mane shaking him from the shoulders, sneering. “Wake up, sunshine,” she says with her peculiarly hoarse voice. “Time to chat.” She lets go of him and takes a few steps backwards, her short mane swinging idly over her left eye.
The stallion tries to move his hooves and to his surprise finds the constraints gone. He steps on the severed ropes as he stands up, every muscle in his body complaining of the treatment they’ve been under for the whole night. A nasty cracking sound cuts the air as he stretches his aching limbs and joints.
The mare sneers at the sight and sounds. “Do your aerobics or whatever on your own time. We got some questions for you.”
The stallion gives her a long look from under his thick eyebrows, continuing with his exercises as if nothing had happened.
“You deaf or just difficult, old rag?” she continues. “Get on with it already!”
“Will you give him some rest!” snaps Rarity's voice from the other room. “He has been tied to his bed for the whole night!”
The sight of the cyan mare’s rage boiling in her eyes stirs a faint smile out of the stallion. The pegasus eyes him for a moment and then snorts. “You got five. Come out of here then or I’ll straighten those joints out for you.” She flies to the other room with a few beats of her wings. “And don’t close the door!” she cries from the other side.
They certainly aren’t a typical bunch of bandits, these mares . He crouches his back, wincing as a vertebra clicks into its proper place. I’d wager my beard that Celestia didn’t send them, though. Even she wouldn’t get so desperate as to put idiots like these after me. His neck crunches like frozen snow while he turns it from side to side. That doesn’t leave much room for guessing. They must be some treasure hunters after the formula. Poor souls must have heard the tales from somewhere and somehow managed to track me down. The only question is how they are going to react when they hear that I don’t have anything for them? He shakes his flanks a couple of times and then walks over to the other room where four pairs of eyes simultaneously turn on him. Discounting the cyan pegasus, who is floating in the air, all are seemingly casually lying on their stomachs. He gives each one of them a glimpse of his deep purple gaze.
First he glances at the rainbow pegasus, whose suspicion couldn’t get any more evident. The tough one. Perhaps the leader, or at least wants to be. Bothersome, but not a real threat. Next the seemingly idle eyes travel to Rarity. The worrying one. Might be playing some act with the tough one, trying to get under my coat. I need to keep an eye on her. A light-yellow pegasus with a pink mane is the next one on the line. So you’re the one who took that bolt for me yesterday. We shall see if you end up regretting that decision. He notices a fresh scar on the mare’s chest. I wonder how you survived that. Finally, there is Twilight. The troubled one. I still sense that you want to kill me, although I have no idea why. It’s hard to extract a complicated formula from a smashed brain.
“Sit,” says the cyan pegasus, floating one metre off the ground.
He obeys calmly, looking at his sullen company with blank eyes. “So…” he starts. “From what I’ve heard, you don’t fancy addressing each other with your real names in my presence. That still doesn’t mean that an introduction on my part wouldn't be in order. My name is–”
“–Draught Tear, yeah, we know,” spits the cyan pegasus. “I think we’re past introductions by now.”
He gives her a peculiar look. “Yes,” he says after a moment. “That is my name. Draught Tear. May I ask how–”
“Nope, you can’t,” interrupts the pegasus, flying right in front of him. “We ask, you answer, that’s it.” She turns abruptly around, pointing at Rarity whose mouth had just opened disapprovingly. “And you can save your comments for later! This is an interrogation, not a tea party!” barks the pegasus. Rarity frowns, but she shuts her mouth nonetheless. The pegasus turns back to the stallion. “Got the rules, Professor?”
He nods slowly.
“Awesome. Now, the first question: how do we stop the bitch queen you let loose on Canterlot?”
Even bare stone would look vivid compared to the stallion’s expression. He blinks and looks at the other mares in the simple room, all of whom look expectantly at him. He blinks again and then finally blurts: “What?”
The rainbow pegasus gives her a sharp slap of her hoof. “Two rules, and you still can’t remember them. Try again.”
“RD!” cries Rarity.
The one called RD spins around. “Shut up, Rar’! I can’t do this if you keep–”
“Please stop fighting…” whimpers the yellow pegasus, cowering into her thick mane.
The cyan mare, floating in the air, slaps herself on the forehead with a hoof. “Oh gimme me a break… Both of you, just get out of here. Twi and I are gonna manage just fine alone.”
“And let you beat an old pony in peace!” erupts Rarity, standing up. “In your dreams you, you… bully!”
“Could everypony just calm down, please…” whispers the pegasus lying on the carpet, her voice muffled by her mane.
“A bully?” blurts the cyan mare, incredulous. “Me?! Who you think we’re dealing with here!” She points at the stallion who is rubbing his reddening cheek with the side of his hoof. “That guy is the reason we’re in this mess to begin with! Without him, Celestia and Luna wouldn’t be… and Twilight…” Her face twists in pain and rage, and the words choke in her throat. “I should’ve let her kill him.”
All the ponies fall silent, staring at the pegasus who suddenly looks a lot less bold than a minute ago. Her mane droops before her eyes, and all the energy abandons her in one go. “I’m so tired,” she says quietly. “I can’t do this right now. If you need me, I’ll be on the nearest cloud you can spot in the sky.” She waits for a moment, just to see if anypony objects, and then flies towards the door.
“Rainbow…” whispers the yellow pegasus when she gets to the doorstep and disappears. The other pegasus stands up.
“Let her go, Fluttershy,” says Twilight softly. “You can go outside too if you want to. Rarity and I can carry on here.”
Fluttershy scrapes the wooden floor with a hoof, her half-closed eyes cast down. “I’m sorry,” she mumbles before leaving.
Rarity looks at her go and close the door behind her. She flinches as she sees Twilight looking at her. “Uhm… I don’t mind staying,” she says.
Twilight studies her for a moment. “I’m not sure that it's wise to leave Fluttershy alone for long. The potion I gave her may have side effects.” She looks at the unicorn meaningfully.
Rarity swallows, but doesn’t make a move. “You certain that it’s necessary? Didn’t you say that she’ll be just fine as long as she won't stress herself too–”
“Rarity. Please leave us.”
Rarity glances at the stallion, who stays still as a statue, and then at Twilight again. “Twilight… Are you sure?”
“It’ll be fine. We are just going to talk a bit.” An assuring smile accompanies Twilight's words.
The two mares share a long look. It ends when Rarity walks to the door. Before she closes it behind her, she says: “If you need anything, I’ll be waiting right outside.” The heavy door shuts with a thud.
“Are you going to kill me?” asks the stallion tensely after the silence becomes unbearable.
Twilight, lying on her stomach on the carpet, looks at him intently with her chin raised up slightly higher than usual. “If I answer yes… will you try to kill me?”
“No.”
“It's hard to believe that.”
The stallion shakes his head slowly. “I’ve seen enough years to know when I’m outmatched. You’re young, I’m old. You’re filled with hatred and thirst for revenge while I can only boast being extremely confused at the moment.” He pauses. “On top of that, you’re an alicorn.”
Her wings stir gently. “Would you feel safer if I said that I have no intention of killing you?”
What is with these questions? Is this all an act, a trick? “Somewhat more so, yes,” he answers.
She tilts her head slightly and narrows her eyes. “Are you sure you don’t know why we've come to you?”
Should I try to play time? Or just tell her? She’ll never believe me if I say that I don’t have the formula… “I may have a clue…” he says carefully. “How did you come to learn about the Project Pantheia?”
Her figure tenses instantaneously. “So you admit being a part of it?” The words come out of her mouth like daggers.
“There is no point in denying that, is there? It seems that you have done your backgr–”
The air flees his lungs in one go as the dark-violet mass of light hurls him against a wall and captures him there. The planks creak noisily as his body involuntarily bends them back. The pressure is so immense that he can’t even close his eyes, but is forced to watch the alicorn’s face stained in unbounded rage. “You monster!” she shrieks. Under his back, a plank cracks loudly. “How could you do something like that!” He’d cry in agony, but his collapsed lungs can’t fill themselves again: he can’t breathe at all. “How could Celestia allow that…” tears well up in her eyes, and for an instant, her horn, along with the purple light that flows from it, turns black.
He loses consciousness as the wall breaks behind him. The bliss of the void doesn’t last for long though, and as it fades, excruciating pain envelops his ribs and chest. The first thing he sees is the alicorn, whose face is only centimeters away from his. Their lips are pressed together. Fresh and strangely sweet air fills his lungs as she blows out. Is she… resuscitating me? A savage series of coughs seizes him as he lies amidst the splinters of his living room wall. The alicorn pulls back, shielding her face with a hoof. The seizure lasts for almost a minute, during which he becomes faintly aware that the three other mares have returned and are standing around him, looking at him anxiously.
“Is he going to die?” asks Rarity, cringing. Fluttershy whimpers at that.
“Twilight, I really didn’t mean what I said earlier,” says the cyan pegasus, glancing at Twilight. “We all hate this guy… but we need him, too. You can’t just–”
“I know, Dash,” says Twilight, drying her tears with a wing. “It’s just so… difficult. Every time I look at him, I can see the surgery hall, the cells…” She turns her head, clenching her jaw. “What they did there is unforgivable.”
“We know it is, Twi,” continues Dash. “We all know. But you have to stay focused. We can’t have the ruler of Equestria acting like a friggin psycho.”
“Is he going to die?” repeats Rarity, louder this time.
Dash glances at the still coughing stallion. “He’ll be fine. Aren’t you gonna be just fine?”
“My chest is on fire…” manages the stallion. “And my... heart is...”
“See?” says Dash dryly, looking at Rarity. “Anypony who complains that much can’t be dying anytime soon.”
The stallion’s chest heaves heavily as the tormenting coughing finally dies down to mere painful breathing. He stares at the ceiling, his limbs spread straight around him. If they hate Draught Tear this much, I wonder what they would do to the actual leader of the Project; I’m barely a pony to them as is. Why? All the Project Pantheia ever strived to achieve was to make everypony happy. And we stopped right after the one incident, we buried all the good we could’ve done for the sake of one flaw. He closes his eyes in a vain attempt to ignore both the conversation concerning his fate and the feeling of the nearly broken ribs burning inside him. For one mistake… I’m being tortured to death?
It’s not fair .
***
And That's the Simple Fact
The strokes of a brush fill the quiet room with faint rustling as Silk String straightens her tangled raven mane. Every sweep rips some of the messed hair off, sending stinging pain over her scalp, but she keeps her face blank as the brush floats around her, hold by the glowing white aura. My mother would faint if she saw her precious little filly like this: mane in ruins, sweat and dirt on her stainless coat, bags under her eyes. The thought incites a warm smile on her full lips. You taught me to comb my mane properly long before I even knew how to spell my own name. Arch Freight might regard me vain for this, but there are some things a mare must do even in the middle of an apocalypse. One by one, the thin strands of black hair fall on the plain floor, slipping under the planks. That is what having manners means .
The door to the small room opens suddenly as Arch Freight and Berryfer step hurriedly inside. “Silk!” blurts the stallion as he spots the mare sitting by the window. “Come here quickly.”
“What is it?” she asks worriedly, but then she sees the earth pony colt hanging limply over the stallion’s back. The brush falls to the floor with a clack. “Bring him there,” she commands, pointing at the makeshift bed on the corner, her voice suddenly steady and assertive. “What happened?” she asks as Arch Freight lays the colt on the collection of rugs, blankets, and pillows.
“We found him under the floorboards in the first floor,” he explains while giving room for the mare. “He was conscious then but as we got him out, he fainted.”
Silk String kneels beside the colt, studying him intently. Breathing. Can’t be more than ten, eleven at most. Hasn’t eaten for a while, must be dehydrated, too. No external injuries to speak of. She begins to ever so gently touch the colt’s limbs, chest, head, and neck. No major bone fractures, either. As for internal bleeding, there is no way to check that, but no way to fix either, so... Finally, she checks his pulse. Not alarmingly weak, but his breathing is very shallow and raspy. He must have breathed in dust and whatever else there was under the floor. She stops her examination and turns towards Arch Freight and Berryfer, both of whom are looking at her anxiously.
“From what I can tell, he has gone through a lot, but his life isn’t in immediate danger. Still, he is very weak and needs nourishment, especially water.” She looks expectantly at Arch Freight.
His anxiety gets a grim tinge. “I searched the first three storeys, but found nothing. There might be something in the first floor: we didn't search that completely.”
She nods shortly. “Do that. Berryfer: you go with your father and help him. I will stay here and look after the colt.”
The father and the son nod back to her and hurry to the staircase. She doesn’t watch them go, but returns immediately to her patient. When she kneels by the bed and rests her eyes on him again, she doesn’t automatically start searching for bruises and wounds, doesn’t look at him as a doctor, but as a mother. For an earth pony, he is very slim, even more so than Berryfer and not just because of hunger, I’d say. Under the heavy crust of dust, she can make out a bright yellow coat spotted with white circles, the largest ones of which cover his eyes; his closed, black rimmed eyes. His mane, even more disastrous than her's, is dark-brown, like the bark of an oak. Ponderously, her gaze wanders to his flank. Not even a cutie mark yet.
The colt coughs feebly.
At first Silk String flinches, but quickly a relieved smile spreads on her mouth. He is awake . Thank Celestia, he is awake.
He coughs again, stronger this time.The wheezing, agonizing breaths intensify slowly, and soon an uncontrolled seizure seizes him, wracking his whole body as a lungful after a lungful of dusty air flees him in bursts. The mare’s relief is soon extinguished as she can do nothing but watch and wait for the spasms to die down, which they inevitably do.
“How are you feeling?” she asks when he can breathe somewhat normally again.
Wheezing, the colt turns a flank, glancing behind him. The gasp that escapes him seems to stifle his whole body. His eyes, wide as saucers, stare at her in pure panic.
“Shhh, it’s okay, it’s okay,” says the mare calmly, touching his neck carefully with a hoof. “My name is Silk String. I mean no harm to you.” She soothes him for a moment, waiting his breathing to gradually grow steadier. “What is your name?” she asks warmly.
He coughs weakly, eyes shimmering.
“Cough?” she says in a seemingly surprised tone. “That is a strange name, but it will do for now. Would you like some water, Cough?”
Cough manages to nod faintly, still staring at the mare as if she was Celestia herself.
“That’s what I thought.” She dips a nearby cup into the bucket that lies on the side of the bed. She cringes as the tin scrapes at the bottom. The half-filled cup floats before the colt whose eyes are immediately drawn to it, drinking the water before it has even touched his lips. Nonetheless, he glances at the mare one more time.
“Go ahead,” she urges him.
He gulps the liquid down in one go. Almost immediately, another coughing seizure hits him, but this time it sounds more like normal coughing and not like somepony vomiting a gallon of sand. When his eyes open again, she can see the silent plea in them. She smiles as the rest of the water pours down his thin throat. A sad look crosses her eyes when she seems him pleading for even more. “I’m sorry, but we don’t have anymore at the moment. That water was from the bucket meant for fires, and even though there are more in the corridors, they need to be boiled first.” She sets the bucket aside. “And we can’t risk making a fire at daylight. I’m sorry.”
The colt’s head droops down along with his ears.
“Do you know if there is anypony else hiding in this building?” she asks. “Your parents? Friends? Neighbours?”
The colt remains silent, eyes cast down. He shakes his head barely noticeably.
I see. Dear Celestia… How could you let this happen? “Okay, okay… We don’t need to talk about that right now…” She bites her lip, searching for the right thing to say. “How about you rest some more, Cough? You can lie down–”
“No,” says the colt suddenly, his eyes darting to her. The panic-stricken terror in them is gone, dead, replaced by a hollow conviction. “Never again. I’m not gonna lie down ever again .” In one go, he bounces up, only to stagger and fall back as his legs give away under him. Nonetheless, he tries again.
“Wait, wait,” says the mare calmly, putting a hoof on his shoulder. To her astonishment, he fends it off.
“No,” he says with a colorless voice. With knees shaking fervently, the colt fights to keep himself up. His brow wrinkled in concentration and jaw clenched, he stands up from the bed, panting as his eyes rise to the same level with the mare.
They are grey , she realizes. Grey as dust .
“My parents told me to lie down,” he says with a voice like from beyond the grave. “So I lied down. I stayed down. Parents didn’t come back. I stayed down. I fell asleep. I stayed down. I woke up. I tried to rise, but I couldn’t, so I stayed down. I slept some more and stayed down.” His whole body starts to shake. “I won’t lay down ever again.”
His knees fail him and he stumbles on his side. Immediately he tries to get up, but the mare stops him, laying down beside him. He starts thrashing violently, but she wraps her front hooves tightly around him. He screams, but she doesn't let go, not even as he bites her. Moments go by and his resistance grows weaker, sinks into oblivion. It turns into a hopeless, heart-breaking sobbing. “Why they didn’t come back ,” he cries desperately, now all limp again. “Why…”
Behind him, the mare fights back her own tears and squeezes the colt even stronger. They lay there for a few minutes, lay there as if there was nothing else left to do in the world. Then she floats the brush over to her.
And starts combing his mane.
***
Outside Canterlot, among the rows of tents and training yards, necks are craned and eyes turn as Princess Cadance, accompanied by two unicorn guards of the Crystal Kingdom, walks by. Uncertain bows pave her way in a seemingly random manner along with mutterings of “My Princess” and “Princess Cadance”, but most of the soldiers can only stare in awe as the light-pink alicorn steps among them, smiling her ever so delicate smile. Behind her, the looks turn away only after the last glimpse of her tail has vanished among the colorful tents and the crowd. Before her, miscellaneous crates and other obstacles are quickly removed before she has even considered circling them.
As she arrives at the edge of the camp, a group of Crystal Kingdom guards practically jumps in the air as they notice her presence. After a quiet struggle, one of them, a sergeant, is pushed among their ranks to meet her. “Princess Cadance!” he says loudly and stiffly, standing in flawless attention. “We were not informed of your coming!”
Cadance stops a few meters from him, her smile turning from royal to royally empathetic in a flash. “That is because I didn't allow my presence to be announced. You can lower your hoof now.”
The stallion sets down his right foreleg, his every move plagued by rigidness. “Your Highness… We were actually informed that you might respect us with a visit one of these days…” For a moment, his words get lost into her deep purple eyes. “Um… On such a joyful occasion, we were instructed to guide you to the Supreme Commander’s personal tent right away!” he finally manages to say in one breath.
The Princess lets him sweat for a moment under her gaze that radiates nothing but kindness and understanding. Truly, Armor? Did you truly make every officer in the camp memorize that litany, just in the case I might pay a visit here? What for, I wonder… “So have I heard,” she says pleasantly. “Unfortunately, after a wearisome travel all the way from the Crystal Kingdom, a tent doesn’t sound as the most attractive option to me at the moment. Rather, I would be thrilled to straighten out my poor cramped legs a bit.” Her eyes move past the sergeant and to the wooden fortification that stands behind him, reaching a height of about five meters. Atop it, guards try their best not to look at the scene below.
The sergeant clears his throat. “I’m afraid that will not do, Your Highness. We are under strict orders that do not allow us to open the gate except for scouts and by the Supreme Commander’s explicit order.” His chin rises up a centimeter.
Her smile remains glowing. “Oh, but I intend to do just that!”
He blinks. “Excuse me, Your Highness?”
“To scout a bit,” she explains in a conspiratorial tone, keeping her eyes nailed at him. “I'd just kill for a peek at the city, if you know what I mean.”
The sergeant swallows. “Your Highness… Please… I cannot let you pass.”
She sighs deeply and for a moment, turns her radiant eyes away, the smile thinning on her lips. “Look… I could just make this easy for both of us and fly over that little fence, but that wouldn’t be the optimal outcome for either of us.” She looks at him again, unsmiling. “However, that is exactly what I'm going to do unless you'd be so kind as to open that gate for me.”
One last pleading look is all she gets from him. As a response of sorts, she gives him a smile. And spreads her wings.
“Your Highness, no!” blurts the sergeant, but before he can do nothing else, she has already crossed the ramparts with a few effortless beats of her magnificent wings. The unicorn curses as Cadance’s personal guards rush past him and onto the fortifications. When he himself gets there, along with the rest of the guards that happened to be nearby, he spots Cadance standing absolutely still some twenty meters away from the wall. She is staring straight ahead of herself, to Canterlot that lays a kilometer or two from them, rests against the mountainside like it has done for the last thousand years. The magical city, the enchanted city, the eternal city.
It’s a ruin . It’s all a ruin. An unbelieving gasp flees her mouth as her eyes witness the destruction that, even from afar, is evidently catastrophic. So this is what Armor tried to save me from. This is the truth that the letters couldn't convey. This… travesty… is Canterlot. She becomes faintly aware of the shouts that carry from behind the wall. Soon, the gate opens and Shining Armor, dressed in his mail, steps through. He blinks as he sees Cadance. “Stay here,” he says quietly to the guards behind him and walks steadily to his wife.
“Cadance,” he begins when he gets next to her. “Forgive me. I didn’t want you to see it like this.”
Her eyes remain on the city basking in the sunlight, in the perfect rays of the summer sun. “This was the only way I could find out,” she says quietly. “There is no proper way to explain it. You could've done nothing differently.”
He looks at her carefully, searching for signs of grief, of terror, of hate from her beautiful face. None can be found. “We should go back now. It’s not safe out here.”
“I always thought the Castle would look better without the Western Tower,” she says. “But now that it’s really gone… I can’t remember what it actually looked like." She gives him a blank look. “I can’t remember it.” A tear most fragile falls on her cheek.
Despite the eyes that he knows are staring at them, despite the devastation that spreads before them, Armor can’t constrain himself any longer. His hooves wrap tightly around her, trapping her into an intimate embrace. “I missed you,” he whispers to her ear. “I missed you so much.”
Another tear emerges even as the first one hits the ground. “Likewise, Shine. Likewise…” She responds to his caring hug by squeezing back even stronger.
“Cadance… I swear, for the love I bear towards you, we will avenge the city. We will avenge everypony. I swear it.” He speaks as if he was in pain.
Cadance lets go of him. She gives him a sad, yearning look. “Was it really the sight of the city that you tried to shield me from?” she asks.
He looks at her in confusion. “I… Of course… Why you ask?”
“Never mind,” she says finally, averting his gaze. “I've seen enough.” She turns away and trots to the gate. Before following her, Armor looks at Canterlot, or what’s left of it. A shade travels past his eyes, his eyes blue as a mountain lake. He snorts and turns his back to the sight.
After they have walked through the camp to his tent, Shining Armor turns to face both his and Cadance’s personal guards. “Unless the sky itself falls apart, you will make sure that we are not disturbed for the next hour.” He gives each one of the four unicorns a stern look.
“Yes, Supreme Commander,” they say in unison.
He steps in, closing the entrance behind. Immediately his eyes are drawn to his wife who stands in the middle of the massive tent, studying the various items that occupy the space. A bed with a hay mattress, a table and a few chairs, a rack for an armor, and a bottle of wine on another table. They are all simple things, ascetic even. Only the deep blue and white carpet with a picture of a rearing horse has a sense of luxury in it. “Since when have you started drinking on duty?” she asks.
Armor glances at the bottle while walking closer to her. “As you can see, it’s actually unopened. Apparently it’s a tradition of the Crystal Kingdom army that the Supreme Commander should always have a bottle in reserve while on a campaing.” A short smile momentarily lights up his grim face. “For a victory or for a defeat, the story doesn’t tell.” He starts taking off his armor. One by one, the heavy plates of mail fly onto their places in the rack.
“So… you didn't intend to drink it?” she asks. As he shakes his head, she floats the bottle to her. “Suit yourself,” she continues, making the cork fly with a flick of her horn. She looks around, searching for something. “They didn't think to give you glasses?”
“Uhm… I told them that I wouldn't be drinking it,” he answers. “I can go ask for one if you–”
“Never mind,” she says and closes her eyes as the bottle meets her lips. A heavy sigh ends her unusually long sip.
Armor’s eyes go wide. “Okay, I have to ask: what’s the word?”
“Prolegomena,” she says with a faraway voice. “I'm not a pretender, Armor. I just needed a drink.” She takes another sip, a more conventional this time. With a few strides of her long legs, she trots to the bed, laying there. “So… What else have you been hiding from me in your letters?” she asks calmly.
He narrows his eyes. “What do you mean? I've told you everything, even the parts that made my heart bleed.”
But you never let the blood spill on the paper. “I can see that you've truthfully told everything that has happened around you, but left unsaid what you truly felt inside,” she says.
He blinks. “I don’t understand.”
“Your hate, Shine. The ugly flower that dwells in your heart. I could feel it the moment I saw you.” She pauses, the purple eyes studying him softly. “Vengeance will not bring Canterlot back. It will only eat you alive.”
He gives her a long look. “Cadance… my love… we are at war. Lives have already been lost. What did you expect to find here?” He starts walking back and forth. “You shouldn’t have come… Who will now manage the Kingdom? I thought we had an agreement on this.”
She follows his erratic steps, expression as calm as ever. “I left a capable council in charge. It’s not unheard of in the history of the Kingdom. And what comes to our agreement… You knew that, at some point, I'd come here. It was only a matter of time.”
He throws a sharp glance at her. “Well, now that you’re here, what are you going to do? Love the city back to our hooves?” An almost malicious chuckle fills the tent. “That’s about the last thing we haven’t tried.”
Not a muscle stirs on her face. “Do we yet know who is behind this attack?”
“Even a guess would be luxury to us,” he answers darkly, dreading the carpet like it was his mortal enemy. “Might I ask who occupy that council you mentioned?”
“Mostly our advisors: Silver Pen, Parchbeard, Quillimore… and Ink Eye.”
“A bunch of bureaucrats…” he mutters. “They can’t handle a whole kingdom for more than a few days.”
“Armor…”
He stops his fervent walking. “What?”
“If you want me to leave, you can just say so.” Another pause puts extra weight on her words. “I'd rather stay, though. I believe that I can be of use here.”
He looks at her suspiciously. “How exactly?”
“You know how.”
“No,” he says immediately. “Do not ask me to put your life at risk. Do not ask me that.”
Her calm remains infuriatingly steady. “We've fought against powerful enemies before. We can do so again, but only together. If Chrysalis–”
“–This is not Chrysalis!” he cries. “Whatever this is, Chrysalis was nothing compared to what we are facing now!” He takes a step towards the bed, eyes filled with desperation. “And until we find Twilight, you're the only alicorn in both Equestria and in Crystal Kingdom. I can't endanger your life, not as a husband nor as the Supreme Commander. You're too valuable.”
She gives him one of her more ironic smiles. “Too valuable to be of worth?”
“Your place is in the Kingdom,” he continues stubbornly. “There is no room for love in these fields. And I’m not saying that as a bad poet, but as a soldier.” A mask of disciplined austerity lowers on his face like a visor. “Under the martial law I’ve declared, I could order you to return.”
She looks at him as she might look at an impertinent foal. “Didn't you once say that only an insecure leader covers behind his rank?”
Armor fights to deflect her stare, but in the end, it's he who has to turn his face away. Entrapped in sudden indecisiveness, the stallion who holds thousands of lives in his hooves can’t bare to look at his own wife into the eyes.
“Come here, my love,” says Cadance, moving on the bed to create room beside her.
He obeys somewhat reluctantly. Soon they are sitting on the bed, she relaxed like a cat, he tense as a bow. “I’m sorry about that martial law comment…” he says finally. “I shouldn’t have… said that.”
“It was better to let it out than to choke on it,” she answers. She moves behind him, touching his shoulders with his front hooves. “A lot of ponies look up to you right now. How couldn't you lose yourself to stress?” She begins to rub his rock-hard muscles.
He grunts as her capable hooves begin to unravel his knots. “I had always thought that running the Guard would be the most straining task I'd ever have to face. But compared to the role of the Supreme Commander, the Captain of the Royal Guard is equivalent to a joker.” Another grunt, this time of relieved pleasure, flees him.
“That is exactly why the task has been given to you. Because you're not just somepony. You are Shining Armor.”
“Lucky me,” he says quietly. A distant look invades his eyes. “Sometimes I really feel that I'm nothing but an empty metal container without anypony inside, standing on display, shining. I can’t show insecurity, no doubt, no emotions. It makes me feel more like a machine, a tool, than a living pony.” He sighs heavily. "I even have to talk like I was in the academy again..."
“That is what the ultimate responsibility means,” she says, moving lower onto his back with her massaging.
“I thought I was familiar with it already. I thought I could handle anything. But this… I seriously don’t know if I’m up to this.” His voice gets lower, almost turns apathetic. “How can I know that I’m making the right decisions? How? I have my council, but in the end, it's me who has to act, me, only me.” He glances at his wife. “What if I fail?”
Cadance’s focus doesn’t derail from her task. “Is that what you fear most: failing?”
His nod is practically invisible.
“Then you have the rare privilege of knowing your fear. There are some who fear all their lives, never once knowing what exactly. With your fear you gain a purpose, even if it’s just to avoid the object of that fear.” Her voice smooths him like his hooves do, softly, tenderly, caringly.
“Is that supposed to comfort me?” he asks confusedly. “I have to say that it doesn’t, not at all.”
She only smiles at that. “You also have me to share your fears with. Does that relieve your anguish more?”
“Yes… Yes it does.” He relaxes his head back, letting her shoulder support his neck.
“You know… When I mentioned that I could be of use here, I wasn't only referring to battle. Love does have other usages than weaponized ones.” She plants a light kiss on his exposed throat.
He breathes in her scent, the sweet, intoxicating smell of her coat, mane, and soul. “For a moment, I had already forgotten,” he whispers with his eyes closed.
Another kiss adores his clean white coat and wiry muscles underneath. “It is as you said: love has no room in these fields.” Her hoof reaches for his broad chest, travelling along its horizontal length. “That is why we need to make some.”
Armor turns around and locks her into a passionate embrace. The wine bottle that had stood on the edge of the bed gets knocked over, but neither of the two pays the fact any attention. The red liquid pours on the tent floor, staining the large, thick carpet in deep crimson. As if in slow motion, the picture of the rearing horse receives a carmine tinge.
Now it almost looks as if it was covered in blood.
***
Twilight wakes up to a sound of a scream, realizing immediately that it was her own voice. Next to her, Fluttershy jumps into the air, shrieking herself, too. This incites another alarmed gasp from the alicorn who panics as she can’t get up. It’s as if strong hooves were holding her down, wrapping themselves all around her body. She starts trashing mindlessly, falling from the bed with a thud. As her breathing turns from hyperventilation to mere panting, she notices that the hostile hooves are nothing but bedsheets that she has tangled herself in.
“Uhm, you okay, Twilight?” asks Fluttershy from a safe distance.
“Yes, yes,” Twilight manages, trying to free herself. Suddenly, her horn lights up and incinerates the bedclothes around her. Fluttershy flinches, shielding herself from the ethereal flames that paint the whole room purple for a few seconds. As Twilight notices her friend’s reaction, an embarrassed blush raises to her cheeks. She stands up, shaking the ashes off. “Sorry about that… I just had to get them away from me.”
“Okay…” answers Fluttershy. “Uhm, how are you feeling?”
Like a murdering wretch. Like a feverish, festering wound. What do you think? “Not that good. Not that good at all…” She looks around the room, which she recognizes as the bedroom. So it was his bed in which I just slept in… A cold shudder travels along her spine.
“W-would you like something?” asks Fluttershy, still staying on the other end of the room. “W-water, or f-food, or–”
“I’m not hungry. Where are the others?”
Fluttershy's gaze falls on the floor. “They… They went to… bury him…”
An indescribable hollowness invades Twilight's face, her mind, her heart. It captures her into a stranglehold of receding emotions. For a moment, she can’t find anything to say. “That’s… nice of them,” she manages. Did I just say that?
Fluttershy keeps on staring at the floor and shuffling her legs. “W-we thought it best to get it quickly over with… but I… couldn’t be there so I… offered to stay with you.” The bright teal eyes glance at Twilight. “I thought you'd want to talk when you woke up.”
“There is nothing to talk about. Nothing about him, anyway.” She gives her an empty look. “Let’s wait for the others and start discussing our next move then.”
The pink mane stirs faintly as a sign of Fluttershy's nod. Twilight gives her one more look and heads to the living room. The first thing her eyes dart to is the place where the stallion fell. No blood, no entrails, nothing. It’s as if he was never here. Even the puddle of her stomach fluids has been wiped off. It’s as if nothing had happened here, nothing at all . She settles on the floor, neck straight, hooves crossed in front, eyes looking at Fluttershy through the hole in the opposite wall. “Are you going to just stand there?” she asks, not unkindly.
Fluttershy trots meekly over to the other room, lingering a moment by the door. She moves as if the sound of her own hooves against the bare planks terrified her. Her mane covers most of her face as she sits down next to Twilight. Neither says nothing, looks at nothing, does nothing but breathe. After an incalculable amount of time, Rainbow Dash and Rarity come in.
“Jeez, I thought we just left the grave behind us,” says Dash as she flies in and sees the expressions of the two ponies inside.
Rarity glowers at her as she closes the door behind her. “It’s done,” she says quietly.
“W-where did you…” begins Fluttershy.
“It doesn’t matter,” says Twilight. “We need to decide what we do next.”
“What can we do next?” says Dash, floating in the air. “Our only lead is soon pushing daisies, half a meter underground.”
“Isn’t that a bit shallow…?” whispers Fluttershy worriedly.
“Try digging yourself around here: it’s all rocks under the grass,” says Dash grudgingly. “My hooves are all dented now…”
“Could we please stop talking about the bucking grave!” cries Twilight, making the others flinch. Immediately after, she buries her face into her hooves. “I’m sorry I’m sorry I’m sorry…” she repeats like a filly caught stealing candy. The others look at her and at each other, searching for something, anything, to say.
“It’s…it’s fine, Twilight dear,” says Rarity. “We are all somewhat on the edge at the moment…”
“Yeah, yeah,” says Dash, rubbing her neck. “It was self-defense, Twi, no need to sweat about it. You saved Fluttershy’s life.” She looks at her. “Right, Shy?”
Fluttershy blinks. “Uh, yes, yes, of course… You saved m-my l-life… T-thank you…” She wipes the corner of her eye with a hoof.
Rarity stares incredulously at the two pegasi. “Will you shut the hay up ,” she says to Dash by only moving her lips. She ignores the eyebrow that Dash raises and steps closer to the now sobbing Twilight. “That is good. Let it come out. It’s all just water, let it flow. Let it run.” She sits down on her stomach next to her, resting her hoof on Twilight's shaking shoulders. “We are here for you.”
When all the tears have fled her, Twilight finally raises her head, her face stained in salty fluids. “I know I shouldn't have done it… but I couldn't… I couldn’t just look at him and, and…” Another sob cuts her sentence. “He deserved it. If there ever was anypony who deserved to die, it was him. He deserved it.” She spits the last sentence out.
Rarity looks at her from under her eyebrows. “We know, Twilight, we know. We are not judging you for it, nopony is. What you did was what most ponies would have done and I don't mean that in the negative sense. It’s just as you said: he deserved it.”
Twilight's shimmering eyes turn to her. “Then why do I feel so horrible about it?”
To that, Rarity can’t find an appropriate answer, not for her life.
“We can figure that out later,” says Dash from above them. “If you haven’t forgotten, we still got enemies to deal with.” As if in a flight show, she lands in front of Twilight with militaristic preciseness, face stern. “What’s our next move, Princess?”
For a moment, Twilight’s grief sways in front of the discipline that seems to turn corporeal in the pegasus before her. Then she wipes some the tears off with a hoof, revealing a calmer look behind. “You are right. We still have a mission to accomplish, a very important one at that. We need to find a way to win Canterlot back.” More tears stain her feathers as she cleans her face. “Was there anything interesting in the papers that we found yesterday?” she asks from Rarity.
She studies Twilight for a second longer before pulling her hoof back from her shoulder. “I went through the rest of them in the morning. They were all the same: observations on the local flora and fauna, blueprints of the cabin, random poems…The diary had a few strange passages, but it was so thick I could only leaf through it.”
“I’ll help you with that.” Twilight's eyes, still red from crying, turn to Rainbow Dash. “How about the outdoor building?”
“Full of logs,” says Dash, shrugging. “I digged around a bit, but only got splinters.”
“Level it to the ground.” The purple gaze meets Fluttershy. “And the animals?”
She hesitates a second. “T-they all said he is–was v-very nice to them… Didn’t disturb them or hurt them…”
“Did they say anything useful?” continues Twilight sharply.
“Uhm… They did say that he used to travel up the mountain path a couple of times in a month. He could stay days up there in one go.”
“Up where? Is there something there?”
“I-I don’t know… I didn’t ask…”
“Do that as soon as you can,” finishes Twilight. She stands up. “We all know what to do. Now let’s do it.”
They all begin to work.
***
As Arch Freight and Berryfer return from downstairs, they find Silk String huddling with the colt on the makeshift bed. The mare opens her eyes as she hears them entering in. “Did you find anything?” she asks, raising her head.
Arch Freight, smiling faintly, presents to her two baskets full of hay. “In a way, yes. All the real food is long gone, but we found out that some of the older furniture was packed with hay.” He glances at his son. “It was Berryfer’s idea to look from there.”
The dark-blue colt smiles proudly.
“Is it edible?” she asks suspiciously.
“Some of it is,” hurries Arch Freight to say before all the pride can die in his son’s eyes. “It might not be very tasty, but it’s all we got.”
“Show me,” says Silk String, standing up. The baskets float to her. After having looked, smelled, and tasted them, an approving smile spreads on her lips. “You did well, Berryfer,” she says to him. She turns to Cough and offers him a hoofful of the dry hay. “You should eat some, too.”
Berryfer watches warily as Cough sniffs at the food, continuing to eat it all with vigour. Nonetheless, he says nothing when they start all dining on the ruins of a couch and a few armchairs. Some words are exchanged while they feed, mostly between the parents, but otherwise they enjoy their simple meal in silence. At steady intervals, Berryfer steals a glimpse of the other colt, noticing how his mane has been combed similarly to his.
When the last straw is gone, his mother says: “Berryfer: could you show our guest the room next doors, the one with all the board games? Didn’t you mention that you’d like to try them?”
Berryfer rolls a pillow between his hooves, eyes cast down. “I don’t need to anymore…” he mumbles.
“Come now, Berryfer. I’m sure you do. Off you go.”
The colt glances pleadingly at his father. All he gets from him is a short nod.
Berryfer squishes the pillow with his hooves while getting up. “Yes, mother,” he says with a hint of reproachfulness. He leaves the room without another word.
“You should follow him,” says the mare to Cough. “Trust me: some of those games looked very nice.”
The shimmering grey eyes look at her questioningly. “But I wanna stay with you?”
“It’ll be just for a moment, Cough. Please, I need to talk with my husband here.” She nods at Arch Freight, whom the colt is afraid to look into the eyes.
“Y-you’ll be here, right?” he asks carefully, brushing his forelegs against her's.”
“I will. That's a promise.” She lifts his chin up and smiles kindly. “Just try to focus on the board games.”
He blinks and hugs her tightly. Looking from the doorstep, Berryfer narrows his eyes. He hides completely when the colt stands up and starts trotting towards him.
“Cough?” asks Arch Freight after he is left alone with Silk String.
“Never mind that,” she says. “Thank you for the food. We really needed it.”
“I told you already: it was Berryfer’s idea to search from the furniture. You should thank him.”
She gives him a puzzled look. “Oh? I thought it was one of your educational methods, to make him mistake your idea as his own.”
He raises an eyebrow. “He has grown too old for that. I thought that you had realized it awhile ago.”
“I… I suppose I should have,” she says hesitatingly. “He is growing so fast, isn’t he?” She looks at the blankets as she says that.
Arch Freight sighs. “There is no point in grieving the months lost in the hospital now. We have more pressing matters in our hooves.” He stands up and walks over to the window covered with planks ripped from the floor. “I've been thinking. We can't leave the city as is.”
She looks at his back in disbelief. “You can’t be serious.”
“How can I not?” he says, turning around. “I’m out of plans.”
“But we can’t live here!” she blurts. “Eating furniture, drinking from the fire buckets, staying up half the night… That's not life.”
“It’s not slavery, either.” The faint light from behind him can barely paint his shadow on the bare floor.
“Can’t we use the old plan?” she continues, standing up. “Steal a carriage, fill it with rubble and travel quietly to the edge of the city?”
“And then what? We never figured out how to get out of the gates. The old plan was born of blind desperation, nothing more.”
“It was your plan,” she points out.
“That's why nopony knows its futility better than me,” he says calmly. “Accept it, Silk. We have no choice but to hide here.”
“And who says that? You! Apocalypse or not, It’s always you who calls the shots, Arch, always you who says what to do next!”
“That is because somepony has to!” he snaps. “With you always being away, how can I ask your opinion?”
“I’m here right now!”
“What would you have us do, then?” he says with a cooler tone. “Run out and pray that it all works out?”
A malicious laugh carries from her throat. “I’m sure rotting here would be much more pleasing to you! I bet you have chosen a place for all your heirlooms already.”
“You're not in your right mind,” he says. “Why did you even bother starting this conversation?”
“Because I want to know by what right you send all those ponies to their doom back in the Oak Hall!” she cries, stomping her hoof on the floor. “By what right, Arch?”
He looks at her as if all the years they have shared together suddenly turned to dust. “Do not go there. Do not… go there.”
She breaks into crying. “How could you do something like that… to our guests ?”
“They would've done the same to us!” he shouts, spit flying from his mouth. “It was either them or all of us. And that’s the simple fact.”
Her tears only grow more bitter. “No manners… No manners at all…”
A few doors down the corridor, Berryfer and Cough sit in the middle of a room where all kinds of board games lay on the floor. They can’t hear most of the words used by the adults and neither do they need to in order to get the picture. Berryfer rolls a bag of marbles in his hooves, focusing on the feeling of weight shifting inside the pouch. Cough stares at the blank wall behind him, shaking faintly. “Why are they fighting?” he asks.
Berryfer stays quiet for a while. “Because of you.” The marbles make a clicking sound as they rub together inside the bright red pouch.
“M-me?”
Berryfer glances indifferently at Cough. “Yes. We don’t have enough food for everypony, and father knows it. He wants you gone. But mother is being soft and wants you to stay.” His voice barely carries over the shouting.
Cough starts shaking more fervently.
A shade travels over Berryfer's eyes. “But she knows that you’re weak and that it’s no use feeding you for long. That’s why she hugged you so tightly. Because you’re going to die soon.”
Cough’s chin presses against his chest, his shaking almost tipping him over. But then, he grows all stiff in one moment. “No,” he says with his colorless voice. “You’re wrong. We’re all gonna die.”
The marble bag drops on the floor. “What did you say?” Berryfer asks, the dark confidence gone from his voice.
“We’re all gonna die. We’re all gonna die. We’re all gonna die.” He almost chants the words.
“No, you’re gonna die,” says Berryfer, standing up. “You got no parents, I do. They love me, they'll protect me. Pa will protect me.” He looks at him challengingly, seeking his eyes that linger on the floor.
“That’s what I thought before,” whispers Cough. He chin raises like somepony else was lifting it: limply, yet determinately. “But then came the Smoke.”
Berryfer takes a step back before those grey eyes, those eyes like dust.
“Daddy tried to save mommy from the Smoke,” continues Cough with wide eyes and a dead voice. “I heard them from down below, where I was lying. I heard them scream. I heard them stop screaming. And I heard them… I heard them…”
“W-what did you hear?”
The grey eyes blink. “I heard them push the table on top of the hatch.”
“And leave .”
