Sword Mare: Origins #2: Claymari
A mare cries out as she gives birth. Her sweat cover brow illuminated by orange torch light. The green mat she was laying on was soiled in her own body fluids.
A large rust colored stallion watched over the mare as an old wet nurse helps her along. This was the mare’s seventh child. Many by her people’s standards. As for her husband destiny.
“Mars!” The mare screams putting her forehoof around the stallion’s forehoof as she pushed the little green body out of her lips.
The wet nurse cleans and hands the foal to Mars. At first he was smiling but as he looked at the little colt he began to frown.
“What’s wrong,” The mare had a look a panic.
“He’s not mine Claymaria,” Mars throws the foal to the ground.
“No! You don’t understand, It’s the spawn of the Undergod!”
“What!” Mars broke into a sweat.
The torches went out. All went quiet but the sound of the crying injured foal. A moment later Mars and the nurse maid lit the torches again. The nurse maid wraps the foal in a blanket and Mars realizes something about the quiet.
“Claymaria?” Mars says to his still wife. There was no answer. He puts his hoof by her nose. Nothing, “Claymaria no, no please no!” Mars screams holding his wife’s lifeless body.
“This is your punishment for hurting the son of the Undergod,” The nurse maid snaps.
The door burst open and a servant enters breathing heavy. “My lord your sons they are dead.”
Mars looks up barley registering what his just heard. “What?”
“Your sons are dead, the light went out and they just killed over.” The servant replied.
“Witch ones?” Mars asked.
“All sir,” The servant answered.
Mars unleashes another wail and plants his face into his dead wife’s chest. As he cried a sound caused his ears to perk.
“Thaw-ump”
(A heart beat?) Mars thought.
He heard the sound again. It was coming from the mare’s stomach.
“What is it sir?” The wet nurse asked.
“She’s with another child,” Mars said shocked.
“By the gods get it out!” The wet nurse shouted, “All this happened because you hurt one of the Undergod’s children. Who knows what he do if you let one die!”
Mars grabs a knife and cuts open Claymaria’s body. Her blood and womb juices pour our onto the floor. A foal pokes it’s head out of the slit and gasps. The little filly started crying.
Mars recognized his blood right away. It’s mine! This one is mine!” Then he stared blankly at the foal. She looks so very much like her.
“She’s his forgotten sister,” The nurse maid remarked holding out the colt.”
“Yes, the forgotten sister of the Seven’th bastard son.” Mars snaps.
“Four years later…”
Claymari bring me a wet rag,” Mars ordered the orange filly.
“Yes father,” The filly politely said as she walks over to a bucket and pulls out a singed rag. Then trots over to Mars with the rag in her mouth. He takes it from her and puts it over the end of a metal rod sticking out of the forge.
Mars pulls out the red piece of metal and places it on the anvil. “You want to hit it sweetie?”
Claymari smiles and rears up to show shiny new horse shoes on her forehooves.
“Now you’ll have to make it flat and even,” Mars told the filly.
Claymari slammed into the metal rod which started giving off sparks. After a while the metal cooled down and started to become less malleable.
“Okay we need to reheat it,” Mars remarks.
“Can I do it daddy,” Claymari asked cheerfully.
“Okay dear, take the cool end and put it back into the forge.” Mars orders.
Claymari did as she was told. She was watching the metal heat up when a black stallion walked in.
“King Aeries,” Mars bowed.
“No need brother,” King Aeries held up his hoof. He looks over at Claymari working the forge. “Training your daughter to be a proper Dore?”
“Soon I’ll be able to work the forges like a big pony,” Claymari chirped.
“She’ll make a good king some day,” Aeries said to Mars in a hushed tone and a smile.
“Claymari leave,” Mars orders.
“But I’m not done with the metal,” Claymari interjected.
“I’m your father and you’ll do as I say!” Mars huffed and stormed.
“Yes sir,” Claymari put her head down and slinked out of the room.
Mars turns to Aeries, “Don’t tell me you have given up on having children?”
Aeries sighs, “I had planted my seed in a plenty of mare yet nothing grows. Your Claymari is the last of our blood.”
“Yes, but please don’t go around saying that,” Mars warns, “I believe the Undergod wants to make that bastard son of his made king.”
“Why must you be so cruel Mars?” Aeries asked, “He’s a good boy, if you haven’t crippled him at birth he would have been a strong Dore.”
“Claymaria’s true spirit is ten times the Dore as that thing,” Mars snaps.
Aeries gives a nervous look to Mars. “Speaking of Claymaria’s sprit that crazy theory of yours?”
“Still might be true,” Mars answers.
“Claymari wonders about the caverns of her home…”
The little filly was upset but the exploration took her mind off of it. She like all the Dore lived underground and she knew her home like the back of her hoof. But even at that there’s always something new to explore.
“Claymari,” A weak voice gets Claymari’s attention.
“Seven’th?” Claymari turn around to see a green pony with metal braces on his back legs. She gives a smile to him. “Stocking your poor baby sister again?”
“Fa-Mister Mars was teaching you how to work the forge?” Seven’th asked.
“Until he kicked me out,” Claymari shrugged, “I got to learn what it is like being you”
“Can I come with you?” Seven’th wondered. “I know you said we shouldn’t be seen together but I just want to talk.”
Claymari looked around for any ponies or foals. Seeing it was empty she answered, “sure.”
The green filly limped out struggling to keep up with Claymari.
“Well what do you want to talk about?” Claymari asks.
“You think people would forgive me if we kill the Undergod?” Seven’th suggested.
“I’m not stupid enough to go against a beast like that,” Claymari told him.
“But father is teaching you to be a smith. Can’t you make a god killing sword or something? Like that story about the black metal."
"I don't have bla-" Claymari hears the voice of some foal approaching and pushes the crippled pony into a fungus bush shooting up spores that made the mare sneeze.
“Hello Claymari,” A couple of fillies said as they walked by.
Seven’th climbed out of the dust cloud and glares at Claymari.
“Hey, you’re my brother and I love you in that special way. But your filth,” Claymari told him.
“Another four years passed...”
Claymari now older pounds away at metal. She squelches the hot metal in a water trough to reveal an unsharpened blade. The cutie mark on her flank was that of a sword.
“Assistant put this on the rack for cooling,” Claymari orders.
A green stallion in leg braces pick up the metal. His cutie mark a green splatter. Seven’th puts the unfinished sword away as Claymari prepared to repair some metal straps on some leather armor.
“Sorry for the intrusion my prince,” A gray stallion walked into the room.
“I’m going to have to get used to that now that my father is king,” Claymari sighs.
“And what do I call him?” The stallion points at Seven’th.
“His spareship,” Claymari shrugs. “What do you want? An autograph? Or s sword made by your future king?”
“I’m Greybad from the mandatory draft board,” The stallion answered. “You’re a mare of age and must have your two years of service. Your brother is a male and gets three.”
“I have to go with these legs?” Seven’th asked, “And why does she get two?”
“She grows foals you don’t,” Greybad snaps, “You could die and it wouldn’t affect our population numbers. If a female is unwed by a certain age she’s require to have a child with a surface pony to help keep our people pure anyway. But we are a fare people and lets our females serve even though they are more crucial for our survival.”
“I know about our breeding laws,” Seven’th snapped. We are part of the royal bloodline. The heads of the apple family themselves fathered our mother.”
“Mars himself is one fourth apple,” Claymari adds then squinted her face in thought. “This makes me what? A third?”
“Anyway you are required to join,” Greybad points out, “But as a prince and a cripple we most likely put you in a squad that will see little fighting.”
“Two years later…”
“Claymari’s squad patrol the deep caverns…”
Claymari in leather Dore armor holds her hoof up stopping her squad. “I smell something up ahead.”
“What is it captain?” Whitehoof a male under Claymari’s command asked.
“I smell something approaching from the cavern up ahead.” Claymari takes a breath in. “Shit Hellhounds?” She takes on a low whisper.
“Hellhounds this close to the surface?” Whitehoof points out.
“Should we head back to the farm and get reinforcements,” Seven’th walked around the corner carrying heavy saddle bags. Two of his squad mates gives him dirty looks.
“Shimmerpuff and Turf Dancer…”
“I never fought these things but I heard that if we can just now smell them than they smelt us long before now.”
“I don’t know I think we are down draft,” Turf Dancer held her hoof up to feel the air.
“It could swirl around,” Shimmerpuff points out.
“If that’s the case we might be able to ambush them.” Whitehoof adds.
“Seven’th get me the charts,” Claymari ordered.
Seven’th pulls out a roll of papers and passes them to Claymari. She unrolls them to reveal a series of maps pinned to gather. They had the foresight to pin the most relevant maps at the top.
Claymari flips between two pages as she inspects the maps. “This is the latest version with all the new aeroforming updated?”
“Aeroforming: A process of changing the airflow by artificial means… Dore can do this by heating a cooling caverns…”
“Should,” Seven’th shrugged.
Lines marked the air flow direction on the map. Some caverns were marked in different colors. This marked the air quality of areas with extra marks to note seasonal changes. It wasn’t uncommon for a pony or a group of ponies to stumble into a bad cavern or tunnel and die.
Claymari rubs her hoof across the map. “These are circulation caverns for the farmlands, this means that the air from the farm cavern moves into this cavern over here and from that cavern goes down this tunnel the one we are in now and back into the farm cavern. This definitely means the Hellhound’s cannot smell us from here.”
“So we attack them then,” Whitehoof smirks.
The party cautiously moves into the next cavern. It was large enough for there be a ledged above them and they took the high ground. They spotted the figures below them. Three large white canine like creatures. One of them was laying against a wall. One of the two look down on him or her.
“They don’t look much like raters sir,” Turf Dancer points out. “No, we scout them out first,” Claymari answers.
“One of them looks like they’re injured too,” Shimmerpuff adds.
“Shimmer, Turf, keep your crossbows homed on them I will go in and introduce myself, if things go wrong do not hesitate to fire,” Claymari orders.
The orange mare climbs down keeping herself in the open as she approached the three Hellhounds. The two uninjured ones took a fighting stance as she approached them. Claymari slowed her steps and gave them a wave with her hoof and the two Hellhounds loosened a bit.
“Hello there,” Claymari greeted the Hellhounds, “You look like you’re in trouble here?”
The Hellhound sniffs the air and looked around cautiously. They seemed to spot what they believed to be the other ponies that was with the strange mare that approached them.
“We were attacked by Dark Dore ma’am,” One of the Hellhounds told the pony.
Claymari squinchs her face at this. “Dark Dore that’s not good at all,” She mutters to herself.
“Miss you please grant us sanctuary so we can recover from our attack?” One of the Hellhound asked.
“As long as you let us do it cautiously,” Claymari smirks as she motions for her men to come out from their attack positions.
“And so the Hellhounds were taken to the farm cavern… So, they could recover…”
“You want me to go out again commander?” Claymari asked the dark brown stallion by the name of Chestnut Hazel.
“We just can’t let Dark Dore roam this close to our settlements,” Commander Chestnut Hazel answered, “And from what the Hellhounds have told us they teamed up with the Undergod.”
Claymari grinds her teeth at the name of the Undergod.
“We will also add two more squads under your command,” Commander Chestnut Hazel added, “I trust you to keep your emotions in check on this issue right?”
“Yes sir,” Claymari nods her head.
“We will also add the surface dweller to your party,” Commander Chestnut Hazel tells her, “The one called Ebony Apple.”
As Claymari left the commanders barracks, a centipede crawled by her hoof. She before having a second thought she smashes it under her hoof. The centipede was most likely a farm grown one that escaped from its pin somewhere. The thing itself was about the size of a chicken.
How the farms work, is that they grow cave lichen, cave ants helped grow the lichen, and the cave ants attracted the centipedes. The centipedes were the kind that had soft flesh, which made them easy to eat for ponies.
Claymari bends her head down and bites on a piece of centipede that her hoof wasn’t holding down. As she took a bite from the creature, a grey blue stallion walks up to her with a black apple cutie mark. Claymari like all the Dore was bigger then him.
“Ebony Apple,” Claymari said to the stallion with a smirk.
“Good evening madam,” Ebony replied.
“You want to share,” Claymari asked Ebony pointing her free hoof at the twitching piece of centipede.
“Maybe later,” Ebony was more used to eating plants and grass then eating weird looking bugs.
“Suit yourself,” Claymari shrugged before taking another bite of the insect. “Did you hear already that you were a signed under me?”
“Yes, I have sir,” Ebony nodded his head.
Claymari looks the stallion up and down inspecting him. “They say that you’re some kind of great sword fighter up on the surface?”
“And I heard that your more of the hoof to hoof fighter myself,” Ebony replied.
“You know before I was drafted I was a blacksmith?” Claymari told the stallion. “I smashed swords for a living,” she added with a smile.
“Pounding a sword and using one are two different things,” Ebony told her.
Claymari looked down at the metal casings on her hooves.
Ebony pulls his sword from his sheath and points the end of it at Claymari. “How about we have a training spar?”
Claymari gets a smirk on her face and clamors her hooves on the ground. The mare comes at the buck swinging a punch.
“Three days had passed…”
Claymari’s punch contacts a black skinned equine like creature. The thing stumbles back from the impact. Her and Ebony Apple now stood flank to flank with a horde of black equine creatures surrounding them.
They were larger than even the Dore, hairless with black shiny skin, tiny squinty eyes, large deep nostrils with jagged pointy teeth. Instead of having hooves, they had three toed claws as black as their skin.
Ebony swings his sword at the Dark Dore. His black blade slices through the dark skinned creatures. Claymari fights back one of the creatures as Ebony pulls his blade out of a Dark Dore corpse.
“Claymari help me!” Seven’th shouts as a pair of Dark Dore pulls him down the tunnel.
The shouting distracts Ebony allowing one of the Dark Dore to scratch him in the side. He drops his blade and screamed out in pain. Claymari picks up the blade in her muzzle and kills the Dark Dore that attacked him.
“Ebony, you’re okay,” Claymari shouted holding the stallion up on her shoulder.
“Yeah I’ll be fine go save your brother,” Ebony Apple told the mare.
“Tell the men to pull back to the farm,” Claymari told one of her subordinates.
“Yes sir,” the pony soldier replied, “But what about you?”
“I’m going to go after them,” Claymari said with the sword in her muzzle.
The orange Dore mare, runs down the tunnel. To her shock Claymari soon realized that she wasn’t being followed by any of the attackers. She stops and looks around but there was no Dark Dore and site. Because of this Claymari became more cautious as she moved down the ever darkening tunnel. But as she walked she could see a dull green light up ahead.
A creature that resembles the Dark Dore but was larger and covered in spiky horny warts sat on a throne made of black metal and round in shape. It’s tail was thick and muscular. Bat like wings stretched out from its back.
“Mother we have your son,” One of the Dark Dore told the creature.
“You’re the Undergod?” Seven’th said in shock.
“I am mother, I am father, I am life,” the Undergod stated.
“You're a bastard like the rest of these creatures,” Seven’th spat.
“Bastard, I am a God,” the Undergod snaps.
“What are you going to do with me,” Seven’th asks the Undergod.
“I am going to mate with you and make another stronger being, stronger than the ones that I have already made now,” Then the Undergod holds out her hoof out at the Dark Dore around her.
“You’re the one that made the Dark Dore, this whole time it was you!” Seven’th realized.
Claymari charges out of her hiding spot and attacks some of the Dark Dore. She manages to cut a couple of the creature’s flanks before they could react to her. Claymari dodge a thoothy snap from one of the mutated ponies when the Undergod shouts.“Stay back my children!”
The Dark Dore did as they were told.
“Claymari!” Seven’th shouted.
“So, this is the prince,” The Undergod smiles.
“Get away from him you bitch!” Claymari yells.
“Ah, bitch, female,” The Undergod gloated. “I believed I was born female, But you know how long it’s been since someone decidedly called me female?”
“I have good instincts,” Claymari smirked.
The Undergod walked forward leathery bat wings stretching out. “Prince Claymari I will dual you for your bloodline. Your brother my husband, you my wife. Our children shale mate and make strong warriors to exterminate the Dore.”
Seven’th pulls a dagger out and lunges at the Undergod’s side. The blade bounces off the magical hide and brakes.”
The Undergod kicks Seven’th away. “Foolish pup, I’m nigh indestructible.”
“Good to know!” Claymari rushes foreword and swings her neck.
The Undergod blocks with a head of a whip like scorpion tail. The Undergod first had a smug look on her face that slowly turned to shock. Green blood runs down the black blade. The Undergod shrieked and jumped back.
“That metal! Where did you get that metal!” The Undergod yelled.
“Metal?” Claymari looks at the sword she was holding and she remembers the tales of her father. This was a sword that belongs to the Apple family. Of cores the Dore kings would give them gifts. Claymari then looks at the shards of metal on the ground.
“This black shit, it gave you your power,” Claymari points out, “But it’s also your weakness.”
“I will have your body dear prince and I will take your sword as my own,” the Undergod declared.
“You will not!” Claymari swings her sword.
The Undergod dodges the attack. But she hits something sharp and turns to see Seven’th with a black metal shard. Claymari moves in for an attack. The Undergod kneels to the side allowing the blade to cut her wing. The other wing comes around and sting’s Claymari in the flank with its claw. The claw injected Claymari with venom and the leg goes numb. Claymari recovers and circles around the Undergod her leg limping.
Seven’th twists the piece of metal and the Undergod cries out in pain.
“Claymari! I can hold her still but you have to strike the both of us!”
“Okay,” Claymari readied the black sword.
“I love you,” Seven’th cried.
Claymari lowers her sword, “Fuck you! Why did you have to say something like that!” She screams.
“You’re doing this now!” Seven’th shouted.
“You’re a little bastard that never makes anything easy do you!” Claymari snaps.
An arrow whizzes by, it sticks Seven’th in the shoulder. Him and the Undergod separate. Well the Undergod was stunned Claymari puts the sword through her body.”
The black flesh peels away to reveal a bronze coated mare with a pepper seed mane.
“Thank you for freeing me from my curse,” She tells Claymari beaming a heavenly smile. The mare falls off the sword and lays motionless on the ground. The Dark Dore slink into the shadows.
Ebony lowers the crossbow he was holding.
“I really should remove that bitch’s head,” Claymari remarks out loud to herself.
“Sorry about coming but I couldn’t let you fight alone,” Ebony spoke interrupting Claymari’s thought.
“I wasn’t alone I had your sword made out of whatever metal that is,” Claymari points at the Undergod’s thrown. “I suspect that’s it’s made from this stuff.”
“That looks like a broken iron pot to me,” Ebony remarks.
“Well, I’m happy the Undergod is dead,” Seven’th walked up happily, “Maybe my sin of being born is forgiven now.”
“Well, see,” Claymari smirks. Then frowns, “Sorry for always being a shitty sister to you.”
“You forg-,” Seven’th stopped in mid sentence as the Undergod’s scorpion tail pierces his body. In a flash all the darkness and evil was transferred to him. Black flesh shoots from his body and down a corridor taking Seven’th with him.
Claymari screams and cried “Seven’th no!”
The bronze mare on the ground coughs, her wound had healed to a livable state. Another thing of note she had shrunk to the age of a foal.
Ebony picks up the foal and puts her unconscious body on his back. “We need to go.”
“No, I have to rescue him,” Claymari screamed.
“We tried that,” Ebony snaps, “We got a filly instead.
“But-“ Claymari starts to say.
“He’s a live, we can save him, Going about things this way will only make things worse,” Ebony tells her.
“O-okay,” Claymari gave in.
“The few days later… the bronze filly wakes from her slumber…”
“Water,” The filly gasped.
The attendant watching her pours the filly a glass of water. “Tell the prince that she’s awake.” The attendant ordered a messenger.
“Prince?” The bronze foal raises an eye.
“Claymari enters the chambers…”
“You don’t have a penis,” The foal remarks.
“Brazen, you don’t have a mind of a foal,” Claymari notes.
“Daring Do of the house of Dazzle sister house to the Sparkles,” The foal answered.
“I’m Dore Prince Claymari of the houses Kings and Apples,” Claymari introduced herself.
“Dore? Those mythical underground horses?” Daring raised an eye.
“I am very real,” Claymari said sternly.
“No offense,” Daring Do waved her hooves, “What about the prince thing?”
“By Dore society kings rule and queens are to married to kings, princes are in line to rule and princesses are married to them,” Claymari explains.
“Make sense,” Daring Do shrugged.
“And you expect me to believe you’re the real Daring Do?” Claymari asked.
“Given the number of countries out there and the average size of a family. The odds of the single pony that save you being a prince is what one million? One billion if you want to think about the other factors?”
“Okay I'll play, given the fact the Daring Do lived two hundred years ago, the odds of me meeting her here has got to be in the what? Trillions?” Claymari remarks.
“It’s been two hundred years, yet here I am,” Daring Do smiles, “Once you eliminate the possible, what left no matter how improbable must be the truth.”
“Oh there’s still much that's possible,” Claymari growled, “What do you know about the Undergod?”
“I don’t know much about it,” Daring Do answered, “I barely remember my old life, the brain is a wonderful thing but has a bad habit of writing over old information. It’s there kind of, I remember having children. Doing stuff that one would normally do with their children. The problem is are these memories of stuff that really happened or just regretful thoughts. Heck I’m having a hard time remembering my inner monologue isn’t a person talking to me and that you can’t hear it.”
“The short of it is we are lucky you’re not insane,” Claymari rolls her eyes.
“Oh, I suspect that will come in time,” Daring answered, “I’m trying really hard to stay lucid right now.”
“And you have nothing of help for me?” Claymari asked, “Anything you can think of to help me save my brother and kill the essence of the Undergod?”
“There will be lots of sex,” Daring Do answered, “Birthing was the best, it was orgasmic.”
Claymari blushed at the words.
“Umm, you’re a sensitive prince,” Daring Do laughs.
“It's weird hearing that from a child,” Claymari told her, “Anyway, Since you were part of the Undergod we will have to convene a council about what to do with you.”
Claymari turns and walks out of the room with a depressed look on her face.
“Any luck?” Ebony asked.
“No,” Claymari answered.
Ebony puts his head on her shoulder. Claymari sobs a little then pulls back. She kisses Ebony on the lips. He pulls away.
“What are you doing?” Ebony asked.
“You don’t want me?” Claymari looks into his eyes.
Ebony blushed, “Well you’re a big mare and I never thought about it.”
“I don’t want to be alone again tonight too many dark thoughts,” Claymari told him.
“You don’t have to sleep with me for me to stay the night,” Ebony explain.
“Yes you do,” Claymari told him, “If I’m going to sleep tonight.”
“The next morning…”
Claymari lays asleep over the foot of her bed, her forehoof dangling over the end. Ebony crawls up next to her and kisses the unconscious mare on the cheek. She stirrers and wakes.
“I want to be your princess,” Ebony said gently in her ear.
Claymari blushes and turns away angry.
“What's the matter with you all of a sudden?” Ebony asked.
“That was just sudden,” Claymari turns back to reply.
Ebony frenches Claymari. “You’re the one that wanted me to rut you.”
“An open pussy isn’t an open invitation to marriage,” Claymari smirked.
“Well, If you think of it you have to get married to an apple to keep your bloodline pure, why not me?” Ebony asks.
“Well I don’t know,” Claymari remarks thoughtfully to herself.
“Do you have anyone else in mind sweetheart,” Ebony points out.
“Claymari and Ebony Apple...takes the journey of back to the Dore capital...”
“You lost your brother,” King Mars remarks as he circles around Claymari.
Claymari takes a step back away from him and answers, “I defeated the Undergod, despite the loss of seventh and I still believe that we can get him back. I just need more troops, and the ability to take the Undergod in alive.”
“And what makes you think he wasn't the Undergod the whole damn time!” Mars snaps at Claymari.
“Father, you truly not know your son,” Claymari pleaded.
“He is not my son!” King Mars roared loudly.
“Truly think that even after all this time you spent with him, from a foal, to a colt, to a stallion.” Claymari cried, “well, I at least see him as a friend, if not my brother, I grew up with him for too much of my life to at least see otherwise.”
“Claymaria, I will not risk troops, for a lost cause,” the king commanded.
“humf,” Claymari grunted, “if you won’t do it then I’ll have to do it on my own,” she muttered.
“You would do no such thing,” King Mars stomps his hooves on the ground as he shouted.
Claymari glares that her father the hair on her back raises up as she readies for a fight.
“You are going to fight me on this Claymari? over him?” King Mars takes a step back as he slides his cloak out of the way preparing to battle his daughter.
“It appears loyalty means nothing to you father,” Claymari rushed forward with her hooves reared up.
King Mars hell up his hooves in defense, there metallic horse shoes sparked as they impact. Claymari’s slid across the shiny ornage granite floor of King Mars’s throne room. King Mars charged in for an attack. The larger Dore's hooves come down on Claymari. She eeped as her father struck her hard. King Mars felt something strike him from behind. He turns to look to see Ebony Apple holding a spear.
“So you’ll strike me too huh boy?” King Mars glowered at him, “Our relationship with the Apple clan has been whether well for generations. I’d hate to see you strain it for the sake of a mare.”
“A King shouldn't act so violently against his own daughter,” Ebony snaps.
King Mars takes a step back away from Claymari. “Yes, I often forget her place in my heart.”
Claymari stands up, some parts of her pelt was cut by King Mars’s metal hooves. She was even getting a bruise around one of her eyes. “So you see reason?” Claymari asked as she stammered to her feet.
King Mars looks at Claymari, then back at Ebony and then back at Claymari and back at Ebony. He gets a smirk on his lips. “The two of you are lovers.”
“As part of the Apple family, I do have the right to marry her,” Ebony announced.
“Not unless I say I have a claim on her first,” King Mars said darkly as he glared at Ebony.
“As my father, you cannot make such a claim to me,” Claymari shouts.
“And what if I do not believe I am your father,” King Mars smirks at Claymari.
“That would be insane!” Ebony screamed at King Mars.
“Really now? Claymari’s birth was magical in nature,” King Mars said, “If Seven'th as I believe is the essence of the Undergod, then logically Claymari is the essence of Claymaria. Therefore she cannot be my blood.”
“Father, even if you believe that,” Claymari cried, “You still raised me as your daughter, publicly I’m your daughter, to do such a thing of me is morally wrong.”
“For awhile there I wasn’t sure but now I see you slipping away from me. I must claim you now before it’s too late.” King Mars told them.
“Very well then,” Ebony plunges his spear into King Mars’s shoulder. King Mars screams out in pain as blood squirts from his wound. “Claymari come with me now!” Ebony shouts holding out his hoof to Claymari.
“You stabbed my father,” Claymari said in shock.
“I think he plans to fuck you,” Ebony answered.
“Good point,” Claymari said as she and Ebony start running.
“Guards! Assassin!” King Mars shouts as Claymari and Ebony runs for the doors.
The door opens up and a pair of guards step in front of them blocking their path holding out spears.
Claymari started crying to the guards, “My father assaulted me! Arrest him!”
“I am your king and I have been attacked!” King Mars shouts at the guards.
“I was waiting outside when I heard the fighting,” Ebony explains to the guards.
“I heard it too,” One of the guards nods his head, “We would have been here sooner if the king hadn’t ordered us away to have a private conversation.”
“You see this is a domestic disturbance,” Ebony points out.
“I want to make charges against him!” Claymari shouts of the guards.
“But he’s the king,” the guard points out.
“By law, despite being the king, he needs to be put in a holding cell and tell these charges are straightened out,” Claymari demanded, "Or you can call it detaining him for his own protection."
One of the guards walks up to King Mars to put cuffs on his forelimbs. He the other guard makes a move to arrest Ebony.
“What are you doing?” Claymari asked the guard as he cuffs Ebony.
“While he at least assaulted the king,” the guard explained, “You, I believe that the king had beat the crap out of.”
“Claymari, if I stay here. You know he’s going to have me executed.” Ebony whispered.
“Yes, I know, but this is only a delaying tactic I’ll figure something out,” Claymari mutters to Ebony.
“Later that evening…Down in the Dore holding cell…”
Ebony lay in a pile of hay in the corner of his cell. He could hear King Mars making several expletive words. As Ebony lay there, guards come walking into the cell hall with a little bronze filly. They open up Ebony’s cell and put the filly inside. Once they put the filly inside Ebony’s cell they walked over to King Mars’s cell.
“You’re free to go my Lord,” the guards told the king.
“It’s about damn time,” the king snaps. As he walks outside of his cell.
King Mars heads for the door at the end of the hall, but as he walks out he turns to the cell that contains Ebony and spoke. “You’re not leaving this cell boy,” the king smiled as he walked away.
The bronze filly waited for the cellblock doors to shut before she turns and says to Ebony. “I am Daring Do, Claymari sent me here to help you.”
The young Pegasus then put her hoof into her mane, a bobby pin fell out. Ebony couldn’t unsee where the screwdriver came from. Daring swiftly picked the lock. The door clicks and creaks open. The two ponies cautiously snuck down the hall. They creaked open the cellblock door and peeled through to see what was on the other side.
A guard pony was standing a few feet from the door. He was watching the king walk away. Ebony kicks the door open and quickly bucks the guard in the back of the head with his forehoof. With a little, “ack!” The guard hits the wall near the window, then slumps on the floor.
Ebony quickly takes the guard’s uniform off and puts it on himself. Luckily Ebony could obscure his face with the guard’s helmet as he walked by the next checkpoint. First he passed the guard at the checkpoint, nodding as he walked by. It took the guard a minute to realize something was wrong, but in that minute Ebony had spun around and knock the guard out. Then the little filly Daring Do simply walked down the hall.
“So now what do we do?” Ebony asked Daring Do as they finally left the holding area.
“Claymari said something about the Misty Mine,” Daring Do answered.
Ebony nods his head, “I know that way that’s near my hometown.”
“Hometown?” Daring Do replied.
“The Misty Mine is a way that leads outside of the Dore underworld,” Ebony explains to Daring Do.
As they neared the edge of the major part of the Dore city, the alarm came out that they had escaped. So once they started heading down the Misty Mine corridor, a pursuing regiment of soldiers wasn’t far behind. They got to the point with the echoes of the shafts, they could hear their pursuers and their pursuers could hear them.
The two ponies ran for freedom reaching the end of the mineshaft. The sudden onset of open sky made the two ponies dizzy and they spun and fell collapsing on to the ground as they were struck by agoraphobia. Behind them there was an explosion. The rocks of the face the mountain slid down destroying the opening of the Misty Mine.
Ebony had to empty out his stomach before he could turn and see what had happened. The dust made him cough as the last of the boulders claqueibing as they fell. Claymari smiling came walking around out into the open, she was coughing from the dust as well.
“Glad to have seen you have made it,” Claymari laughed.
“You do realize you cannot return home now do you?” Ebony points out as he stood up.”
“Well that cannot be helped now,” Claymari shrugged, she smiled at Ebony, “It’s not like what’s the saying out here? Without a paddle? Yes, without a paddle, I’m not without a paddle.”
“And what about your brother?” Ebony asked.
“May I change what I can, and accept what I can’t, and have the wisdom to understand the difference between the two,” Claymari answered, “there is not much I can do about my brother right now, and it will haunt me but hopefully someday I could do something but until then.” Claymari kisses Ebony on the lips.
“Very well we must go to the city and asked for asylum quickly,” Ebony told Claymari.
Daring Do outstretched her wings to the sky, “I suppose we split ways at this point?”
“You’re not coming with us Daring?” Claymari asked.
“I am young again, and have a whole new world to explore,” Daring Do smiles as she raises up to the sky, “Live long young lovers, and hope you have happiness in your futures.” The small Pegasus became a dot in the sky and flew off.
“But of course fate had different plans for Claymari…”
