Clearing Away the Bloody Mists
Sudden Intro! Why are there Horses!?
‘Ugh. What the hell happened.’ Was the first thought that ran through Arashi Hisako’s head as she regained consciousness. She was sore all over, but that wasn’t too new. She got quite use to pain in the academy, and even more familiar with it once she became a Genin and started going on missions.
Opening her eyes greeted her with the site of a white-paneled ceiling, and with a quick glance around, she came to the conclusion that she’s in a Hospital. ‘Huh, a actual Hospital, not a medic tent. That means they must have evacuated me, but now the question is, which side.’
As she sat up and got out of bed, ignoring the complaints of her body, she immediately noticed something wrong when she crumpled to the floor upon trying to stand up. ‘What the hell!’ Upon glancing down at her body, she immediately noticed what was wrong. She was covered in blue-green fur, a tail of a darker hue, and hooves on the end of her appendages. She was a damned horse. ‘What kind of obvious-ass Genjutsu is this!?’
She immediately moved to form the seal to dispel it, but ran into a problem, no fingers. ‘Damn. Going to have to do this the hard way’. So she sat still for a moment, trying to still her chakra, noticing it rather different than she’s use too, but ignored that for a moment. After a couple seconds when she deemed her chakra sufficiently stilled, she then flared it, trying to break the Genjutsu. Opening her eyes revealed it didn’t work. ‘Kami, how strong is this Genjutsu?’
She was drawn out of her thoughts when she heard the door open, her eyes were greeted by the sight of a white unicorn with a nurse hat. ‘Weird ass Genjutsu. Well, I can atleast be sure this isn’t Kiri.’
“Oh my! Are you alr-” Not understanding a word of what the unicorn was saying, Hisako instantly leaped forward and decked it in the face. Or at least, that was the plan. The body messed her up, and was meant to be a clean hard punch to the face turned into a body slam to the face.
“Kami, that’s embarrassing.” She muttered under her breath, standing up on wobbly legs still getting use to this body. It still accomplished what it meant to at least, the nurse is out cold and she’s out of the room.
Hearing shouting to her left, she spared a quick glance that way and noticed a couple more unicorns and a pegasus running towards her. ‘Gotta get out of here.’ She quickly turn the opposite direction and took off, only to have her legs not do what she was suppose to and she once again wound up face first on the ground.
“Damn it!” She swore, and as fast as she could got back up and took off, scrambling and sliding a lot more than she would have liked, and as a result was a lot slower than she would like, her pursuers being able to keep up despite only moving at a civilian pace.
“Hey! Please wait!” Ignoring the incomprehensible sounds behind her, she kept on running, slowly getting more use to this body. Turning a corner and bouncing off of the wall, she came face to face to a giant blue Unicorn Pegasus mix, who looked quite surprised to see Hisako barreling towards her. Quickly, she took advantage of the obstacles size, and went into a slide right between it’s legs behind it.
“What is going- *THUD*” Judging by the loud series of thuds and cut off speech behind her, her pursuers weren’t so quick to react to the obstacle. Quickly turning another corner she darted into one of the room, fumbling with the handle for a quick moment, while no-one could see her.
‘Right, this Genjutsu is something tough, and normal dispelling ain’t working. Why the hell would they use something this strong one me, I’m just a GENIN!? Something big must be going down, and I HAVE to break it’ At that thought, she grabbed a nearby scalpel carefully with her mouth, and turned to look back at herself.
‘Huh, I have wings. Those are suppose to be sensitive’ And with barely a moment's hesitation, plunged the scalpel in, and barely suppressed a scream ‘Yep, definitely sensitive’ Opening her eyes again revealed that the Genjutsu was still going strong.
‘WHAT THE HELL!?’ she mentally screamed ‘What’s going on that requires such a strong Genjutsu? Are they invading Kiri!?’ Growing increasingly desperate, she plunged and sliced at her wing, trying to use the pain to break out, but it wasn’t working, and when that wing started to lose feeling, she turned her attentions to the other wing.
‘WHY. ISN’T. THIS. WORKING!?!’ She mentally shouted with each stab, her surroundings by now covered with her blood and bits of gore. Shakily, she took the scalpel out of her mouth and held it between her front hooves and pointed it towards her face. ‘There- there’s only one more thing I can do’ she thought shakily, before driving the blade into her eye right as she heard the door behind her open and a shout of horror rang out.
Everything was black after that.
Luna sat in a Hospital break room, still in shock over what happened just a hour ago. During breakfast with her sister, they received news that a Alicorn filly was found in a alley way, covered with bruises and lacerations, and a few broken bones, and as such was hurriedly admitted to the Canterlot Hospital. While the news of her state was quite upsetting, the news that a new Alicorn was great, and since Celestia had duties to attend to, Luna offered to go pay a visit to the little one. It’s wounds, while upsetting, were overall minor, and should have healed in a few days with medical care.
They weren’t accounting for the debacle that happened when she woke up. There was a alert that the heart monitor came disconnected, so the assigned nurse hurried to check to make sure everything was alright. She was greeted with the sight of the filly on the ground next to her bed, where she presumably fell out. As she was asking if she was alright, the filly pounced on her, and knocked her quite hard in the face, knocking her out. This naturally drew the attention of the other nurses and doctors in the hall, who started to approach causing the filly to take off running in the opposite direction, them giving chase hoping to stop her before she accidentally hurts herself.
That was when they quite literally ran into Luna, who just arrived and was on her way to visit the filly. After untangling themselves, they started to look for the filly who vanished during their confusion. Luna was the unfortunate one who found her, sitting in the middle of a blood splattered room, her wings devastated, as she plunged a scalpel into her eye before fainting.
She was quickly spirited away to the Emergency Room while Luna was guided to the break room to wait and calm down. Just a half an hour ago she was told what happened before she arrived, and no-one had any idea why all this happened.
Then, in a flash of light, Celestia appeared. “Sister! What happened!” She was instantly tackle-hugged by Luna, who was crying, and said “I don’t know sister. I don’t know.”
While Hisako was unconscious, she dreamed, and remembered.
She stood outside a forest with 52 of her academy classmates, standing at attention before their instructor Oonishi. “Alright, listen up. You will go into the forest, and the Test will start at the sound of the gong. The test will end with both three days have passed, and half of you are dead. You will know the test has ended with the gong rings again. You are not to leave the forest the forest till the test is over. Doing so will get you disqualified, and killed. Do you understand.”
“Aye, sensei.” We chorused, as we were trained too.
“Good. Now go.” At his command, we rushed off into the forest, all splitting up and finding hiding spots to wait. Then the gong rang, and was almost drowned out by a series of yells and clanging metal as the test began.
Hisako sat concealed in a puddle, watching two of her old classmates fighting to the death. Metal clanged and clashed, water arced through the air as they used their limited repertoire of Ninjutsu to the best of their ability, and it all fell quiet when with a meaty thump, one buried a Kunai in the neck of the other. They stood there for a moment, before they separated and the dead one crumpled to the ground.
The victor stood there for a moment, looking stunned, before a look of glee spread across his face, and throwing his fists into the air, shouted “Yatta! I did i-” only to be interrupted by a senbon to the eye, courtesy of Hisako.
“Idiot.” Hisako remorselessly commented as he crumpled, before continuing on her way, looking for others while also trying to avoid detection.
Hisako was dashing along the ground near the end of the third day, trying to avoid detection, when a hand whipped out of a puddle that she didn’t notice, grabbing her by her leg bringing her crashing to the ground. Quickly rolling to her feet, she turned to face her new adversary.
“Well, well, well. What do we have here?” Shumkichi, top of class, said rising out of the puddle. “Another piggie that needs to be skewered?” he said mockingly, with a bloodthirsty grin on his face.
Hisako just fell into a ready stance, drawing the long Senbon from her sleeves and holding them ready to fight.
“Not going to say anything piggie? Oh well, better just make you squeal then.” With that, he darted faster than she could see, driving a kunai into her shoulder. Or at least, what would have been her shoulder if it wasn’t a clone.
“Damn.” Spinning around as soon as he saw the clone starting to revert to water, he blocked a quick barrage of Senbon, answering with some of his own.
Hisako dodged as fast as she could, and tried to run, knowing she is no match for Shumkichi, but only got a couple of steps before being hit in the back of the head, and went tumbling across the ground. Before she could get back up, Shumkichi, appeared over her, and stomped on her knee, shattering it. “Not so fast, piggie. You’re gonna squeal.”
He then broke her other leg, and both of her arms so she couldn’t resist, and drew a Kunai and slowly drew it across her face, leaving deep cuts wherever he went, laughing maniacally all the time while all she could do was scream. Then, suddenly he stopped. Hisako forced her eyes open, to see he had a shocked expression on his face, and a senbon going in one ear, and out the other.
Another boy appeared beside her, she couldn’t remember his name though she remembered he hardly ever said anything, and pushed Shumkichi off, before turning towards her and drawing a sword. He raised it high, and made to chop of her neck, when he suddenly stopped, the sword a inch above her throat, for the gong rang. He calmly resheathed his sword, carefully picked up Hisako, who had to suppress another shout, and carried her out of the forest. The test was over, and she passed.
Off to the side, unnoticible by both of the newly minted Genin, stood a Blue Alicorn, with a horrified expression on her face.
Luna was in the little alicorns hospital room. It’s been several days since the… incident. Her wings were barely salvageable, but the docs were relieved that it seemed like, in a month they should be fine. Her eye though, that’s gonna take longer. Modern medicine has methods to completely regrow lost limbs, but such procedures are lengthy, and prohibitively expensive.
Since the filly is now under the protection of the Princesses, money is no issue, but it is still gonna take a while, especially since they want to finish for the wings to heal before getting started on the eye, to help make sure that nothing will go wrong.
The reason she was here, was because she detected that the Filly was dreaming, and thus close to waking up, which was quite surprising. They expected her to be unconscious for a couple of weeks. So Luna came, and watched over her dreams, both to be there for when she finally did wake up, but to hopefully find out the reason behind her reaction when she woke up. What she found was both confusing and distressing.
She was dreaming of these bipedal creatures fighting to the death, employing savage tactics and dirty tricks to get any advantage they could, her personally being one of them. What made it more confusing, were they weren’t just dreams, but memories. Why did she remember being a mostly hairless bipedal creature? Why did she remember being in a war?
She would contemplate on that further, for right now, the child awoke with a groan. “Uwa, nan jigoku. Sore wa dōsa shimashita ka?”Ugh, what the hell? Did it work? She lifted her head just enough to look at Luna, before letting it drop back on the pillow. “Kuso ̄.””Damn.
Luna couldn’t understand a word she said, so softly asked “Do you speak Equestrian, little one.”
“Watashi wa, anata ga, josei o itte iru no ka mattaku wakarimasen.”I have no idea what you are saying, lady. The filly replied, not even lifting her head or opening her eyes.
Luna frowned at that. Her not speaking Equestrian is going to make things harder till they get a translator. If Luna had to guess, she would guess that she was speaking Neighponese. Maybe Celestia knows it, learned it during her… absence.
They sat in silence for a couple moments, Luna unsure of what to do now. A idea came to her, and she cleared her throat to get the filly’s attention. After she lifted her head obligingly and opened her good eye, Luna put a hoof to her chest and stated “Luna.” And then gestured towards her questioningly. After a moment of silence, Luna repeated the gesture, stating her name “Luna” before gesturing once more to the filly.
This time she seemed to get it, for she replied with “Arashi Hisako.” And then dropped her head back down onto her pillow. Luna smiled, hoping that despite how this began, that hopefully the situation would have a happy ending.
Hisako was laying in her bed, largely ignoring the blue Unicorn Pegasus with a Magic Starry Mane sitting at the foot of her bed, thinking deeply on what to do now. ‘What ever Genjutsu this is, if it didn’t break after sacrificing my eye, I’m not gonna be able to break it. So what else is there to do? I won’t reveal any information, that much is clear, but what besides? Just lay here and wait?’ And that’s precisely what she did for the next couple of minutes, till activity from ‘Luna’ drew her attention.
Luna stood up, and after making a stay gesture while saying some gobbledygook, trotted out of the room, leaving Hisako on her own. ‘No way they would leave me on my own. They must have cameras or something in here.’
Giving a furtive glance around that revealed no obvious ones, she laid back down. For precisely a minute, till that got too boring. So she sat up, and started exploring her new body, seeing how far each limb would stretch, and bend, and what’s what. Her coat was a light, slightly drabbish turquoise. Her hair and tail has alternating strands of bright sky blue and dark purplish ocean blue.
On her back where what she assumed were her wings from earlier, but both were encased in plaster. Over her left eye was a black eye-patch, and considering she didn’t feel anything with the fleshy part of her hoof when she tried to twitch her eyeball, it’s probably a write-off. Her flank is unadorned, unlike all the other horse creatures she has been seeing who all had some mark of some sort. And, she discovered on her forehead, a horn. ‘I wonder how good this is for stabbing.’
After said observations, she hopped out of bed, and paused to see if it would draw any reprisal or warning. After nothing happened, she started walking around the room, getting use to the feeling, before slowly speeding it up till eventually she was pretty much running, bouncing off the walls to make her turns.
This was the sight that Luna was greeted with when she returned, and stood amazed as she saw the filly run blur across the room, kicking off the wall, and blurring back. When she realized she had company, she finished by running up the wall a step and backflipping off it onto the bed into a sitting position. Or so was the plan. She still isn’t completely familiar with the body, so it ended up being more of a belly flop, which she quickly recovered from.
“Well… you certainly still have your energy.” Luna said. That didn’t SOUND like a admonishment, so Hisako assumed she was fine.
Hisako didn’t say anything in response, knowing it would be pointless, and just watched Luna as she trotted in, both her horn and a book floating along with her glowing. ‘A puppeteer huh? A rather unskilled one, with how much it’s glowing. Though… with how much chakra she’s wasting, she must have pretty big reserves...’
As Hisako pondered this, Luna trotted in and took her place at the foot of the bed, and futile said “A translator should be here soon. Then we can get started.’ And then opened her book and started reading.
Hisako kept watching, something feeling off ‘That chakra sure feels weird.’ While no sensor, every Ninja, and really every human can detect chakra to some extent, though for Civilians you have to be absolutely shedding chakra for it to be noticeable.
Heck, now that she looks closer, it even looks weird. A darker blue than the usual light blue. She was so engrossed in that thought process, that she only realized she was staring when she heard Luna giggle, having shifted the book around some and her gaze apparently following. Hisako quickly took to studying the wall, blushing faintly. Out of the corner of her eye she saw Luna smile before returning to her reading.
They sat like that for a couple minutes, before the door opened once more, and entered a white horse with a braided blue mane and a short blue tail, wearing a domed hat, brown coat, and a red scarf. He bowed to Luna - is she in charge here then? She didn’t bow back, so she must be higher rank - and they exchanged some words, before he turned towards Hisako “Hello, can you understand me.”
“Well, now that you’re not speaking gobbledygook I can,” She replied succinctly.
He chuckled, and replied “Well, that ‘gobbledygook’ is called Equestrian. The local language. Anyways, I’m here as the translator so you and Princess Luna can understand each other.”
Hisako’s posture instantly straightened.‘Princess!?’ Hisako was shocked ‘What interest does a princess have in me!?’
She quickly schooled her features, not thinking for a second that they didn’t notice her shock, but luckily they didn’t comment on it. “What- uh, what interest does a Princess have in me?” She nervously asked.
Translator-san quickly fell into his role, and conferred the question to Luna-sama, who replied with “Because you’re a Alicorn, little one.”
A part of Hisako bristled at being called ‘little one’, but she quickly shoved it down. “And what’s a Alicorn?”
“That’s the name for a pony with all three races’ magics. Earth Pony, Pegasus, and Unicorn.” Luna-sama replied via Translator-san.
Obviously by magic they meant Chakra, but “What do you mean there’s three types of magic?” If they were referring to three of the five Elemental Transformations, did they not know of the other two?
Judging by the expression on Translator-san’s face, Hisako could only assume that her question was suppose to be common knowledge. “Earth Ponies have enhanced strength and durability, Pegasi can fly and manipulate the weather, while Unicorns can directly manipulate magic.” Luna explain.
‘Riiight. Because my wings were totally functional beforehand. Really, what is even the point of this Genjutsu?’ She thought to herself, also wondering if it was just altering her perceptions, or if it was all a straight up fabrication.
Hisako sat there, thinking to herself, and when Luna-sama noticed there weren’t any more questions forth-coming, responding with some of her own. “And where are you from, little one?”
‘Ah, here we go. Interrogation time.’ “I am Arashi Hisako, Genin number #32014 of Kirigakure no Sato.” She recited, exactly as she was trained to.
Translator-san seemed a little off put by this for some reason, but did his job, and returned with “And where is this Kirigakure no Sato?”
‘No dice, unknown interrogators. Not getting anything from me.’ “I am Arashi Hisako, Genin number #32014 of Kirigakure no Sato. And that is all you are getting out of me.” She replied resolutely.
Upon hearing the translation, a small frown appeared on Luna-sama’s face, only for a second, before it disappeared, but Hisako caught it. “Alright. Can you explain why you… harmed yourself a couple days ago?” Translator-san of course didn’t pause, but Hisako assumed that’s where the pause Luna-sama had would have been.
“To wake up.” Hisako said before she could stop herself, and quickly mentally berated herself.
“Can you explain what you mean?”
“I am Arashi Hisako, Genin number #32014 of Kirigakure no Sato.” Hisako recited, careful to not say anything else. Don’t give the enemy anything they could use.
That once again caused Luna-sama to frown, and this time she didn’t bother hiding it. “I will be back tomorrow. My sister may pay a visit later today. Fare the well, Arashi.” With a short head dip, she walked out of the room followed by Translator-san. And so, Hisako was left in her room alone, left to think, and plan.
Pencils, Knives, And Ice Cream Are All Hazardous Items
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Clearing Away the Bloody Mists
Pencils, Knives, And Ice Cream Are All Hazardous Items
Sitting alone in her room, Hisako started to feel uncomfortable. The reason behind the feeling was, she had no weapons. Almost since she entered the Academy, she always had at least one weapon on her at all times, and their presence became comforting to her, trust in her ability to use them to defend herself from hidden threat. However, she now was without even a single senbon, and in enemy hands, she was feeling increasingly unnerved as time went by. And it’s not like her captors would let her have one.
‘Or, would they….’ Slowly, a plan came to her. While she extremely doubted her ability to steal a weapon and them not notice, maybe they would let her have one anyways. She is trapped in their weird-ass genjutsu after all, it’s not like she can truly do something they wouldn’t let her. While they wouldn’t be so brazen as to give her a weapon, they would probably overlook her stealing one. Hisako knew the whole thing was pointless, and the weapon would serve her no good, but it would comfort her at least.
Idea in mind, she stood back up, hopped off the bed, and trotted over to the door before knocking. She heard some shifting of armor on the other side, before the door opened, and a pony with metal armor - ‘Huh, I guess they use Samurai or something here.’ - looked at her inquisitively.
Hisako sat down to free up her front limbs, and started making writing motions, or the closest she could do given she had no fingers, holding one foreleg like it held a clip-board, while the other moved top to bottom, right to left, making scribbling motions. After that brief act of charades, she looked at the guard questioningly.
He just stared at her for a moment, before a spark of understanding appeared in his eyes, and after saying some gibberish, left. She hoped he understood her correctly. While waiting, she returned to her bed. Might as well be comfortable.
After about 10 minutes, the guard returned with some papers, a pencil. He placed them on the bed next to her, before situating himself beside the door, inside the room this time. ‘What, do they not trust me to be alone with a pencil? While it would make a half-decent stabbing tool, I am still under their genjutsu. Whatever.’
She picked up the pencil in her mouth, not really having any other way to use it. She COULD use chakra to stick it to her hoof, but that wouldn’t lend the control she would need to do what she was planning. She started out writing out some basic poems from memory, and quite predictably, it was barely legible. However she kept practicing. She went through several sheets, front and back - most of the ones she was brought actually - before she deemed her writing good enough. She had to do it slowly, but goal was accuracy, not speed.
Getting out her next to last piece of paper, and started drawing a series of basic storage seals. Something every ninja was taught, simply because of their great utility, especially with small things like Kunai, or Senbon. When she was done with that page, she looked it over closely, trying to find any mistakes. A botched storage seal can be explosive, while not nearly as much as an explosive tag, still not something you want going right by you. Not finding any, she was quite pleased with herself. She was able to make 10 on this page, and if she can do another 10 on the other, that would give her room for 20 small weapons. Not many, but a good enough.
After this, all she would need to do is find some needles or scalpels, shouldn’t be too hard considering this is a Hospital. She tucked it beneath one of her wings for safe keeping and semi-easy access, before getting started on the other.
Just as she was finishing up with that one, she heard a procession of armored hooves coming down the hallway, so she quickly tucked it under her other wing, before they could come in. Course, it was pointless considering a guard was sitting in the same room as her, watching her the entire time, but have to at least put on the guise that she was doing this sneakily.
In walked a white, slightly taller version of Luna-sama, her name a flowing rainbow. If she had to guess, this was that sister she talked about. Her eyes instantly locked on the pencil, widening a bit, before they swiveled to the guard sitting by the door and returned to normal. ‘Seriously, what do they expect me to do with a pencil?’
“Greetings, little one.” She said, and once again Hisako bristled internally ’I am a Ninja, dammit, not a kid’ “I am Princess Celestia, sister of Princess Luna.” She continued in what was probably suppose to be a soothing tone, but just set Hisako on edge.
“Yes, I met her earlier today. I see you can speak Japanese.” Hisako replied, trying to remember her brief training on how to deal with royalty. Most she could remember is to not interrupt them, to not speak unless spoken too, and as a general rule, be polite.
“Yes, I learned it while Luna was otherwise preoccupied.” She then gestured towards the door, and asked “Would you like to go for a walk? You have been in here all day, I could imagine you would want to stretch you legs.”
“Thank you.” Hisako replied, as her training said she should. Even if she didn’t want to go outside, she would have to accept, because you do not turn down an offer from royalty unless you have a good reason.
She hopped off the bed, and walked over to Celestia, who turned and led the way out the door.
As they were heading out, they passed by a cart with some medical supplies on it, and Hisako seeing a chance, carefully ‘tripped’ towards it. Almost instantly, she was caught in some golden glow, which set her back on her hooves. ‘What the hell!?’ She quickly noticed a similar glow surrounding Celestia’s horn, who was looking at her benevolently. “Careful now.”
The glow faded, and she was free to move again, and Celestia set off again. All Hisako could do is follow along. Her aborted theft attempt sadly wasn’t as profitable as she hoped, but she did manage to get a scalpel, which she currently had hidden in her mane held against her neck with Chakra, which she started to carefully move down towards her wing as they walked, wiggling her hold and twitching muscles to jiggle it downwards, under her wing, and with a burst of chakra, into one of the seals.
By the time she did all that, they already went down some stairs, through another hall-way, and were about to go outside. “Would you like to get some ice cream? I know a excellent parlor nearby.” Celestia said breaking the silence.
“Ice cream sounds good.” Hisako replied, still offput about how to talk with Royalty. Hisako had no idea what ‘ice cream’ is, but she’s the princess, she gets what she wants.
Hisako almost tripped over her own hooves when they exited though and got a look at the city. This HAD to be the capital, because of how fancy everything was! Seriously, were those buildings made of marble?!
A giggle from Celestia-sama quickly snapped her out of her daze, and she mentally cursed herself for not controlling herself. Ninja were suppose to be sneaky, dammit! She schooled her expression, and with a look towards Celestia, they continued on their way, Hisako still secretly observing the city in amazement, imagining how much fun it would be to run across those roofs, their varying inclines would make it good practice as well.
Celestia sat with little Hisako at the ice cream parlor, at a table with a convenient parasol providing shade.
Hisako was just poking at her ice cream, while Celestia was savoring hers. Whenever Hisako thought she wasn’t looking, she stared at Celestia, and quickly returned her attention to her ice cream whenever Celestia looked back.
“What’s wrong?”
“Nothing.”
Celestia didn’t prod any further. They have been at this for about five minutes now. Normally, she would write it off as awe, but she could tell from the way she was carrying herself it wasn’t anything so innocent.
She decided to break the silence, and try to get the strange filly to open up. “So, I heard your name is Hisako?”
“Yes.” Well, that didn’t work. But she didn’t give up.
“Arashi Hisako. A pretty name, isn’t it?” She said, trying for a bit of flattery this time.
“Yes.” Still didn’t work.
“It means Long Lived Storm. Did you know that?” She gave it one more try.
“Yes.” And it failed like the other attempts.
“That’s what your presence here is doing, you know? Causing a storm.” Celestia idly commented, mostly giving it up for now, but slightly hoping that maybe her curiosity would cause her to ask something in regards to that. And a storm she was. A new Alicorn would by itself cause considerable stir, but one her age and the state she was found in was the talk of the country, with nobles bickering back and forth about what should be done, about possible causes, and all sorts of things.
‘And they don’t even know the half of it.’ Celestia’s thoughts taking a darker turn. First up was her actions when she originally woke up. Her assaulting the nurse and running away, while worrying, could be written off as panic at being in a new location under unknown circumstances. However, that does not explain what she did to herself in that storage room. Celestia eyed Hisako’s eyepatch, mostly hidden behind her hair, sorrowfully. ‘What could drive a filly to do that?’
What more, was what Luna told her earlier this morning. First of the filly’s dreams, and then her response to Luna’s questions. There is no denying it, she was used and trained as a soldier, her response to the questions being rather similar to what the Royal Guard are trained to say in the unlikely case one was captured for interrogation. Truly, the thought of a country using children as soldiers was most worrisome, and something she hopes to put a stop too as soon as she can.
But that would require Hisako to tell us where she’s from, something she’s clearly been trained to not do. So abandoning that train of thought for now, she turned her attention back to Hisako, who has yet to even take a bite of her ice cream.
“You haven’t touched your ice cream yet. You should eat it quickly. It’s going to melt!” She said in a teasing voice, before turning her attention back to her own bowl.
Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Hisako hesitate a moment more, before picking up her spoon and taking a bite. Right away, the smallest of smiles spread on her face, her obviously trying to remain straight faced.
Celestia suppressed a giggle, and kept eating her ice cream, watching Hisako. She started to eat her ice cream with gusto, so Celestia warned with a smile ”I see you like it, but be careful and don’t eat it too fast.”
The filly paid her words no heed, so she let her learn from her own mistakes.
Hisako sat happily eating her ice-cream. Sweets were a luxury in Mist, and she only rarely got to enjoy them, and usually only in small quantities. At first she didn’t really want to try this ‘ice-cream’, because Brown Ice? Gross. Plus, there was a good chance it was drugged. But at the princesses insistence, and the thought that they could resort to much cruder methods than drugging her food if they wanted, she tried a bite, and found she enjoyed it.
After a little while though, she noticed a creeping cold pain in her head, but wrote it off to whatever drug they were having her consume. It upset her a bit, the headache interfering with her ability to enjoy the ice cream, but she ignored it, while painful it wasn’t nearly as bad as other things she had to endure, though it was increasing with every bite.
Sadly, she quickly found herself out of ice cream, and the headache had built up to a throbbing pain, and without anything to distract her from it anymore, it suddenly seemed worse than before.
She stoically leans forward and puts her head on the table. The pain in her head grows worse and worse. She waits for the drugs to take affect.
“Are you alright?” Celestia-sama asked in fake concern.
“Besides this drug induced headache, yeah.” Hisako sarcastically replied, momentarily not caring that she’s royalty, cause of the headache.
“Drug?” She asked in fake surprise. She’s a rather good actor, because if Hisako didn’t know better, she would have been convinced.
“Yes, the one in the ice cream, that’s giving me this killer headache. What’s even suppose to do? Knock me out? Loosen my tongue and spill secrets? All it seems to be doing is give me a headache.” Hisako irritably replied.
“I would never drug you!” She gasped, doing a good job at sounding horrified at the thought. “What you are probably experiencing is just an ice cream headache. I warned you to eat it slowly.”
“Whatever.” Hisako proceeded to close her eyes, and ignoring the world in favor of being mad at her headache.
She probably sat there for half a minute, before Celestia-sama drew her attention. “Here, drink this. It will help.” Reopening her eyes, she found a cup of tea floating in front of her. She obediently took it between her hooves, sipped some, and was pleasantly surprised that she was telling the truth.
They sat in silence for a few minutes, Hisako sipping her tea, relieved at the fading headache. While she has dealt with far worse pain, it was still far from enjoyable. She also contemplated the tea. It was different from any kind she had before, and while she was hardly a Tea Aficionado, she has sampled several types. Yet this isn’t like any others, not even the imported teas. Was she captured by someone outside the elemental nations?
“So, how old are you?” Celestia-sama probed.
Hisako stayed silent for several moment, considering how she should answer. Telling them absolutely nothing would just be useless for both parties, but there could be some things which would be harmless to release. Her age seemed like one of those things, a offering to show she will at least play the game. As such, she responded with a simple “Seven,” before going back to her tea.
She doesn’t notice the look of horror on the white horse’s face.